Crematory, Monument

Crematory’s new album Monument has been advertised by the band as a return to the roots, with a heavier and darker sound than on the last few albums. Now, I admit that I haven’t been paying much attention to their newer albums and the Crematory I’m familiar with is the older one, so I can’t quite make the comparison, but to my ears it doesn’t sound as heavy and as dark as what I was used to. I guess they have to say stuff like that to market the album, so I take it with a grain of salt.

For the most part, the album is split into two. On one side you have tracks like Misunderstood, Everything or My love within that are rather typical gothic songs, with a techno touch here and there and with the awesome keyboards that I love in Crematory (I find it very interesting how even though they’re set in the background, they carry the song and give it a wire to follow). I can’t complain about them, they’re all pleasant melodic tracks, that aren’t excessively dull or irritating (there are moments of repetition and monotony, but not enough to drive one up the wall). The problem is that for a genre that thrives on emotion and intense feelings, there is very little of both in this album. There’s a certain coldness and detachment that, when it’s not balanced by impressive songwriting, gives little to be excited for. What I am excited about, however, is the new clean singer, not only because he sounds a lot like my beloved Tony Kakko (to the point where I thought My love within might be a featuring), but especially because his voice has precisely that feeling that is mostly missing and he is actually transmitting me something.

On the other side, there’s…. Rammstein? Maybe the combination between the German language and industrial music is so tightly connected to Rammstein that everything containing the two gets instantly associated with them in my head, but I honestly don’t remember Crematory being so similar to them. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the tracks. Eiskalt and Flasche tranen are really cool catchy and energising songs and the constant pendulating between the mood of industrial basements and the gothic organ in Haus mit garten is quite interesting, but I am very confused by these old bands who are supposed to have an already established identity and all of a sudden start borrowing heavily from someone else. It’s not change itself that’s intriguing, it’s the fact that being strongly inspired by another band is something that I expect from young bands still searching their identity, not from bands with tradition like Crematory.

The two songs that stand out in the middle of all this (stand out as different, not necessarily as better, as I mostly enjoyed the whole album) are Save me and Die so soon. Die so soon is a rather weird song, it starts off in a melodramatic way, goes into the cool&catchy mode I was talking about earlier and then goes into full cheesy power metal mode, complete with the guitar solo at the bridge and all and Crematory keyboards in the background for good measure. I have no idea what I just listened to. On the other side, Save me has been deemed the corny ballad of the album, but I like it a lot. It may be mostly because of the clean vocals (which we’ve already established I’m a fan of), but in its simplicity, this song has more emotion than the whole album put together.

On the whole it’s a good album, with enough variety to keep me tuned in, but with not enough hook to get me to be over the moon with excitement. Betwixt and between, basically.