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CEMETERY  Enter the Gate (Discography 1991-1993)  2 x CD   (Memento Mori)   13.99
Enter the Gate (Discography 1991-1993) IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR ORDER

��� Another rotting hunk of eccentric, lesser-known old-school death metal I just picked up from Memento Mori. Man, am I digging this label's stuff. Cemetery's Enter the Gate (Discography 1991-1993) is a killer double disc collection that compiles everything this German band recorded in the early 90s, including the long-lost titular full length. Originally slated for release on the ill fated (and weirdly named) German label West Virginia Records, Enter The Gate never saw a wide release due to the label's collapse prior to its scheduled release, and it was only released on a barely circulated cassette that one of the members put out themselves. Their music is certainly deserving of this collection and reappraisal, though, as Cemetery delivered some solid progressive death metal, combining their pummeling heaviness with good songwriting and lots of cool progressive touches, with a knack for weaving eerie majestic melodies throughout their songs. These guys have been compared to mid-period Death, and there's definitely a resemblance between Cemetery's singer and the powerful, strained snarl of Chuck Schuldiner, but musically Cemetery were doing something just a little more offbeat, weaving some unusual elements into their stuff like jazzy bass melodies and sudden detours into gorgeous, almost folky ambience, along with oddball angular riffs and surges of sickening dissonance. A couple songs descend into delirious death-doom laced with ominous orchestral strings and swells of cosmic synth, and others feature weird harpsichord-like melodies and bursts of bizarre atonality. Despite that, though, there's some really catchy stuff here; in amongst all of these left turns and complex prog-death maneuvers, Cemetery will often break into a killer melodic riff or an anthemic hook that'll ties this stuff together, suggestive of a much older, more classic heavy metal sensibility lurking beneath their weirder prog-influenced aspirations.

��� Having never heard these guys before, this discography ended up being one of the biggest surprises to come from the Memento Mori label for me, and one wonders how much of an impact Cemetery might have had if their debut album hadn't met with such a bitter end. While their music isn't as technically proficient or as mind-blowing as the top tier prog-death that was coming out at the time, this is still a solid album in that vein that I bet fans of bands like Pestilence, Cynic, Atheist and especially Edge Of Sanity would have really dug if they had had a chance to hear it. Along with the album, the second disc in this set features the rest of the band's output, their Cemetery and At Dark Places demos that were released prior to Enter The Gate. They're pretty enjoyable as well, earlier recordings of material that didn't appear on the album and which offer a similar (albeit rawer and less overtly experimental) style of quirky death metal. A couple of these songs are goddamn bulldozers, too; stuff like "Dungeon Of Dreams" and "(Under The) Cemetery" rages with a similar feral power as some of the early Edge Of Sanity stuff. Definitely one of my favorite new discoveries that I've made from checking out the Memento Mori catalog.


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