Finally, finally, fuckin finally! How long
could I wait for Gorement vinyl to come out? Shit, it seemed like eternity. At
first I was thrilled that Necroharmonic released the compilation titled
“Darkness of the Dead” on CD back in 2004, which quickly became my “must have”
purchase, especially as the first press of “The Ending Quest” goes for
hilarious money and the demos and EP are also very hard (and expensive) to get.
This compilation obviously had a lot of sense and I did enjoy it a lot. But
ever since Necroharmonic announced they will do a vinyl version (and before
that it was Blood Harvest, who also wanted to do that!) I was crossing the
fingers, waiting for it patently. The time has passed and nothing was
happening, no vinyl anywhere… And suddenly I was attacked by the info that
Century Media is doing another compilation, this one titled “Within the Shadow
of Darkness – The Complete Recordings”. Hmm, at first I didn’t really know what
to think about it. You know, how many times and in how many different versions can
you release the same songs? But then it turned out that the LP of Necroharmonic
was cancelled and Century Media will release all those old recordings on vinyl,
but under different title and with new layout, doing also the CD version at the
same time. OK, now it makes sense I guess, although I was kinda sceptical about
the whole idea at first. Not for long!!! Once I got the LP of “Within the
Shadow of Darkness – The Complete Recordings” in my hands I smiled and
screamed, happy not just to have those Gorement recordings on LP, but also
seeing how great job was done for this compilation. Necroharmonic did
everything right and did good job for the “Darkness of the Dead” CD, but
Century Media did something even better, something very unique and now I dare
to say that this LP belongs to favourite vinyls in my collection!!!!! Ha, even
The Crypt Productions will have difficulties beating it, even if I really love
their works also.
So, what makes “Within the Shadow of Darkness –
The Complete Recordings” so special? Obviously it’s the music in the first
place, but not only that. The whole packaging of this vinyl is just fuckin
impressive! I really love the new front artwork – it looks superb! There’s a
poster of it also, so you can see every damn detail of this front cover and
man, it does look killer. At least once I’m happy that they didn’t use the original
cover from “The Ending Quest” in the front. But “Within the Shadow of Darkness
– The Complete Recordings” is not just a massive 100 minute long Swedish death
metal experience, but it is also a deep investigation of Gorement history. The
booklet for the LP (and I guess the CD also) contains very informative and
lengthy liner notes from Patrik Fernlund about each of the recordings, which
are on this compilation. You’ll get to know everything! Obviously they all are
coming with the original artworks, demo booklets, old band photos, recording
details, lyrics… And then there’s damn long and interesting interview done by
Nicolas Constantini, the guy, who did killer book titled “Encyclopedia of
Svensk DödsMetall” (RECOMMENDED!!!!!!!). They talk about everything what deals
with the past of Gorement. And this is exactly the reason, why I love such
compilations and why they, if done right, make so much sense. It is a great
tribute to the classic death metal band and the whole movement. Just like when
I was masturbating (no, not really hehe!) when I was listening to compilations
LPs from the likes of Nirvana 2002, God Macabre, Uncanny, Furbowl, Abhorrence, Pandemonium,
Centinex, etc now I also do so with “Within the Shadow of Darkness – The
Complete Recordings”. In many ways this Gorement compilation do not lacks
anything. It is perfect in every detail. Especially as also musically it
gathers all of the band’s recordings: “Human Relic” demo 1991, “Obsequies…”
demo 1991, “Into Shadows” EP 1992, “The Ending Quest” LP 1993, “Promo 1995”
(very rare to find)... Plus the CD version has a bootleg live recording from
1991. The LP hasn’t got them, but luckily they’ve added the double CD
(!!!!!!!!) to the LP version, so you can also listen to the whole stuff on the
compact disc. Ha, would you believe that?
Few words about the music? Let’s go…
When I listen to “The Ending Quest” I am just
thrilled by this album. I mean I love Swedish death metal ever since around 1991-92,
when I got to know Dismember and Entombed first and this feeling is still there
and “The Ending Quest” is just a classic example of this kind of playing.
What’s more I dare to say it belongs to the top five of my all time favourite
Swedish death metal albums, along with “The Nocturnal Silence”, “Like an Ever
Flowing Stream”, “The Winterlong”, “Left Hand Path” and “Dark Recollections”.
Everything about this album is just superb and I love every bit of it, starting
with the killer production – what I find as funny is that the band members say
that they were not happy with it and that the producer was an asshole, etc… Ha,
I know that the musicians may think differently than fans, but I love the sound
of “The Ending Quest” and it is just classic Sweden, even if the whole album was
recorded in Germany! But it sounds just like Cemetary, Epitaph and all other
such amazing Swedish bands from this time and of course there is also a very
strong influence of the early Paradise Lost – undeniably Gorement liked their
doomy tempos and melodies and did something similar in their music. And this
music is just classic, very melodic, very passionate and emotional, but also
very aggressive… There are some of the best Swedish melodies I ever heard and
some of the most thrilling songs. Even such piece as “Silent Hymn (For the
Dead)” sounds absolutely stunning. Originally they wanted to add some female
vocals to it, but the producer didn’t agree and said differently... Ha, I like
this song the way it is. The album collects some early Gorement songs – from demos
and EP – plus has few newer ones, so it is like a good collection of all that
Gorement had best to offer at that time. Well, when reading the liner notes
there were some very interesting things about the whole composing and recording
process of “The Ending Quest”, so give it a read and listen to such killer
songs as “Into Shadows”, “Sea of Silence”, “The Memorial” and “My Ending Quest”.
Then there are all those cult demo releases:
“Human Relic” from 1991 (which originally had the same artwork as Morbid Angel
on “Blessed Are the Sick” (hehe) and “Obsequies” from the same year… The first
demo is obviously good, but the vocals on it are just hilarious. The story says
that the band was so unhappy with the performance of their then vocalist, Mikael
Bergström, that they had to put some effects on his recorded vocals, so they
would sound any decently. And yeah, you can definitely hear that, as the growls
sounds like someone played the LP on the slower RPM. Nowadays it obviously has
its charm and the effect is not as terrible as you would think, but I guess the
band must have been really unhappy with it, when they’ve recorded the debut
demo. And this is why they quickly fired Mikael Bergström and soon hired Jimmy
Karlsson to do the second demo, “Obsequies”, just six months later. Again it
was a very good demo, but for me the best of Gorement was yet to come; the 7”EP
“Into Shadows” is just superb and definitely it belongs to my favourite 7”EP
singles of all time. The band already had their sound developed into more
atmospheric and sometimes almost doomy, with more those Paradise Lost
influences, which I mentioned and on this EP they basically have the sound already
similar to the one from “The Ending Quest” LP.
Finally the LP has the mysterious “Promo 1995”,
which was done right before Gorement changed the name for Pipers Dawn and started
to play some gothic / doomy stuff. Well, you can hear the problems with
identity and uncertainty for what direction they should go next as each of the
three promo songs sounds differently. One sounds like Cathedral and Convulse on
their second album, another one is just a plain rip off of Paradise Lost’s “Icon”
and “Draconian Times” and one more song is more like the older Gorement stuff. There’s
a lot of confusion really here, but the whole material wouldn’t be that bad, if
it wasn’t for the vocals, which sounds quite weak. Jimmy tried some cleaner
sounding vocals, more like something similar to Nick Holmes and especially
Johan Liiva, but he rather failed in my opinion. So, Gorement ceased to exist
after this recording for the same reasons for which so many other bands from
that time have split up – change of the musical direction, getting bored with
death metal and disappointment with how everything went with their debut
LP. Oh, what a pity, but from the other
hand I wouldn’t want Gorement to suck the dicks like Wombbath for instance did with
their second album “Lavatory”.
Uh, it’s time to finish this review. And let me
just say that releasing such compilations as this one has so much sense
nowadays. I mean obviously there’s a lot of interest in the old death metal
scene, but even without that it should have been done, to memorize and pay
tribute to the great scene and great bands. Gorement definitely deserved that
and this compilation LP is just a must to have in collection, LP version
especially, as it just looks (and sounds) superb. Century Media did it in the
only reasonable way, with so much info and story in the booklet that it is also
a lot of reading, not just listening. I love it.
Final rate: 100/100
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