Evocation - Evoked from Demonic Depths - The Early Years
If there were ever a pair of demos that deserved to be reissued twice, it’s these two classic slabs from Sweden’s Evocation. If you don’t already own the Breath of Night reissue (2004’s Evocation), stop whatever pointless shit you’re doing right now and hunt this down immediately. The Ancient Gate and Promo 1992 are still to this day Evocation at their most vicious, vibrant, and bloodthirsty. This band was doing the Sunlight sound before the Sunlight sound was the Sunlight sound, and before idiots like me started using the term “Sunlight sound” to describe the Sunlight sound. Make sense? The Ancient Gate in particular is wonderfully drenched in Boss Heavy Metal pedal greatness, whereas Promo 1992 is a tad more polished, with hints of the At the Gates influence becoming evident. You could use comparisons all day long —traces of the real Big 4 (Entombed, Dismember, Grave, and Unleashed) echo throughout— but it just doesn’t seem fair in this case. Let’s not forget, these guys began penning tunes in 1991. The year that gave us arguably the best Death Metal ever recorded (and inarguably the best World Series ever played while we’re at it — even though the wrong team lost). It’s not like this was written yesterday. These guys are closer to progenitors than progenies, and if it weren’t for the decade-long hiatus that followed these demos, we’d probably be saying a lot more bands sound like them. The bonus material offered here doesn’t exactly put this over the top, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. The four rehearsal tracks sound pretty rough. Not sure if they were using the prototype for the first 4-track ever made or recording straight-to-jambox, but either way it’s a bit grating. From a performance standpoint, however, the playing is airtight and passionately fierce. I love it when the isolated tremolo-picking swallows the practice space whole. As for “Genesis” (a new recording of a previously unreleased song from 1992), the notes might be from 20 years ago, but the composition and presentation of the song have been unequivocally altered to fit the band’s newfound, bouncy, Amon Amarth-inspired approach to aerobics class Death Metal. Compared to the morbid intensity and primal brutality of the demo material, it sticks out like a happy thumb. Essential nevertheless.
(0) Comment(s)
Page 1 of 1 pages