CREMATORY - The Exordium Digipack CD

Digipak, limited to 300 copies.

"The Exordium'' is Crematory's second demo and is the highlight of their brief career. It is also some of the heaviest death metal ever created. Crematory's heaviness isn't merely about distortion and de-tuning. This band channels heaviness on a more profound level. Think of an enormous planetary body, suspended in space but with an all-consuming gravitational field. This demo conveys a similar sense of massiveness and weightlessness, a contradiction at first glance.

Crematory blends one section into the next through a series of seamless transitions, slight speed changes and subtle alterations. The guitarist lays down one monstrous riff after another, atop an enormous bass tone. The drummer plays catch-up underneath. The best riffs on this demo all sound slightly off-beat, such as the first one on "Chunks of Flesh", or the one about thirty seconds into "Requiem of the Dead" (my personal favourite). Everything therefore has a swaying motion like a ferry in the ocean. This isn't just a wall of noise, it is a moving wall of noise that hypnotises and bludgeons you in equal measure. At times it feels like a sentient being, reaching towards you like some chthonic nightmare.