Description

American only Century Media release featuring two early Black Sun records releases on one cd

At The Gates -Gardens Of Grief
At the gates were one of the more melodic death metal bands to expand beyond Sweden and spread their sound across the world alongside peers such as Entombed, At the Gates played a significant role in the death metal genre before breaking up in 1996, leading to the formation of the Haunted. However the very first beginning, the demo Garden Of Grief was quite different and not melodic. They were influenced by the old school generation of the death metal players from their mother country and, being very young, they played more or less like them with a sort of black metal touch in the guitars riffs. The atmosphere is really gloomed and the band sounds always quite fast and compact without being melodic at all. Since the opener Souls Of The Evil Departed we can really taste the groups essence made of obscurity and heaviness. Good some more progressive touches in the guitars lines by players that despite the young age, already show a mature approach towards this genre. In a song like All Life Ends is inevitable the comparison with old Entombed: very good and raw. Overall, a quite good beginning, a bit musically distant from the future releases and highly recommended to death fans. Tomas Lindberg dedicated the lyrics of At the Gates to Per Ohlin (a.k.a. Dead).

Grotesque -In The Embrace Of Evil
Grotesque was spawned out of the abyss in September 1988 rising from the ashes of death/thrash/metal band Conquest, a band first formed in early -86 by guitarist and songwriter Necrolord. Howsoever, this band didn’t become totally twisted, insane and serious until unholy screamer Goatspell (Tomas Lindberg who established himself as one of the greatest death metal vocalists and founder of At The Gates) joined in March -88. When Grotesque hit the local scene in the fall of -88 there were absolutely no other death metal bands around in the Gothenburg area and there were literally just a few people into underground death metal. Grotesque is an ugly, uncanny bastardisation of death metal. The complex song structures and raw, unrelenting atmosphere of early Morbid Angel is blended with the messy over-stretched teenage ambition of early Possessed. Add some manic Slayer solos, crushing slow passages, atmospheric intros, an overtly Satanic image (corpsepaint before it became popular) – and you have Grotesque. The aggressive death metal found on In The Embrace Of Evil sounds just as fresh today as it did back then. Tracks 1, 4, 5, and 6 are remastered songs from the In The Embrace Of Evil demo that was never released. The songs 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9 are taken from the Incantation EP. The final two songs were recorded in 1996 when Necrolord, Goatspell and Offensor entered Berno studio to record 2 songs especially for this album. The result is Church Of The Pentagram and Ripped From The cross, the very first songs they wrote.
All in all, an extremely nasty listening experience, and a classic example of real death metal. This is one of the best death metal releases that have ever come out of this country. Respect

Track listing:
At The Gates -Gardens Of Grief
1. Souls Of The Evil Departed
2. At The Gates
3. All Life Ends
4. City Of The Screaming Statues

Grotesque -In The Embrace Of Evil
5. Thirteen Bells of Doom
6. Blood Runs From The Altar
7. Submit To Death
8. Fall Into Decay
9. Seven Gates
10. Angels Blood
11. Nocturnal Blasphemies
12. Spawn of Azathoth
13. Incantation
14. Church of The Pentagram
15. Ripped From The Cross