Live... at the Out of the Dark Festivals

Crematory from Germany is a band with a long history, often scorned by metalheads who assume that after a couple of promising albums it mercilessly degenerated into electro-goth pop of the worst sort. Now this is a view that I don’t share, being not ashamed to find some merit even in their most recent indus / electro-metal recordings, but rambling longer about it would be out of place here. We’re indeed dealing with a live recording covering the whole “old” period of Crematory, which could be roughly defined as the four first albums, up to the self-titled – that one being already debatable. For those who don’t know, this means a simple, but highly effective formula: slow-paced death metal with doom influences, on top of which were stuck some goofy keyboard lines with a cheap 90s sound. Turn up the first song here, Deformity, and you’ll immediately understand what I mean. A masterpiece? Yes, it is.

But, wait, it’s a live album. I’m usually not fond of live albums, and that one is no exception. Once again, it lacks both the excitement of the real show, and the quality of a studio recording. Sure, the sound here is decent. However, a truly dirty sound, which would at least have the merit of authenticity, might have been preferable. Decent often means weak and unequal. So unequal it seems obvious some tracks have been more post-produced than others, and not for the better. The base recording was taken from a single show, so it should not have been so difficult to make a properly coherent release.

Take for instance the keyboard, crucial to the Crematory sound. Here it is at times mixed louder than all the other instruments, vocals excepted (Eyes of Suffering), and at times barely audible (Shadows of Mine, the second half of Just Dreaming...). The bass is surprisingly loud, and even gets louder towards the end, to the point it becomes unpleasant (The Beginning of the End). The short instrumental interlude called Out of the Dark just sounds out of... place, guess the musicians weren’t really playing on that one – the sound discrepancy with the preceding and following tracks is obvious. Pit noise has been mixed low. While this is not intrinsically a bad choice, it further deters from the live experience, and even gets embarrassing for the band when the crowd is expected to shout along... and absolutely nothing is heard in response. Like in Shadows of Mine, this odd, depressive song with an English title and chorus, but verses sung in German. To further worsen the case of a great track which didn’t deserve such a treatment, the verses are sung as a dialog between lead singer Felix and another musician (Harald? Lotte?): good idea on the paper, awkward result on the record. And while I’ve always held this same Felix for a powerful, vastly underrated growler, these yee-aw shrills he occasionally emits while addressing his audience simply sound... grotesque.

It is no surprise, then, that only a few songs benefit from their live rendition, compared to the respective album versions. Ist es wahr? is one of them, its characteristic backbone of hammering piano getting some extra punch here. Otherwise, the guys play tight, but don’t take any risk. A few vocals antics on Tears of Time, which add little to this anthemic song. Only Once in a Lifetime deprived of its female backing vocals, making it sound gloomier perhaps, but also less original. The poor sound on Shadows of Mine ruins the melancholic mood of the original. Dreams and The Beginning of the End are unexpectedly subtle numbers from a band not ordinarily praised for its subtlety, so the not-so-subtle production doesn’t do them justice, either. Well, this last bit could sum up the whole package, actually.

The setlist remains, of course. The source material is overall good, and has the merit of stylistic unity, resulting in a perfect best-of release for Crematory’s early career, as long as the sound issues can be set aside. One could obviously argue forever about some individual choices, like, for instance, Ewigkeit that I have always considered as a not-so impressive take from the self-titled, an album boasting catchier songs which would probably have worked better live (how about Flieg mit mir?). And Crematory completists are likely to complain that a few years later, the Remind live album will again propose a similar setlist, with no less than eight songs in common. But we’re in 2020, after all, the year when shows were banned in most of the world, so anything carrying only a remote live flavour from a band we like will be good to listen to anyway.