Evocation

This item has the rather ignominious distinction of being a CD almost exclusively used to beef up batch lots of metal albums on Ebay; unlike most other releases that fall into that category, this is fairly good. Evocation plays pretty stock and conventional Swedeath material in the vein of a somewhat faster Grave, and this compilation of two demos showcases some solid if mostly uninspired music in the style. Fans of all the major Swedish death and death/thrash bands would likely want to grab this release, though most others could pass without feeling guilty.

Evocation's music is staunchly rooted in the conventions of the style established by bands such as Grave, Dismember, or Entombed: contrasting passages of fast thrash beats or slow, grooving double bass runs, gutturally roared vocals, and fairly melodic riffing generally based around tremolo or a more rhythmic chugging style. The songs are fairly repetitive in nature, generally based around a handful of main musical themes occasionally spiced up through a bit of lead guitar or an abrupt drum fill. Overall, though, the music remains very safely within the established confines of the Swedeath style. Neither of the demos on display are especially different from what was previously established by more popular bands or even from each other, apart from the first on this CD having considerably better and less granular production than the second.

Within this style, Evocation manages to create solid if uncreative music. Nearly all the ideas present on this compilation have been seen elsewhere in the Swedish death metal scene, and so this is really a half hour of rehashing and reconfiguring preexisting ideas. Despite the natural lack of uniqueness that this presents, the songwriting uses tried and true methods and succeeds with them, making for catchy, fairly headbanging tracks which, although not intensely exciting, are satisfying and listenable at just about any time you can think of. Certainly this isn't first or even second-tier music in the Swedeath scene, but it is a solid set of bread and butter tracks that are an archetypal example of the style and manage to please over multiple listens.

The Swedish death style has never been one of great appeal to me, but I appreciate that Evocation does it pretty well, though I predictably wish that it would occasionally put itself out there a little bit more with regards to creativity. Nevertheless, while there's certainly a great deal of room to do something greater, the music on this disc is far from a failure in any respect and can be recommended to any fan of oldschool Swedish death metal without reservation.