As part of the second tier of melodic death metal in the mid to late 90, Sweden’s Godgory never got the international acclaim or attention of their more energetic peers despite a solid four album catalog from 1996 to 2001.
Partly mired in the middle of Nuclear Blast releasing endless mediocre stuff like Agathodaimon, Crematory, Dismal Euphony, Night In Gales, and Sculpture, saturating the scene with more sugary, Gothic melodic death metal and synths and partly due to the bands more somber take on the genre, they just never really ‘made it’, especially in the US.
With a style of more laid back and emotional, almost gothic melodic death metal, the duo of vocalist Matte Andersson and drummer Erik Andersson (no relation) seemed to have hit their creative and emotional zenith with their final release in 2001. Despite featuring on 6 new songs a two do-overs (“Sea of Dream” and “Tear it Down”), Way Beyond was and is a classy release that adds to Metal Mind’s sold stable of re-issues.
The 24 bit re-master allows the (at the time) rather unique synths to breathe an air of despondency into Godgory’s generally mid paced take on melodic death metal. Rather than focus on urgent galloping, bouncy riffs (though there are some here and there such as “Payback” and “Farewell”) or solos, Godgory rendered their metal through more somber hues that relied on patient, semi doomy structures, including a deeper, gruff growl from Matte.
Rending, melancholy Tracks like “The Final Journey”, “Another Day”, “Tear it Down” and knee wilting harmonies of “Caressing the Flames” hearken back to a more pure era of metal and show a time and band that focus on song writing from the heart rather than a trend. Admittedly the rather simple and repetitive gait of closer “Holy War” is a bit off a let down, but the heartfelt previous 7 tracks make this a pleasant treasure from the start of the decade.
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I enjoyed their releases.
on Feb 15th, 2010 at 07:18The only one I don’t like out of the bands you mentioned is Night In Gales. Most of them had stellar early albums and later became what you aptly describe as sugary gothic melodeath (black metal in Agathodaimon’s case). Give their early stuff a try, Erik. Also, I never liked Godgory.
on Feb 15th, 2010 at 14:06Night in Gales were pretty good. I picked up their Towards the Twilight album because it had Slavesun on it, a track I had heard on a Nuclear Blast comp. Yeah there were other, better, melodic death bands out there (and still are),but they did a pretty good job.
on Feb 17th, 2010 at 08:51I agree with Cynicgods though, Godgory did suck.
Big Godgory fan here. Glad to hear their getting some press after all these years. Hopefully the rerelease will up their profile a bit.
on Feb 17th, 2010 at 20:10Goth or not. Yes I like that style but I’ve found even some modern stuff that actually gives a better view of what in the past was hard to read, I’m looking for that link I had a nice website in my bookmark on that will post it later
on Feb 28th, 2010 at 11:19