Band:	Crematory
Album:	Revolution
Style:	Gothic metal
Release date:	May 2004

01. Resurrection
02. Wake Up
03. Greed
04. Reign Of Fear
05. Open Your Eyes
06. Tick Tack
07. Angel Of Fate
08. Solitary Psycho
09. Revolution
10. Human Blood
11. Red Sky
12. Farewell Letter
13. One

If I had to choose a personal favourite among all the gothic metal bands that are around, I guess it would have to be Crematory, for their long and profitable career and their ability to never record twice the same album, to evolve without compromising... Ok we're far from the death metal of the beginning, they get more melodic after every album, but this is not some annoying poppish electro goth a la new Theatre Of Tragedy... After the last two bombs Act Seven and Believe now comes the explosion Revolution.

A revolution it is not, not really, you know what to expect if you know the band: our German friends display a überhuman ability to break everybody's necks after the first seconds of the first song with their heavy but still melodic riffs, here and there appear keyboard parts or even some almost electro tunes ['Reign Of Fear', one of the best songs] , there is still this amazing duet of clean/death vocals... This is as metal as it can be, and not commercial at all despite being extremely catchy (I've not headbanged like this since... well, since). After the atmospheric instrumental opener 'Resurrection', the tuning is given by 'Wake Up' and its excellent vocal work (special distinction for the clean vocals a la Paradise Lost era-Draconian Times). 'Greed', the first single, is one of the catchiest songs of Revolution, can't get it out of my head. A more electro-goth passage with the next two songs 'Reign Of Fear' and 'Open Your Eyes', that have a bigger importance given to the keyboards and clean vocals than usual. Two quite calm songs, good anyway.

The real killer song of Revolution comes right after. 'Tick Tack' has an unusual name, and is a quite unusual song, with a very indus melody, a bit a la Rammstein, with the same kind of atomic riff. Plus for once the song is entirely in German, this is catchy as hell, I love this song, it has the same 'cult song' feeling as 'Fly' (released on Act Seven). Actually the only song that is a bit of a letdown is Solitary Psycho: this song is a bit too predictable in my opinion, as if already heard 1000 times before. 'Revolution' reminds of the One Second album of Paradise Lost as far as the riff is concerned, for the rest it sounds like a song taken straight out of the Awake album, damn catchy once again. The romantic moment of the album is the nice (and usual) ballad 'Farewell Letter', entirely acoustic with clean vocals, ideal to propose to your betrothed under the blossoming trees during a full moon night... Last song, cover of 'One' (Metallica), really good, they manage to make it sound as though they had written this song.

In a nutshell, despite the fact that the guitar solos have almost disappeared, Revolution is an excellent album, at least as good as the previous ones. All the songs are extremely catchy without losing this sad feeling inherent in gothic metal. This is an album written to get in your head and stay there forever, so why disappoint them? All I can say is that I've never been disappointed in Crematory, and Revolution is one of my albums of the year.

Highlights: Greed, Reign Of Fear, Tick Tack, Revolution, actually the whole album is amazing, feel free to pick.