Swiss act Excruciation was formed at the end of the first half of the eighties, and therefor they are one of the protagonists of the (Swiss) Extreme Metal scene. They recorded and released several demonstrational recordings, but unfortunately things came to an end in 1991, without this band being capable to record / release anything decent at all (an EP excluded).
Enter 2005. Reformation, new opportunities, and who knows, recognition after all?... Indeed, this newest millennium turned out to be positive for the Swiss combo, with several well-accepted recordings (at least in the alpine countries). Although… this ‘success’ was limited to Switzerland, Austria and Germany, but with this new album things might, finally, turn positive the international way???
[g]host was recorded and mixed by Fabio Antenore and mastered by Mell Dettmer, and it lasts for forty seven minutes. It brings a powerful, somewhat obscure sounding and little grooving mixture of Doom, Death, Sludge, Black, Epic, Thrash and Post Metal, but not of the most brutal and aggressive kind. That’s quite an impressive vision on extreme music, this list of related genres, but these contrasts do not end here. Excruciation’s approach has more contradictions: modernism versus tradition, experiment versus, eh, tradition once again, and darkness versus enlightenment when it comes to sound quality and atmosphere. The band comes with an own, little eccentric yet still very comfortable (!) collection of heavy Rock tracks with a tempo that varies from very slow to mid-tempo (and only a couple of faster excerpts). The stuff is highly melodic, and even catchy, without losing itself in poppy tristesse, luckily. It comes with details not that uncommon in their home country, based on the likes of (later) Samael, Celtic Frost and Intractable. Every single piece on [g]host is different, yet always recognizable (a surplus for the band), without losing a certain specific uniqueness. That, of course, makes this album highly difficult to grab, to understand, at least not after just one or two or seventeen listens. And of importance is that, despite the reference to more than a hand full of extremer Metal genres, this stuff is not of the heaviest, or better, not of the most extreme kind. …at all. On the contrary, [g]host is an integer experience (oke, don’t start thinking that his is an emotional happening, all right?!) with a focus on melody and experiment rather than brutality or would-be evilness. But for sure it is a nice contrast to the overcrowded we-are-so-f***ing-brutal-scene, without betraying a pure metalized basement.
I guess especially experimental fans of the Doom-generation might add a ‘like’… The moniker ‘Post-Doom’ might do…