Tiamat Rock & Indie 8 Items

Just like many other Scandinavian bands that rose to fame in the nineties Tiamat has gone through important stylistic changes in its impressive career. The band around singer and guitarist Johan Edlund who also plays keyboards and theremin on some occasions, has evolved from a sinister doom metal band with dominant death metal influences into a gothic rock act flirting with extremes like pop music but also its own extreme metal roots. Releasing a compilation of the band’s first decade and a half of activities in chronological order makes sense in such a context as it helps us follow and understand the development of the Swedish quartet. The release starts with the raw ‘’Where the Serpents Ever Dwell’’ that comes around with miserable and creeping doom metal riffs meeting raw and terrifying vocals. The track is taken from the band’s ambitious conceptual debut record Sumerian Cry when Johan Edlund still called himself Hellslaughter. As soon as the group’s third album gets covered by this compilation, the already imaginative music gets a more melodic and mysterious touch such as in the wonderful ‘’A Caress of Stars’’ taken from the underrated Clouds record that is often overlooked between the doom metal milestone The Astral Sleep and the popular gothic metal record Wildhoney that helped shaping this new genre of music. The latter release included at times cinematic, epic and progressive elements such as in the imaginative ‘’Gaia’’ that requests multiple spins to unfold. Later in its career, Tiamat’s sound became simpler and mellower. The surprisingly uplifting ‘’Vote for Love’’ from the Judas Christ record is a track that jumped on the bandwagon of the success of numerous commercially successful gothic rock acts like HIM. The bittersweet melancholically melodic ‘’Cain’’ from the band’s Prey record became a career highlight that defines Tiamat just as much as the Wildhoney era and its hits. Commandments is a release filled with sixteen imaginative, diversified and atmospheric songs shifting from gloomy doom metal with death metal grunts over progressive gothic metal with female backing vocals to short and sweet gothic rock songs with a strong commercial appeal. Some new material would have been great for fans of old date but the running time of eighty minutes is very generous and offers value for money nonetheless. Commandments is an excellent way to understand everything Tiamat is about and honours the still underrated Swedish gothic metal pioneers appropriately. This double album comes out in deluxe gatefold edition, in two colors (Gold / Red) 500 limited edition each.

Gaia is one of the most acclaimed and popular songs taken off the "Wildhoney" album. It became one of the keystones in doom metal and evokes the lyrics of a classic melody.
The band, led by visionary guitarist, singer and songwriter Johan Edlund have been at the forefront of doom and rock innovation since the early 90s, deeply influenced by Pink Floyd and paying the pertinent tribute here with their own interpretation of “When You´re In”. With revamped artwork and layout, Alone Records gives Gaia it's first vinyl treatment ever.

The style of this album is not heavy in the sense that, giving the songs a charismatic focal point and producing some lyrics that hint just as much towards psychedelia as depression, which makes an unusual change for the genre. The extra parts of this album are what make it special, because there are details and oddities that add to the moody experience and differentiate this from other similar bands as well as making the majority of songs memorable. There are a number of reverb-laden classic guitar leads that enter the fray of 'So Much for Suicide' and 'Love Is as Good as Soma' that exude a freedom and luxury across the compositions, stirring powerful non-specific emotions and complicating the apparently downbeat nature of the band; the same thing can be said of the other instruments used, which include violin, sitar, and oud, as well as excellent judgement with the keyboards, all of which turn what is on paper a dour listen into a much more colourful experience. The presence of some more upbeat songs has a similar effect, particularly the masterfully deployed 'Angel Holograms' that plays with choppy chords and rushing chorus mid-album to break up the dreamier, slower numbers. 'Vote for Love' and 'I Am in Love with Myself' offer interesting variations, the former playing out almost like a late '60s rock song, containing jangly guitars and a group chorus that inspires with major key progressions, while the latter recalls Joy Division and the post-punk era, especially in its insistent bassline and intelligent lyrics. This album comes out in deluxe gatefold edition, in two colors (Gold / Red) 500 limited edition each.

Tiamat have been one of Sweden's oddities for the last two decades, ranging from synth-rock to gothic metal to death metal, there's something for pretty much any fan of dark music to enjoy. However, 2003's Prey marks something of a return to form, sounding something like a cross between Wildhoney and Skeleton Skeletron. Specifically, the album is fairly diverse, with a smattering of influences and styles, but the majority of the songs are gothic rock or gothic metal, with the remaining songs falling under either ballads or interludes. Johan Edlund employs the deep, crooning, clean baritone delivery he's used since A Deeper Kind of Slumber, and it works remarkably well, creating a suffocatingly depressive atmosphere with his deep tone and the desperate, almost hopeless quality of his voice. Occasionally, in lighter songs such as "Clovenhoof", and to a lesser extent, "Wings of Heaven", his croon takes more of a sultry tone, seductive rather than hopeless, although there's still a hint of desperation present. His performance is also aided by vocalist Sonja Brandt on the songs "Divided" and "Carry Your Cross and I'll Carry Mine". Her tone is light and clear, presenting a very innocent, sweet, and slightly sultry delivery, providing an interesting contrast to Edlund, and overall making an excellent addition to the album. The duet on "Divided" is especially good, with a short dialogue passage that's deliciously evil and hopeless. This album comes out in deluxe gatefold edition, in two colors (Gold / Red) 500 limited edition each.

This album is arguably the most important one in Johan Edlund’s career. The mixture works quite well and is served on a near track-by-track basis with “Church of Tiamat” remaining on melancholic territory, a possible leftover from the “Wildhoney” recording sessions, a heavy atmospheric ballad which is sidestepped by “Brighter than the Sun”, the vintage gothic rocker, a major qualifier for the Sisters’ “Vision Thing” with the memorable sing-along chorus, the bouncy rhythms, and the brilliant female back vocals. A huge twist this one, it ushers the album into an entirely new realm but Edlund feels quite confident there, adding the dark sinister “As Long as You Are Mine”, the excellent balladic keyboard-infused hipster “Dust Is Our Fare”, and the very interesting individualistic, sombre cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” to match this new gloomier but by no means more pessimistic vision. This album comes out in deluxe gatefold edition, in two colors (Gold / Red) 500 limited edition each.

"Sumerian Cry" is the debut album by Swedish gothic metal veterans Tiamat, originally released in 1990. The album was recorded at Sunlight Studio, Stockholm, Sweden, in 1989, when the band was known under the original name Treblinka. The track "Sumerian Cry, Pt. 1" is a re-interpretation of the intro melody from "Crawling in Vomit", the first track off Treblinka's first demo. Since the mid-90's Tiamat has been employing a live keyboard player for all of their concerts, hiring them from well-known metal acts such as Opeth, Dark Tranquillity, Cradle of Filth and Evergrey.