Nine months after its European release, Pray is being released in North America. The German band Crematory is one of the veterans in European gothic metal, having been around since the early '90s. This is their tenth studio CD.
Pray is gothic metal with influences of death, doom and industrial. The songs are dark and bombastic with driving guitars. Keyboards and strings are layered in for atmosphere. There's plenty of heaviness, and the death metal growls add even more intensity.
That intensity is tempered by mellower sections and melodic vocals. The best songs on Pray are ones like "Have You Ever," which are heavy, but also have catchy riffs and hooks along with mostly growled vocals and only a few singing parts.
Crematory has developed a genre crossing sound that draws fans of both gothic and melodic death metal, and Pray has plenty to please fans of both styles of metal.
(released November 4, 2008 on Blistering Records)
