Emergency Gate - The Nemesis Construct

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The story of EMERGENCY GATE started rather roughly and had to go through several lineup changes until the current form. The German sextet introduced the band's name in 2000 with the self-titled album that did not face the praising words of the press. Six year EMERGENCY GATE retried their luck with "Nightly Ray" where things looked/sounded better but still something was missing. The label problems and the breaking news of Fabian Kiessling quitting the singing position brought the band in front of a dead end. Eventually, the band avoided the dead end when Mario Lochert found in the face of Matthias Kupka (ex-SUIDAKRA) the perfect singer substitute and things led to the release of "Rewake" in 2009. It was obvious that EMERGENCY GATE had fresh fuel running in their engine and here we have the brand new album "The Nemesis Construct" featuring the first full time collaboration of the new lineup.

I have to admit that after the band's performance supporting KREATOR in their European tour I was not that happy since the Metalcore lining in the growling vs clean vocals did not sound promising. So, I did not have high expectations when the promo CD reached my hands. Fortunately, "Alternative Dead End" opened the album with killer guitar work and sound revealing something far better than the band's live performance. The Metalcore feeling in the vocals is not that obvious since Matthias possesses a wide singing range with a personal timbre that gives EMERGENCY GATE additional points towards music originality. And this is mostly needed here, since in the melodic Death Metal scene sound diversity is pretty rare to find. The keyboards have become an important element in EMERGENCY GATE's music enhancing the melodies and to my delight add a hearty EVERGREY finishing touch. Actually, this EVERGREY lining start to shine during the excellent "Dark Side Of The Sun" where Tom Englund lends his distinct vocals taking the song into another level. Definitely this is one of the highlights of the album! "Point Zero" that is also the first video from the album serves some distinct melodies that -as I see it- can be the strongest asset in EMERGENCY GATE's weaponry for the future releases. Apart from the melodic injections the German band has a lost of in-your-face attitude in the album proving that this lineup is pretty solid and confident in this music identity. The twin guitars are heavily influenced by the melodic Death Metal scene of Sweden laying down catchy riffs and IN FLAMES grooves that cannot go unnoticed. Just listen to the thrash guitar work in "Excite!" and you will get my point after you have stopped headbanging.

To my ears the Metalcore moments (SLIPKNOT can be a reference here) of the screaming vocals still do not sound right and in moments I just hate them; but in the end you just cannot have everything. After all, EMERGENCY GATE show great improvement from their previous works and I believe they deserve a second look for all the fans who like this keyboard/guitar/groovy Metal blend.