Revered Swedish death metal producer Tomas Skogsberg once claimed Borås-based Evocation were better than Stockholm’s best sliced bread. This was back in the early ’90s too, when Stockholm greats were on their respective—much beloved—second albums. At the time, Evocation never got to recording a full-length—despite being courted by a few “notable” labels of the day—due to ever-problematic “musical differences”. Says Evocation six-stringer Marko Palmén, “Musical differences in the ’90s forced us to put the band on ice. Every time we met—after splitting up in ’93—we always talked about re-starting Evocation. But there was always something stopping us. ”
Fortunately, the dust settled and the collective re-grouped in 2006 for a demo. Feeling the fire, so to speak, Evocation signed with German undie Cyclone Empire, issuing not one but three fucking full-lengths of old-school tinged death from 2007 to 2010. Established and album-proven, Evocation has moved on from Cyclone Empire to Century Media—who are on a “roots oriented” signing spree as of late—where they’ll enjoy Ferraris, an undefiled corpse or two, and, well, a larger distribution network. To celebrate the occasion, Century Media is releasing a compilation of demo, unreleased, and rehearsal material, which will differ from the 2004-released Breath of Night Evocation collection.
As for the feral track “Through The Darkened Peril”, Palmén reveals: “When we recorded the demo we all felt unanimously that this track should be the opening track since we all felt that it was the strongest one. ‘Through The Darkened Peril’ holds most of the Evocation patented features we make until this day. The groove is the most outstanding feature on this track and that is something we work with a lot nowadays as well. Skogsberg even told us that the mid tempo part in the middle of the track had a jazzy feeling. The first version of this track also had an opening riff which was quiet slow in tempo but before we recorded the track we decided to skip that part since it didn’t add anything for the track. We have done this track live several times and I think it will remain in our repertoire for a long time ahead. Another cool memory that just came into my mind was about Janne’s drumming; this is the only track on The Ancient Gate demo ’92 that he needed to correct after the first take. All other drum tracks on the demo are recorded on the first take and no corrections have been made afterwards, they are featured in their very raw and unedited form.”
Revel in the flesh of “Through The Darkened Peril” from the Skogsberg-produced The Ancient Gate demo.
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** Evocation’s new demo compilation album, Evoked From Demonic Depths – The Early Years, is out June 26th on Century Media Records. Available only as an import from CM Distro, this sweetly disgusting compilation of old bones features a 32-page booklet and three live bootleg videos from 1992. Order it HERE, or find yourself on the bottom’s of Tomas Skogsberg’s trucker boots. Trust us, Entombed’s been there for a good while now. And well…
