Martyr Lucifer has been active on a Gothic & Dark Metal scene for a while now and Farewell to Graveyard is their new album gathering a great line-up of experienced musicians as; Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates, The Haunted, Cradle of Filth, Brujeria…), Grom (Ancient & DoomSword), Vrolok (Nokturnal Mortum & Ygg) and Martyr (Dogma & Hortus Animae), just to name the most prominent ones.

Thus, musically there’s nothing to complain about as these guys are highly skilled and very professional musicians. However, after the initial two pre-listening of this new 11-tracker I felt like some of the enthusiasm is gone. I mean, they are still capable of writing some cool tunes with a Goth/dark wave feel to it with a metal edge. Meanwhile, the fact is that they didn’t quite succeed.

First, Farewell to Graveyard has a repetitive nature clocking for almost an hour which makes it boring towards the end. Their whole approach is pretty simple using the well-known elements of dark and gothic atmosphere mostly created by keys, slow guitars, low yet warm vocals like taken straight out of the doom genre, and mid-paced effects. They also lack a bit of variation during the song-writing, with minor exception of the lengthiest song, a 10-minute killer epic track “The Horseride”.

Farewell to Graveyard is definitely not a bad album, as it has all the necessary ingredients to please fans of the genre. Meanwhile, my expectations were a bit higher due to the fact that this was under way for three years. I will still, and without any hesitation, recommend it for fans of My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Hortus Animae, Saturnus and similar dark and gothic metal acts.

For further info go to: http://martyrlucifer.net/


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