In the beautiful lands
of Southern Sweden where the cold of winter is felt and the white covers the
branches of naked trees a dark force remains in its shelter and waits silently like
a predator watches its prey until the opportune moment to release its claws
against the ignorance of man.
In the middle of 2008 Landskrona gave birth to
the hungry beast called THE GARDNERZ, a dommy death metal band formed by Wihelm
Lindh (the man behind the guitar). With the desire to spread his own metal as
blood running in his veins he initiated the demand for artists that could
integrate shrewdly into the dark energy he intended to liberate and so in the
late 2008 Francisco Martín (bass wielder) joined the loud force and that was
how the first steps of the band started to leave a trace, with the debut album
taking shape. A longtime friend of Francisco, Juan Pablo fitted well in the
formation and was recruited to do the drums (currently he is no longer part of
the band) and after a long time of searching for a vocalist Niclas Ankarbranth
shattered voice stepped in to the picture.
This musical monster is very versatile and
blends various components of death metal with a slower and brutal doom but they
don´t fully fit that category taking their music even further to a more diversified
path that makes them unique. With a slow and nasty sound of heavy metal full of
distortion and catchy clean notes that compose sorrowful and gloomy melodies, they
mix technique with simplicity to create a vast soundscape and fresh touch.
Lyrically they deal with philosophical ideas and the strange ways of Man in
life specially the hypocrisy, greed and creeds of human being, the fallacies of
religion, consumerism and how insignificant events shapes a Man´s entire life.
THE GARDNERZ dark energy was finally unleashed… the debut album “The
System of Nature” was mastered by Dan Swanö at his Unisound Studio and was released on the
20th of September 2011 on digipack CD through Abyss Records and is
also available as gatefold LP by Mechanix Records and downloads through
Digmetalworld.
For a debut album “System of Nature” was very well worked and presents
us a bone breaker sound with technical, catchy and heavy riffs that sometimes
gives place to a cleaner string experience that fills the music with sad and
dark melodies. The songs of this album fit in the death/doom category but in my
opinion there is a progressive sound present because they mutate their style so
many times during this 12 track work (two of them are covers of the bands
VULCANO and WINTER) that is hard to say that they are pure death with a gloomy
flourish. The guitar offers many techniques and styles with slow, medium pace
and fast rhythms, brutal heavy distortions and clean phrases, fast short solos,
complex and strong riffs and simpler lines. The bass is easily audible not remaining beneath the other
instruments and follows the music with splendor also having its moments of
focus with simple solo lines but I think it adds nothing special or particular
to the music. Niclas vocals are profound; he uses a heavy growl and a devilish
voice that exudes exceptionally the messages of the songs. The drums are very
powerful and create that brutal background with a slow rhythm that sometimes
turns into a complex frenzy of death metal.
In general the album “System of Nature” was well conceived with songs
that are pretty good but with others that fall into oblivion. The most positive
factor in this work was that they created their own sound that automatically
separated them from comparisons and gave them a highlight in the metal scene.
In a way they have shown that they were capable of doing more and one year
later they ended up impressing…
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The System of Nature" track listing:
1. The Art of Suffering
2. Lady in the Grave
3. Your Final Solution
4. Born to Consume
5. Incident
6. Shift in Thought
7. Flaw in the Axiom
8. More or Less
9. Confusion
10. Maybe it's Time
11 - Bloody Vengeance ( Vulcano cover )
12 - Servants of the Warsmen ( Winter cover )
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After the release of the debut the response of the metal community was very positive and the followers of the band started to grow. This of course was an extra boost to keep the band in the right direction and the THE GARDNERZ started working on new material to unleash their tremendous metal.
In 2011 a new drummer, Vedran Benčić, was recruited, and just after a few months of rehearsing the new songs the band decided to record a mini album. . The recording started in early 2012 and yielded the "It All Fades" mini album containing six doom and death filed tracks. Drums were recorded at Armageddon Studio, Osijek, Croatia. Guitars and bass at Funky Cat Studio in Landskrona, Sweden. Vocals at Ninja Studios in Malmö, Sweden. Mixed and Mastered by Cristian Rodríguez Lunecke at 15Hz Studio Santiago, Chile.
The sound of the band hasn´t suffered many alterations with the mini album and somehow the idea of constructing a 36 minutes EP was clever because it brought a simple and small but amazing work with superb songs and in particular one of my favorite covers of Darkthrone´s “Transsilvanian Hunger” to which they gave a special and unique touch, turning this song into a folky, beautiful and melancholic ballad with the orgasmic voice of Paulina Strihavka. Definitely I cannot think of any better tribute to Norwegian black metal than this spectacular cover and THE GARDNERZ really nailed it.
They remained in the dommy death metal scene reminding sometimes of My Dying Bride but with their own sound and with compositions that evolved with a stronger character with catchier and heavier songs and a much savory progression with all the instruments in harmony. This time around the atmosphere was much more intense and being easier to capture the feelings that “It All Fades” transpires. At technical level they have shown that simplicity can also become complex with the use of simple doom phrases intercalated with clean melodies and a more technical death metal that not even once during the mini album gets boring. This was due primarily due to the maturation of the strings compositions that were outstanding with really dommy lines changing to catchy death metal lines especially in the song “Don´t look back”.
The vocals are also a strong reference in this album, they didn´t stick with huge and intense growls, instead they use a vast spectrum of styles singing with roaring intensity, clean vocals, and a more thrash type of singing (loud and clear with harshness) and as I said before there is also a strong guest vocalist, the inspiring voice of Paulina that gives a beautiful texture to the cover.
“It All Fades” has shown that after all there was still plenty to hear and to headbang to…
THE GARDNERZ cultivated their sound with brilliance and I just really hope they continue to do works like this or even better. Hail to THE GARDNERZ!
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Cover by Daniel "Devilish" Johnsson
Don't Look Back
A Horrible Disease
Transilvanian Hunger (Darkthrone Cover)
It All Fades
Melatonin
Erasing Bad Specimen
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One melee with the words, ideas and its paradoxes... albuns that are news, the reviews at "HeavyHardMetalmania.net", always with its watermark, Pedro Ribeiro, with love for beer... sorry, music from an early age, he studied piano and singing from 7 to 14 years, then, devoted himself to the study of the guitar for 5 years. "The wisdom is found in the extremes, all extreme Metal here!"
Very nice band, thank`s
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