EMERGENCY GATE – Rewake

German Heavy Metalers of Emergency Gate came together in 2005 and released their first professional album Nightly Ray together with Spike Streefkerk (Mellissa Etheridge, Def Leppard, Phil Collins etc.) in 2006. TEC/Universal became attentive to Emergency Gate, and finally signed them.

At the end of 2007, the band was dropped by TEC/Universal and members started leaving. Founding member, singer and guitarist Fabian Kießling quit because of private matters, and drummer Stefan Paster also left the band. Paster was replaced by ex-Stormhammer drummer Chris Widmann.
Guitarist Vlad Doose started working on new material in agreement with bassist Mario Lochert. The band booked time in Munich’s Dreamscape-Studios, to record and work on new material, even without a replacement for the previous singer.

They finally met singer Matthias Kupka (ex-Suidakra) and started recording the vocals in March 2008. Not long after searching for a new label, the band ended up signing with newcomers Silverwolf Productions.

As the album opener “Double Suicide” starts and you hear vocalist Kupka screaming “Are you ready?” you think for a few seconds that this is another one of those albums where bands mix the use of Hard Core scream vocals and clean vocals with Metalcore guitar riffs and constant double kick drum pounding. Well, you are wrong. On “Double Suicide” Emergency Gate has experimented with the massive use of keyboards and this sounds a bit symphonic at times. The guitar solo is fast, melodic and it sounds great.

The second song, “Slave,” sounds like something In Flames could have written. It contains lots of guitar harmonies. The guitar solo for this one is just a couple of tones played slowly, and that is the only variation from the verse/chorus/verse/chorus routine. The song is cool, but should have had a bit more to it than this.

The third song “…Of Stars And The Drifting,” is a bit different from the previous songs. It’s slower and the vocals for the entire chorus are clean. Well, more like a clean whiskey voice actually, but it’s cool and fits the song. It’s kind of reminiscent of Motörhead in a weird way. The verses are played a bit more aggressively and Kupka utilizes his screaming vocals for this part. It’s a cool twist and totally unexpected.

“Next In Line” starts with Iron Maiden sounding guitar harmonies, but as the verse starts you hear that this is more sophisticated than what you thought at first. They twist the old 4/4 time signature, and though it’s still 4/4 it sounds a bit crazy. This is one of the highlights of the record. Next is the acoustic instrumental “Unbeing.” It consists of acoustic guitars and has really just one part that goes on and on for the short amount of time this track lasts. It could very well be that the band tries to break up the structure of the album a bit by adding this track, but it’s so completely different from the other songs that it seems an odd thing to do. The song doesn’t fit the band’s musical expression at all and the track is completely unnecessary.

“Gold & Glass” and “The Purpose” continue in the same pattern as the songs before “Unbeing,” but they’re perhaps a bit more keyboard oriented at times. “Trust” is a more melodic song in the same pattern as “…Of Stars And The Drifting,” but has a much quicker pace than the latter.

“Remains” is another surprise on this album. It starts slow with a piano and an acoustic guitar. Kupka enters with his most beautiful clean voice effort so far on the record. At times, when he harmonizes his own vocals, he’s actually reminiscent of Tom Englund (Evergrey). For four minutes you listen to his complaining vocal lines, and the experience is enhanced when two string instruments are added underneath him. The last part of this seven minute song sees the rest of the band entering while Kupka, still singing with his clean voice, keeps on impressing you, and a massive keyboard takes over for the two string instruments and makes this part really massive. Take notes; this is how you break up the structure of an album!

“Elementor” is another song you feel like you’ve heard earlier on the record, but “Life v2.0” takes the album up a notch again. It’s got Emergency Gate written all over it, but still it brings something new to the table. The album closer “Lullaby” is just that; a lullaby. It’s another one of those “why-do-they-even-bother”-songs where you feel that it’s completely unnecessary and wrong for the band’s expression.

The production sounds great, especially when it comes to the guitars and vocals. Rewake is a varied and good album. It has its flaws, and doesn’t excite you the entire time, but nevertheless it’s a good album that crosses over different sub-genres of Metal. Emergency Gate should foster a lot of new fans with this album.

Emergency Gate is

Matthias Kupka – Vocals
Vladi Doose – Guitar
Udo Simon – Guitar
Mario Lochert – Bass
Chris Rybak – Synth
Daniel Schmidle – Keys
Chris Widmann – Drums