The concept of the supergroup is a good one, but so often the results are underwhelming, although there are exceptions, as anyone who has heard John Bush and chums in the fabulous Category 7 will attest. Enter Cemetery Skyline, a band put together by Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne, and featuring members of Insomnium, Amorphis, Dimmu Borgir, and Sentenced. They offer something pretty unique in the melodic death metal field, being both more somber than Stanne’s day job in DT, as well as more gothic and melodic.
In August the supergroup played their very first show at John Smith Festival, right by one of the thousand lakes of Finland and in the middle of the night. Their video for ‘Torn Away’, that was produced by Sam Jamsen, gives you a sneak peek of three days of rehearsals and fun behind the scenes as well as impressions from the show.
Michael Stanne about the lyrics: “This is a song about wilful disconnection from everything and everyone and its eventual ramifications. Written very early in the band’s lifecycle, this song set much of the tone of what the album would become.” And adding about the show: “It was supercool. This festival forced us into this. They said: ‘We want you!’ and we said: ‘Okay!’. For me the highlight was that I could be on stage with Markus, Santeri, Victor and Vesa. We have known each other for 20+ years, but none of us have ever been on stage together. I guested with Insomnium twice, that’s it. Other than that we have never shared the stage, which is pretty crazy in my book. Just seeing Vesa Ranta playing drums warmed my heart and made me so happy. Markus is the fucking best, Victor is a long-time friend of mine and one of my neighbors back home and Santeri going nuts – that meant a lot to me and made this experience so much fun. We were all there, everybody was equally excited and then we could relax and celebrate accordingly after the show, which was fantastic.”
If you liked what ‘Torn Away’ put forth, you can grab a copy of the band’s debut album ‘Nordic Gothic’ on October 11th, when it’s released by Century Media. Along with the new Unto Others album, it’s going to be the gothic metal release of the year. Trust us.
Watch the video right here: