Exhumation

by Eduardo Rivadavia
Not to be confused with numerous, significantly more obscure heavy metal bands using the same moniker, Greece's Exhumation were part of that country's famed 1990s generation, which also spawned such major names in extreme music as Rotting Christ, Nightfall, and Septic Flesh. Their origins dating back to the late '80s, actually, Exhumation eventually parlayed two demos (1990's The Rebirth and 1994's Deepest Side of Fear) into a recording contract with Denmark's Diehard Records, for whom they would record 1997's Seas of Eternal Silence debut with the help of producer Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity, Pan-Thy-Monium, etc.). Not surprisingly, the latter proved well suited to capture Exhumation's -- then comprising vocalist/bassist John Nokteridis, guitarists Panos Giatzoglou and Marios Iliopoulos, keyboardist Thomas Bairachtaris, and drummer Pantelis Athanasiadis -- eclectic blend of doom, dark, death, and gothic metal. Two additional albums followed in subsequent years: 1998's Dance Across the Past and 1999's Traumaticon -- both of them captured at Sweden's Studio Fredman by producer Fredrik Nordström, who helped bring new dimensions to Exhumation's sound. But the band's drive started to fail thereafter, and when guitarist Iliopoulos left to join rivals Nightrage, Exhumation quietly decided to break up.