Crematory history

After recording a demo-record witch obtained a good deal of success both in Germany and in foreign countries (where it sold 1500 copies circa), Crematory was just a young band with lot of potential.
It lacked of the current keyboard player (but she had played in the demo recording as a guest musician) and it hadn't a record deal.

Crematory signed their first record deal in 1992 with Massacre Records, a record label specialized in metal music.

The first Crematory album, "Transmigration", was released in 1993.
In the line-up of the first album there were singer Gerhard "Felix" Stass, guitar player Lothar "Lotte" Forst, bassist Heinz Steinhauser, keyboard player Katrin Goger and drummer Markus Jullich.
The album had a good success and it gave to the group the opportunity of playing as support band for My Dying Bride.

After the first Album, the bassist was changed and the new bass player was Harald Heine, a guy the band had played with before.

Year 1994 saw the release of the second Crematory album: "...Just Dreaming". The album had a good success, especially in Germany, and was followed by the album "Illusions" (1995). "Illusions" had a bigger success than the previous album.

In 1996, the band released "Crematory", an album with german lyrics. It was the last album with Massacre Records.

At this point of their career, Crematory founded their own label, CRC (it stands for "Crematory's Record Company") and this new label released their first live album: "Live...".

Next album, "Awake", was released in 1997 for Nuclear Blast.

After parting with guitar player Lothar Forst, the band was joined by new guitar player Matthias Hechler. The first album with Hechler was released in 1999 and his title is "Act Seven". This title was chosen because it is the seventh Crematory album. "Act Seven" had a huge success among both reviewers and fans.

An year later the band released the album "Believe" and it had a lot of sales, more than "Act Seven"!

At this point Crematory decided to stop their attivity and released a commemorative live album: "Remind". But in 2002 the band was asked to partecipate to a Metallica tribute album ("The Four Horseman"). They accepted and recorded their version of the classic Metallica title "One".

In 2003 Crematory reunited and started working on their next album: "Revolution". It was released in 2004 and it is, at the moment, the last Crematory album.

In the summer of 2006 has been released "Klagebilder", which has been followed by "Pray" (2008), at the moment the last Crematory album.