Edge of Sanity: The Spectral Sorrows (1993)

I do not really know why it is that I have only recently begun looking into Edge of Sanity's prior discography.  I loved Crimson, the one-song, 40-minute epic.  Yet, I never really considered going back, or forward for that matter.  For many years, Crimson was the only thing I really knew existed by Edge of Sanity.  Last year, I finally picked up Unorthodox (a perfect description for the band by the way) and loved it.  And so I have now come to this one.

Edge of Sanity is a typical Swedish death metal band in a lot of ways, but they are also so much more.  There are the chainsaw-sounding riffs and the guttural vocals, the rhythmic stomp and the raw aggression.  But Edge of Sanity has more.  They have a sense of melody and a some delightfully weird moments.  For instance, there is the random keyboard interlude in "Lost" on this release.  They also have more of progressive structure, best exemplified by the aforementioned Crimson which would not work if it was just one long Swedish death metal song.  They are much more dynamic and dramatic than other bands from their country and scene.  They can go from a pure death metal song, to a jazzy acoustic interlude, to a gothic rock song with ease and without it sounding out of place.  And in fact, they do on this album.

Edge of Sanity has always been more of the brainchild of the immensely talented Dan Swanö.  There may have been other members at various points in time in the band, but Swanö has always been the driving force.  His vocals are terrific on this album.  Most often they are delivered in a typical death metal growl, deep and rumbling.  But there are a few occasions in which he sings cleanly, as in the Manowar cover "Blood of My Enemies" and the off-kilter goth rock song "Sacrificed".  His clean vocals are remarkably powerful and makes one wonder why he did not use them more often. 

There is a lot going on in this album.  Edge of Sanity is simply not content to play just one style, even though their foundation is always in death metal.  They experiment and progress seemlessly.  It is a wonder that they never really captured attention the same way that other bands from their country did.  As I listen more and more, they are quickly becoming one of my favorite groups from their scene.  That is really saying something.

Crematory: Denial (1992)

This is the second band named "Crematory" in my collection, joining "Sabbat" and "Solstice" as names for which there are multiple groups represented.  But there is a difference.  Whereas with "Sabbat" and "Solstice", picking a favorite band between the two can be a toss-up, I have a very clear favorite band named "Crematory".  It is this one.

The other Crematory is a German gothic metal band, but this one is pure old-school Swedish death metal.  We are talking the Stockholm scene in the early 1990's when bands like Entombed, Dismember and Grave were dominant.  And Crematory's sound fit in quite well with those groups.  Featuring a sound that combines the Swedish scene of the day with groups like Napalm Death and Slayer, this is a lively, energetic release.  The riffs are bound to result in head-banging and the solos absolutely shred.  The vocals are gruff, but not ridiculously so.  This is an almost perfect example of Swedish death. 

The only downside to this release is that it is too damn short.  This is only a four-song EP.  And unfortunately, there is not much else that the band has ever released.  There are a few other demos, but no full-length.  There is a compilation collecting most of the band's material together under the same name and cover as this EP.  And that's it.

Members of Crematory would later emerge in groups like Regurgitate and General Surgery.  Unfortunately neither group had a sound quite like this.  And so, this is the only real great release we have from this Crematory, but it is still better than the German gothic metal band.   

Comecon: Converging Conspiracies (1993)

Comecon was a Swedish death metal band.  Well, sort of.  It was more of a project than a band.  There were only two full-time members, Rasmus Ekman and Pelle Ström, each of whom performed bass, guitars and keyboards.  There was never a human drummer, leaving that task to a drum machine.  And there was never a full-time vocalist.  Instead the band had essentially a guest singer on each release.  They used L-G Petrov (Entombed) most often, and Marc Grewe (Morgoth) appeared on the band's final album.  There is a reason that this is the first album I have checked out by Comecon.  It features Martin Van Drunen (Asphyx, Hail of Bullets, Pestilence, etc.), one of my favorite death metal vocalists.

This is a brutally savage release with biting riffs, aggressive vocals and a whole lot of speed.  Van Drunen delivers his typical rabid bark and sounds as good as anything else he has ever done.  The band obviously takes a lot of influence from other Swedish death metal bands of their time.  The typical buzzsaw guitar tone is present in spades, drawing comparisons to Entombed, Dismember and Grave, and there is plenty of groove to the riffing style.  So, in a lot of ways, this is a typical Swedish death metal band.

Comecon though, stands out a little bit from their Swedeath brethren.  There is the obvious lineup issues detailed in the opening paragraph.  But the band also tends to use some off-kilter riffing and bizarre moments.  For instance, in second track "The Ethno-Surge", there is heavy usage of a juice harp, which is just plain odd.  Then there are some strange breakdown sections that feature call and response between acoustic and electric guitar in "Community" that finds some way to sound perfectly natural next to the more standard riffing.

This is something of an underrated album in the powerful Swedish death metal scene.  I had seen the album cover a number of times, but had not really heard the band before picking this one up.  I came for Martin Van Drunen, I stayed for the terrific take on Swedish death metal.

One and Done? Pt. 13: Gorement

I have never seen a less-than-perfect score in a review for Gorement's The Ending Quest.  Given my attempts from a few weeks ago to uncover hidden gems of the Swedish death metal scene, I had to give this one a shot.  This is Gorement's only full-length release.  They changed their name to the significantly less interesting Pipers Dawn in the mid 90's, but never released more than a single demo under that name. 

Gorement is kind of different for a Swedish death metal band.  They do not play the same kind of typical buzzsaw punk-inflected riff style.  Rather, Gorement shows significant doom metal influences, bearing more similarity to groups like Autopsy and Asphyx than to Entombed and Dismember.  The result is an extremely dark and gloomy atmosphere that is at least as impressive as anything their countrymen have ever released.  There are moments where there are gothic metal elements similar to Paradise Lost as well.

Gorement appears to have just missed the boat when they released this album.  By 1994, most of the Swedish death metal landmark albums had already been released and the attention had shifted to Norwegian black metal.  They were just a couple of years late.  Most of the big Swedish death metal bands were entering into the second phases of their careers and were declining in quality.  This is the status of the scene into which Gorement released their sole album.

It is a shame that this album has been mostly relegated to obscurity.  It is a terrific album that pulls together influences from Swedish death metal, doom metal and gothic/death metal.  The Ending Quest should be a classic.  Instead it is a hidden gem. 

Unleashed: Across the Open Sea (1993)

As much as I love Swedish death metal, there are very few bands whose entire discography I have explored.  I am not talking about the Gothenburg melodeath scene, but the Stockholm scene.  I love Entombed for instance, but have only heard four or five albums.  I love Dismember probably more than any other group from the scene, but there are three or four albums I have not checked out.  Amon Amarth is really the only exception, though I have yet to hear their newest album. 

That brings me to Unleashed, a group whose recent output I am quite familiar with, but whose early work I am just now exploring.  Last year, I picked up their sophomore release Shadows in the Deep.  Just recently, I picked up this one, their third album.  I still have a long ways to go to look into their other material.

Unleashed is a straightforward Swedish death metal band who sang about vikings before it was cool to sing about vikings.  Yes, they pre-date Amon Amarth yet never seemed to receive the same level of attention.  Perhaps that is because their music is not as accessible.  They are generally much heavier than their countrymen without the same melodic sensibilities. 

I was a little taken aback when I heard this album for the first time.  The riffs are much more simplistic than the band has used in other albums.  In addition the sound is stripped-down with no frills, very few solos and almost never any instruments outside the typical guitar/bass/drums.  The vocals are delivered in a typical dry-throated snarl.  The songs are mid- to faster-paced and driven by the riffs.  They are generally fairly catchy.

The only real down note on this album is the ill-conceived "Breaking the Law" cover.  Judas Priest is an incredibly dynamic band while Unleashed really only knows one speed.  And so for a band to take a classic like "Breaking the Law", they really need to do something impressive with it.  Unleashed vocalist Johnny Hedlund does not have the pipes to sing Halford's part and does not even try.  The intensity level of the song also seems muted somehow, which is odd coming from this band.  And so the cover simply does not work.  Everything else is terrific though.

I do not know yet where this album stands in my ranking of the Unleashed albums I have heard.  I will have to go back and listen to everything to get that figured out.  I like it quite a bit despite the much more basic sound. 

Grotesque: In the Embrace of Evil (1996)

This is the last of the three Swedish death metal hidden gems Darkness Shall Rise Productions unearthed last year.

Grotesque was an early Swedish death metal band that featured Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates), then known as Goatspell, on vocals.  It also featured members of Liers in Wait, neatly tying all three of the bands together, though Grotesque actually is the band from which the other two flowed, pre-dating both and actually being one of the first Swedish death metal bands. 

This is a compilation featuring most of the recorded output by Grotesque from 1988 through 1990.  Unfortunately the band would not stay together long enough to release a full-length album, just like fellow Swedish death pioneers Nihilist (who basically split into Entombed and Unleashed).  This stands as the best way to check out the works of this highly influential band.

The earlier material features a strong Possessed influence, what with the razor-sharp, high-octane riffing style.  Later tracks clearly start to show that they paved the way for the likes of Dismember, with buzzing guitar riffs and harsh, barked vocals.  Occasionally, a slower, more occult-sounding section takes center stage.  It is clear throughout this release that the band was attempting to find itself.  But one thing never changed: each song fucking slays.  This is absolutely one of the greatest Swedish death metal releases of all time, and I say that as a huge fan of the scene. 

It is a damn shame that Grotesque did not stick around to release a full-length.  They were an amazingly talented group with a lot of great ideas that were just starting to take shape.  Of the three releases I have covered recently, this one is by far my favorite.  And that is truly saying something. 

Ibex Moon Records News: Fatalist Releases Video

I have mentioned it before: I am a big fan of the label Ibex Moon Records. They handle metal the right way and put out some absolutely killer records from great bands. I subscribe to Ibex Moon's newsletter through my email and, at one point, apparently signed on to be a member of their street team. I'm not sure when I did that, if it was a mistake or deliberate, but whatever. I suppose based on that, I would like to pass on whatever interesting word I receive from the label about bands who deserve some publicity. I don't expect anything out of this, I just wanted to pass along some underground metal that should be more popular.

Of their band roster, I have ordered releases from Incantation (singer John McEntee runs the label), Thornafire (twice), Estuary, Denial Fiend, Dawn of Azazel, Nominon, HOD, Master, Dreaming Dead, and Asphyx. I have ordered all of those releases from the record label and have found their prices to be fair and their shipping to be fast and reliable. What else could a metalhead want?

With that being said, Fatalist has released a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCnFFvdxxtE
http://www.myspace.com/fatalist666

Fatalist is a death metal band from California, who sound like they're from Stockholm, Sweden. Ah, Swedish death metal. Check out the video and the band.

Swedish Death Metal

Swedish Death Metal. It is one of those series of words that can be uttered and automatically, a vision (or in this case the audio equivalent of a vision) is played in the minds of those fortunate enough to know just what the hell I'm talking about. Norwegian black metal is another one and German thrash metal is another one still and Milwaukee polka fusion (okay, that last one I may have made up). Swedish death metal had a style and sound all it's own. It was so popular that there was even a book written on the subject titled Swedish Death Metal (hint: Christmas idea for your favorite blogger) by Daniel Ekeroth.

The scene traces its origins to Stockholm. The sound is intense and aggressive: buzzsaw-sounding guitars attained through the use of down-tuning and distortion pedals, pounding drums, and deep growls and psychotic shrieks. The guitar sound came to be known as the Sunlight Studios guitar tone after the studio in which many of the bands often recorded.

So, what are the origins? Let's look at some bands:

First there was Nihilist and Carnage. I am unfortunately not terribly familiar with Carnage, so I can't say much about them. Nihilist recorded a bunch of demos, but never an actual full length album. The recordings were raw but that guitar tone was definitely present and the stage was set. Both Nihilist and Carnage soon split. Carnage members went on to form Dismember and Arch Enemy. Dismember will be discussed soon, Arch Enemy not so much in this post. Nihilist was finished when Johnny Hedlund left to form Unleashed. Which brings us to the next era in this sound and the time when it began taking on a life of its own.Dismember is one of the better groups from this wave, and my personal favorite. The band has quite simply not put out a bad album. They began as aggressive, take-no-prisoners death metal and they remained that way throughout their discography. They may have added some additional melodies occasionally, but their bloodlust still remains. The band is quite simply one of the best death metal bands, period.Unleashed is somewhat similar to Amon Amarth in that they often sing about Vikings and they play death metal. But where Amon Amarth has been accepted into the mainstream music scene somewhat (as much as any extreme metal band is capable I suppose), Unleashed has remained on the outside looking in. Why is that? One may never know.After Hedlund formed Unleashed, the remaining members of Nihilist formed the great Entombed. Entombed's first full length album was a re-recording of some of the Nihilist songs and set the gold standard for Swedish death metal. Left Hand Path is the album against which all other albums are measured. Unfortunately it was downhill from there. Not long after wards (their third album to be exact) the band started experimenting with other styles of metal. This style became known as death 'n roll. I will spare the descriptions, just imagine what the name would entail. This style wasn't bad, but it wasn't the same.While Entombed no longer plays this style, Dismember and Unleashed have remained true to their roots. Other bands that have played or do play Swedish death metal include Grave, Nominon, Hypocrisy, Chaosbreed (Finnish band, who knew?), Hail of Bullets (to a certain degree, definitely inspired by many of the bands), Aeon, Bloodbath (definitely a tribute band), Seance, Evocation, and many others.