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. 

Initial Impressions: Unleashed: As Yggdrasil Trembles

It's turning out to be a pretty good year for metal as many of the most consistently great bands are putting out more great albums. Unleashed adds to the fold. The band who paved the way for Amon Amarth's brand of viking-fueled melodeath released its next opus to the berserker.

As with Dark Tranquillity below, if you have heard one Unleashed album, you probably know what to expect here. Buzzsaw guitars, surprisingly melodic riffs, and deep barked vocals. The band's sound is similar to Amon Amarth. Perhaps that should be reworded, Amon Amarth's sound is similar to Unleashed. It's up for debate. At any rate, if you like Amon Amarth, you should definitely check out Unleashed.

The vocals are the major difference between the two bands. Johan Hegg of Amon Amarth has a deeper voice and is a bit more powerful, with a lionesque roar. Unleashed vocalist Johnny Hedlund comes off more as a rabid dog, aggressively snarling his lyrics. Both bands sing a lot about Vikings, warfare, and Norse mythology though.

The songs are all right around the four to five minute mark and are built around one strong riff, with other riffs, tremolo-picked guitars, solos, and gruff vocals piled on. The songs are memorable and there is enough going on musically to listen to over and over again.

This is another great new album this year by a band that has been at it for over two decades.

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.