| CD REVIEW Various Artists: Swedish Death Metal |
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Band: Various Artists The promotion of a local scene can be a positive element for the musical evolution within that region. This goes for both a ‘small’ scene (for example some bands from the same city / quarter / agglomeration), yet also for ‘national’ scenes. Within the Death and Black scene, many countries are ‘proud’ with their bands, and that’s why several samplers have been compiled and released in the past with just one goal: to show the rest of the world that supremacy and superiority can be a national issue. It’s true, sometimes it isn’t but some naïve would-be mentality that defines the reason to compile such an album, but some of those country-based albums are must-haves for fans. And nationalism to honour your native culture and craftsmanship can’t be bad at all, can it? And the most important element can be: many of such compilations consist of some (or all) unreleased or sold-out material, like exclusive and unreleased tracks, or live versions, or material from, for example, (rare) vinyl-releases from the past. Examples: Lûsitania Dark Hordes (Portuguese underground Black Metal), the Lugburz-compilations (from Belgium), Destroyers From The Western Skies (USBM), Fire And Ice (Iceland), Ultimate Revenge (Poland) and so on, and so on, and so on. And maybe you do still remember the ‘legendary’ compilation tapes from Pilgrom, among which the Pelgrim-tape, featuring old school Death, Grind, Doom and Black bands from Belgium exclusively. Another example is Swedish Death Metal, a three-album compilation with, indeed, bands from the Swedish Death Metal scene. And this compilation isn’t just another collection of Swedish material, but it’s an intelligently compiled catalogue, accompanying the release of the same-called book by Daniel Ekeroth. Of course ‘Sweden’ is an important name when it comes to Death Metal. Still this country is one of the leading ones when it comes to extreme Metal, but it’s been this way since the early years. As a matter of fact, the current international Death Metal scene wouldn’t be what it is now without the influential importance of the Swedish scene. As from the very beginning, this country was one of the protagonists, and this appears in two directions: 1) many, many bands and recordings (with, of course, the risk to have loads of nonsense versus a handful of qualitative material) and 2) the sad existence of copycats all over the world, trying to float on the success of this national scene (especially Italy is a country with (too) many bands that try to copy Swedish bands, yet most of the time with a total lack of inspiration and creativity). But it cannot be denied that this specific Scandinavian country needs to be praised for the existence of such an enormous Death Metal scene! Compare it to the importance of Norway within the Black Metal-scene, if you want to. Swedish Death Metal consists of three discs, with a totality of 52 tracks (and almost as many different bands; a few bands are featured twice on these discs). First of all I need to explain my enthusiasm about the featured bands. It is, of course, impossible to compile a track from every single band that was active within the Swedish Death Metal scene about twenty years ago. We would need a hundred-disc-box, and even then many bands and projects wouldn’t be featured. However, the choice for the bands, presented on Swedish Death Metal, is a well-thought one. A few names are from bands that are still active (or active again, like Séance) and, in a way, pretty popular. Some of them still create qualitative Death Metal epic, yet a few have changed their style throughout the years. But even these bands were of not measurable importance at the cradle of the Death-history. And different names featured here aren’t that well-known at all, probably except to those who were ‘within the scene’ back then. And yes, it’s nice to listen to those bands too, realising even they did put their mark on the scene, in spite of the fact they might have never recorded anything official during their existence. Secondly the chosen tracks are superb too. These aren’t always the most logical ones, and I do appreciate this unpredictability with lust and satisfaction. Praise the Horned One for it! Except for one track, taken from a 2007-demo tape, and one from a 1998-demo, all songs were originally recorded and released between 1986 and 1993. The first disc especially consists of tracks from demos from the late eighties (1986-1990), disc two features tracks from more ‘official’ releases (albums and EP’s) (1989-1993), and the third one is a collection of demo- and EP-hymns from the period 1990-1994 (except for both higher mentioned ones). A remark may be this one: demo tapes, vinyl releases (7” and 12” EP’s were not that unusual at all in the first half of the nineties, and the musical audience wasn’t trusted with CD’s yet) or even some albums from ‘the early years’ are hard to get nowadays. It can be fun to have a compilation with a single track from different old recordings, but of course some might prefer the re-release of ‘complete’ recordings, demos or singles in their totality (cf. True Kings Of Norway amongst tons of other same-minded and related splits). But in this case, with such a glorious list of artists, this discussion would be too narrow-minded, so I can conclude: !!! Featured bands: Mefisto (with the ‘oldest’ track, from 1986), Obscurity, Corpse (pre-Grave), Merciless, Morbid (one of the Stockholm-scene protagonists), Nihilist (= pre-Entombed), Putrefaction (Grave-side-project), Carnage (with Michael Amott), Therion (back then already innovative; two tracks), Carbonized (two titles), Expulsion, Grave (featured with two tracks too), Sorcery, Tribulation, Afflicted Convulsion, Dismember (two songs), Desultory, Grotesque (pre-Liers In Wait), Entombed, Nirvana 2002, General Surgery, Unleashed (still one of the most intense and epic Death Metal bands from Sweden, excuse me, from Mother Earth), Tiamat, At The Gates (Gothenburg-protagonists), Liers In Wait (also Gothenburg-sound), Edge Of Sanity (Dan Swanö), Cemetary, Afflicted, Marduk (Black Metal, but there’s only a thin line between both scenes), Dissection (idem ditto), Evocation, Séance (recently reformed), Toxaemia, Furbowl (with current Hearse-members), Suffer, Traumatic, Macrodex (first in a row from the Eskilstuna-scene), House Of Usher (with a later At The Gates-member), Crypt Of Kerberos, Eternal Darkness, Interment, Uncanny, S.G.R., Sarcasm, Crematory, Necrony, Repugnant and the young formation Katalysator (which recently changed its moniker into Invidious, if I’m not mistaken). 100,001/100 Ivan Tibos. |