Craft - Terror Propaganda (2002)

Terror Propaganda is another of the early Craft records which has so many similarities to the earlier post-Soulside Journey Darkthrone material, back when those Norsemen were first exploring black metal, that it's not hard to understand why some were calling it a knockoff. But when you dig beneath just the surface impressions I think there's plenty going on here to enjoy...are they paying tribute to their more established peers? Absolutely. The black/white cover with the pose (but hey no fire breathing!). The entirely colorless, nihilistic lyrics and pure malevolence created through the riff progressions and vocals. The first song here is even titled "Ablaze". But it's a damn GOOD tribute, is the thing, and never tries to hide it, and in exploring this sound, once again develops a few ideas of its own that make it eminently re-listenable.

They did drop a bit of that Hellhammer influence here, especially in the guitar tone. Some of the slower, oozier riffs have disappeared, although not entirely, and you'll recognize it in songs like "Reaktor 4". In fact, much of the material here is still mid-pace cruise mode, but that's also where they come up with a lot of their darker guitar patterns ("The Silence Thereafter"). The tremolo picking guitars have evolved from the debut, and more confidently take the lead on some of the tunes, but they've also got some layers of atmospherics or melodies that will appear at the edge of perception to elevate the material. Some would say that the Hellhammer bits have transformed into the 'black & roll' school of riffing, and that's true, but once again one of my favorite parts of the recording, for example in "Hidden Under the Skin" these bad ass guitars balance out nicely against the more wistful melancholy of the licks in the mid-paced blasting sequence. And "False Orders Begone" is an amazing use of that Hellhammer vibe into something that feels fresh with Mikael's nasty vocals slathered all over it.

They still use some of the crazy screams here, and they feel more bloody and fresh-killed than on the debut, adding more depth to the heights. I would say that the overall structure of the album is slower, but they never become boring, always exploring some ideas to flesh out the compositions which are usually only 3-5 minutes to begin with. The drums are tinny and efficient as was popular for this necro niche of black metal, but I didn't notice a lot of bass presence throughout, it's certainly taking more of a back seat than Total Soul Rape, but not absent. We've still not hit the peak of the Craft yet, and this one isn't quite so diabolically fun as the debut, but I'd say musically it's one I place just a stride beyond that. It's a little colder, more atmospheric, and numbing, but still has tasteful evil melodic licks and dark, powerful grooves.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (We are messengers)

https://www.facebook.com/craftblackmetal

Craft - Total Soul Rape (2000)

Craft was such a cool band to see at the turn of the century because they were already playing this retro brand of necro black metal only a decade or less since the originals. The Darkthrone parallels were obvious here, from the black & white photography on the cover to the sound that was heavily reminiscent of Hellhammer and early Celtic Frost. That said, they've got plenty of personality unto themselves, with a few creative riffing ideas that they were adding to that legacy, some truly nasty vo-kills and an unapologetically dark and depressive attitude that is on full display throughout the lyrics. The debut Total Soul Rape was my first exposure, and while I enjoyed it to an extent, the years have definitely given me a greater appreciation for its brash charisma.

You've got that fuzzy rhythm guitar tone circa Hellhammer, the difference is that Craft will burst out into these tremolo picked evil riffs or blasted messes that were taken from the earlier second wave stuff. The stuff is pretty saturated, the drums rocking out with a nice crash and clutter to them as the bass lines just churn back and forth below. The vocals have this hideous presence front and center, as I think was the intention, but everything else is also pretty clear and loses no potency against Mikael's formidable rasp. Most of the tracks have this really memorable feature to them, also, like the frilly, whipping leads in "Death to Planet Earth", the climactic dissonant grooving riffs of "(Desolation) Death", or the doomy Hellhammer riffs in "Past, Present, Dead". The band might seem purposefully raw and unrefined on the surface, but they were good songwriters even from this earlier stage, even the debatable choices on this record like the weird wailed vocals that occasional appear seem deliberate and effective atmospherics.

Lyrically it's bleak; not in a 'bad' way (is there a good way?), but just about every song here is apocalyptic in scope, supremely nihilistic and misanthropic, whether it's teabagging Satan or not. So in other words, it's your average 90s black metal approach which earns the tile of 'grimness', and let's face it, when we gaze upon its Darkthrone-like title with the splash of red/orange in the logo/title, that is exactly what we would expect. Total Soul Rape is not my favorite release from them, but it's also got a lot more longevity to it than your typical newspaper-tone necro-black metal recording, of which there have been countless released since this one (and a lot before it too). This really holds up, and I had fun listening to it here in 2025 as much or more than ever in the past. It's like A Blaze in the Northern Sky if you turned off the air conditioner and cranked up the evil instead.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (purest noxious water)

https://www.facebook.com/craftblackmetal

Bloodbath - Survival of the Sickest (2022)

As a fan of both Nick Holmes AND Bloodbath, I was excited to hear what could be produced with them working together, especially since I had only been used to hearing his harsher death vocals over the earlier, slowest, death/doom Paradise Lost stuff. Grand Morbid Funeral sort of gave me what I wanted, but The Arrow of Satan is Drawn was a case of very diminishing returns, and frankly I felt like the band was trying to mold itself away from that well-produced, groovy death metal that put its all-star lineup on the map once again with another entity. Survival of the Sickest is a bit of a rebound from all that, and it's the collaboration I WANTED to hear once I knew Nick was joining the band, taking me back to the great, morbid fun riffing and production I enjoyed on discs like The Fathomless Mastery or Nightmares Made Flesh.

That's not to say it drops off the more atmospheric, filthy elements from the prior to records, it just takes them and places them sparingly into the core of what made Bloodbath so great to begin with. The Jonas Renkse bass here is super ruddy and filthy, and Anders and Tomas are just chopping the axes up between great old US or Swedish death metal riffing, tried and true with little flights of atmospheric leads that erupt at just the right time over some protracted Nick Holmes growl which he often layers above the syllabic grunting of the verses and chorus. Part of me had hoped Jonas and Anders would at least continue together in this band if not Katatonia...it seems unlikely, but if this is going to be their swan song, then it's well worthwhile. Not to diminish the contributions of the rest...Martin Axenrot's drumming is muscular, grooving and a perfect accompaniment to the churning, Morbid Angel-like grooves in "Dead Parade" or the whirlwind chaos assault of "Malignant Maggot Therapy". Tomas and Anders have more riffs and zippy evil leads than a shelf full of OSDM classics...

...and Nick has TRULY found his stride here, sounding just as awesome here as any of the older albums with Mikael or Peter singing. It's fun to hear those longer growls in faster-paced music, and if I had ever any question of him fitting in with this band that is now officially crushed, because he's fuckin' great. Survival of the Sickest isn't the catchiest death metal record of all time, but it's deliciously old school in all the best ways where that ancient sound had just started to convert to the brutality of the 90s and 00s. This is definitely not your stock Swedish overdrive sound circa Entombed, it's got a little bit of that inspiration but it's much more fun and groovy, with a guitar tone and writing style that don't necessarily place it so much geographically as it does chronologically. 45 minutes of fun that should satisfy anyone into Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Edge of Sanity, Hypocrisy, Vader, and death metal in general.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://www.bloodbath.biz/

Ribspreader - Crypt World (2022)

When it comes to Rogga and his thousand death metal projects, I've long since lost the pulse. And who could blame me, because while I was fully on board and interested back when there were just a dozen, I don't think I ever expected the 'central' bands like Paganizer and Ribspreader to remain so prolific through all these years, while so many others were spawned. Yet here we are, with the 9th full-length offering from the latter, and I'm not sure I can properly distinguish it from others by Revolting or whatever else is still kicking around, it's just such an onslaught of middling-to-decent material that I feel like certain chunks could be intermingled, interchanged and none would be the wiser. The rub is that the guy knows his aesthetics damn well, and on almost any album across his career, you can find yourself nodding along or outright headbanging to the finer riffs and leads, and isn't that what matters?

Crypt World has the cool cover artwork that brings you back to the 90s classics, an image that transports you into some cosmic horror/Lovecraftian otherverse where the brutality is the twisted architecture, and sky is grim and you are hopeless flesh to be twisted into the annals of death metal history. The mix is fully competent, with the crunch and burn of the guitars out front, not entirely embracing a typical Swedish HM-2 pedal style tone, but certainly amenable to those seeking that. The riffs range between your fun, flexing d-beat style and then more structured thrashing or Floridian evil. His vocals are gruesome and ugly gutturals, but not too low-pitched, and frankly they feel a little repetitive and underproduced although he does hit some sustain on certain lines and tries not to grow terribly monotonous. I think it's a weakness of this and numerous other efforts, and a bit more time mixing them against the snarls or the thicker riffs would do wonders to make this more memorable. Drums are workmanlike, bass almost never matters through the nine tracks, used only as some concrete reinforcement to the sum battery of the style. The slight industrial metal feel to first verse of "Good Hatchet Fun" is a cute surprise, but not that elaborate.

Quality of riffing itself is solid, nothing too unique or progressive, but there's variation between more open, doomy chords (in "The Bone Church" chorus) and writhing tremolo-picked bits, and some of them sound appropriately menacing and evil despite the factory-churned feel of the production. The leads are a highlight here, whipping and frenzied and often brief, but ramping up the atmosphere that the meat & potatoes death metal lacks elsewhere. Lyrics and song titles are pretty sweet, though they seem like they're pulled from some Rogga AI-generation because of the similarity to so many others, but as I hinted above, the guy just has such a handle on this style that inspired him that he's one of its most ardent emulators and participants. Any time I think I might fall asleep, he knows how to slightly perk my attention with some cutting riff, but as I have thought so many times in the past, what if he merged some of these projects together, took more time refining the best of his ideas, forging the best goddamn throwback death metal the world over? I think he might just do that if he wasn't Rib-spreading himself so thin, and though Crypt World is an effective enough disc, fun for a couple spins, it just can't be more because it feels so slated into a schedule.

Verdict: Win [7/10]
 
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100044948155884

Xorsist - Deadly Possession (2022)

It's 1991. You've got Left Hand Path and Like an Everflowing Stream. You are hooked. You want more. Sifting through the demos and tape trades, you might come across something quite akin to what Xorsist recorded for their first full-length Deadly Possession, albeit the general levels of loudness and production that mark it as a more contemporary release. This is one of the gloomier bands I've come across using the sound, not only in obvious places like the "Gold Beneath the Sand" intro with its eerie clean guitars, bells and drums, but across the whole of its production. Xorsist seems like an attempt to take that prototypical Swedish style manifest by Nihilist, Carnage, and the aforementioned and then sink it a few feet deeper into that old bog that now doubles as a graveyard.

Does it work? In some ways, I can say that the band pays an adequate homage to their countrymen and forebears. Once the speed picks up and the guitars are roiling around, there are strong Left Hand Path vibes, only with a riff-set that feels derivative and uninteresting. Cast into this murky, impenetrable night that they've chosen for the production aesthetics, I hear a lot of potential, it stirs up the same sorts of feelings that I got back at the turn of the 80s-90s decade when I first encountered the sound. But in terms of writing tracks that are exciting or memorable, they fall behind. The transitions on the album feel a bit sloppy in places, whether by design or not, I never felt like they were capitalizing on the shifts between the blast beats or the loping, primordial grooves. Chord choice is probably also at fault, so much of the material doesn't stick, and though the primitive leads are appreciated when they appear, they too don't cultivate a lot of compelling or eerie atmosphere; like they've clamped on to the correct placement but not yet thought the patterns or squealing effects through.

The bass is voluminous and dense, and the drums have a good natural clatter to them, but they've got little of quality to drive forward and also have a few jarring fills and transitions. Vocals are a nihilistic (ha!) bark that suits the material but doesn't ever feel quite psychotic enough. In terms of the weighted gloom of the production, though, I do rather like that, it definitely matches the spooky horror mood of the album's themes even though the music itself isn't the greatest. There are a few moments where Deadly Possession does actually together, like the lead roaring out into the atmosphere of "Alive", or the punky, thundering energy of the verse to "Cranial Nails", or the title track, which is tucked back at the end of the track list, but warbles between some brighter, grind vibes and ripping death metal, with some cool vocals on the grooves, only the transitions on this one also feel a bit underdeveloped

Does this tide you over in 1991 while you're waiting for the next drops from your Swedish faves? It might, honestly, but considering that we're multiple decades into this niche, the album just doesn't come across as strongly as something like the Katakomba s/t debut I was drooling over recently. Deadly Possession has its black, rotting heart in the right place. Cool cover art, logo, even the band name really brings you back, reminiscent of pre-Obituary. This also has that swampy, frightening atmosphere going for it, through which some lonely wandering soul might not know what could approach behind any gravestone, any withered tree, but the songs and instruments are inconsistent, something they'll actually work on for their sophomore At the Somber Steps of Serenity, without dropping the rawness and ugliness that defines their take on the style. Deadly Possession isn't a bust, exactly, if you want your death metal rough around the edges, putrid, evil and gut-wrenching, but the songs themselves just don't bring as much enjoyment as the atmosphere created around them.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

https://www.instagram.com/xorsistofficial/

Lucifer - V (2024)

The first few singles I had heard of Lucifer V before its release were alright, but didn't leave me quite so excited as I was for its predecessors. Turns out that was the usual smoke & mirrors of maybe a label or band members choosing material that wasn't quite the best, because nearly every other track on this album is absolutely the nut. It might lack some degree of surprise and progression that I'd felt for prior entries, and a lot of the writing here seems like it's hanging out on the plateau with Lucifer IV, but still snooping about for points of ascent, higher grounds to scale of pools of diabolic lava to dip its toes into, and in the end I've even come around to some of those advance tracks as cogs in a very consistent, grooving occult hard rock machine.

The moody "Slow Dance in a Crypt" and "At the Mortuary" were the two I had encountered, and the former has its place as something bluesier, but a little too predictable in its progressions. Still, if you're at the prom, with someone missing most of their flesh, I think this is the exact sort of song you'd hear playing in the end credits of that particular Carrie sequel, and it does have a nice twist in the end with the pianos and elevating vocal line. But when you've got so many other scorchers here like the Priest-y "Fallen Angel", or "Riding Reaper" which I could hear ending up on an old 70s Scorpions album, everything really balances out. Lucifer revels in taking the familiar and then giving it a little spin here, a chord change there that makes it freshly memorable and unique to their own legacy. A few of my favorites here are tucked away near the end like the rocking "Strange Sister", or another bluesy piece, the creeping "Nothing Left to Lose but My Life", but by this point I've listened through the whole album and don't find any compulsion to skip past anything.

Production is steller, the band pulls off one of those cleaner 70s-style atmospheres and yet it can go toe to toe with modern rock, and helps translate the darker vibes to the guitars. It's just a perfect tone for everything...organs, acoustics, drums, and especially Johanna's voice, which is still one of the best out there, she might not have the craziest range, but there's a wicked smoothness to her pitch that hangs tight even when she becomes a little more desperate and shrill, and again it adds to the sense that this is an unearthed relic. But that's not to take away from the other players here, like Nicke who's fills and thundering totally moor "Maculate Heart" so that it kicks even further ass, and the sweet guitars of Martin and Linus which knock out the harder punching chords and burn bluesy through the airbrushed muscle car nightscape this album once again created for the Swedes. Another excellent Lucifer album, I'd probably place it on par with III, I had a slightly stronger connection to IV; though at this rate I hope they can keep this up to X.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10]

https://www.facebook.com/luciferofficial

Revolting - Born to Be Dead (2022)

Has anyone come up with a comprehensive death metal discography for 'Revolting' Rogga Johansson yet? He must now have hundreds of albums under his belt across scores of projects, and while this was a thing I used to try and keep up with, I feel as if I've been left behind in the last decade. Revolting was actually one of the bands I would have considered among his 'core' projects once upon a time, along with a Ribspreader or Paganizer, but to be truthful these three and several of his others cross the streams a bit when it comes to cultivating a truly distinct identity. At any rate, Born to Be Dead, this project's eighth proper full-length, exhibits the same level of professionalism and genre knowledge that Rogga's spews everywhere, and it's the sort of album that, barring anything else available to you from the same niche, is a pretty good time that covers all the bloody bases successfully enough.

There is definitely a heavy, thick 'Swedish' sound to this one reminiscent of Entombed and Dismember, but with a lot of mournful, melodic playing attached which might be more akin to classic Desultory, but it all merges into a satisfactory package, assuming you aren't seeking out much complexity, or tunes that are going to roll around your memory for much time beyond that you spend listening to it. The low end churns along wonderfully, with perfectly balanced rhythm guitars doing their D-beat or tremolo picked riffs, omni present bass swells and thundering, precision percussion, all forming this seat that the simple melodies and the raunchy growls can settle into comfortably, but beyond just a handful of riffs, the tracks rarely go anywhere that exciting. All of them have been heard in similar configurations, even by this very same artist, and though they have a general timelessness about them that scratch my Swedeath itches, the tracks don't really stand out against one another.

If it sounds like Rogga can write 50 of these tunes in a single day, that's because he probably can...the guy LIVES death metal, in fact if we had to choose an avatar for this beloved medium on Earth, he might be the very one, but that doesn't prevent a bit of complacency and also-ran mentality from the meat & potatoes of this band's style and catalogue. I was a bit more fond of the earlier Revolting albums, but many of them have all started to blend together, not that this one is egregiously weak, or weak at all...no, most of us would happily band our heads along to the thick, syrupy production and purity of the style, but some of Johansson's projects have gone a little further out on the limbs in recent years, and while Born to Be Dead LOOKS amazing, and sounds very damn solid, it just can't cross the 'decent' threshold into something more impressive and impactful. 

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.facebook.com/revoltingdeathmetal/

Tribulation - Putrid Rebirth EP (2006)

Although I adore the Gothic/melodic death metal evolution that Sweden's Tribulation has undergone, I was first introduced to the band on their 2009 opus The Horror, which was a much more explosive, energetic sound that felt like your trademark Swedish death metal getting a nasty, awesome thrashing kick in the pants. I would argue that that full-length debut remains their best overall album, a masterpiece of feral ferocity, though I take no issue with their later explorations whatsoever, it's almost as if they've given us at LEAST two good bands to worship over their career thus far (three if we include Formulas of Death as its own weird, psyche/death metal thing). Though I've reviewed a bunch by the Swedes, somehow it evaded my brain me to cover the band's EP PRIOR to The Horror, Putrid Rebirth.

So here I remedy this oversight, and to the surprise of none, this earlier material has the same propulsive and almost spastic energy to it that The Horror perfected later. This is some ghoulish death/thrash with a clear 80s ancestry, a blend of evil grooves circa Death and then the dizzying speed rhythms of a band like Morbid Angel. You can tell that the band was already adept at creating this shit, the only thing that Putrid Rebirth is really missing is a production as memorable as the debut, and to an extent the songs just aren't quite as catchy as what would come later. But it's all here, from the skilled drumming to the effective leads to the rabid barking. There's a bit of a jam room aesthetic to the mix, which is otherwise dry but fluidly captures all the instruments, it's not quite demo level (they have one before this I think), but on the level of some earlier 90s straightforward death metal records. There's not a lot of atmosphere for your imagination to work with, but the central thrust of the riffing and beats won't give you much time to notice.

The two sides of the EP have slightly different production, with the first more blunt and straight to your face, and the second a bit more atmospheric, kind of a bridge to The Horror but again, just not as skin peelingly amazing as that album sounds. Even if you have no interest whatsoever in the more dramatic style the band is exploring now, this and the debut are both fairly easy to recommend to anyone on the hunt for well wrought old school death metal. Putrid Rebirth is frantic and fun, especially if you've got no patience for bullshit and just want everything to sound like your buds' demos in 1991-92 that they were passing out before opening up for something like the Grind Crusher tour. There's nothing atypical about this, but if you like splatter, you like vintage death metal, get a copy.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.tribulation.se/

Embracing - Dreams Left Behind (1997)

Ironically, the sophomore Embracing album Dreams Left Behind had slightly superior production to the debut, and in addition I thought that the artwork was also a little better...the band (or label) really likes its purple tones but, hey, that can look flashy with its razor-hone digital logo. That's the thing with a lot of these old Invasion Records releases, there was just this fantastical, dreamy quality to them, even some of the bad ones, which sparks my nostalgia. That said, the mix of this disc is still really weak when compared against many of the other Swedish bands performing in this style, in full froth as it was breaking out all over the world during this period, and while the music here is nothing to really scoff at, it just made me crave a better sounding version of the debut instead...

The volume's a little better with the instruments, from the cleaner strings to the clean vocals which aren't all that good performance-wise, but sound pretty smooth. Piano, synthesizer and other accoutrements are used liberally to contrast against the melodeath moments, which by this point all feel fairly standard and don't have a ton of payoff. In fact, some of the guitar tones in cuts like "Stolen Memories" still feel as if they haven't been mixed so well, a little thicker than on the debut, and not so disturbingly tinny, but neither are they exception. And in other places, like "Killers Nature", they mete out this great winding melody which probably deserved a better song overall. The harsh vocals here still seem a little on the loud side, and it makes it that much more awkward when they alternate into some of the cleans, but this wasn't really a band you listen to for that as much as the guitar-work.

And the guitars are pretty friendly here, perhaps too much in some places, as they almost flirt with a bit of softer rock on their attempts to create acoustic sequences worthy of "Moonshield" on In Flame's masterwork The Jester Race. There are certainly some decent moments spread throughout this one, with a lot of mood or melancholy, but they're almost always botched up by a clean vocal that just doesn't quite reach where it wants to be, or an issue with the mix. Embracing was just throttled by this problem throughout its brief sting, and while it's not as big of an issue with Dreams Left Behind, and this is pleasant enough, I simply liked the songs from the debut much more.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

Embracing - I Bear the Burden of Time (1996)

I Bear the Burden of Time is the textbook example of an album that could have likely succeeded if not for a crippling production that rendered it little more than long demo. Embracing clearly had the chops to reach the next level with a lot of their Swedish peers, and even came up with a few riffing configurations or ideas that felt fresh to me as I was exploring all this stuff in the 90s, but damn does this album just sound rather weak in the execution of its mix. Now I say that as a fan, this is my favorite of their two offerings, and I think it's worth a listen even despite this major shortcoming, but to think what an AAA+ studio production would have done for all these catchy tunes. I'm vaguely aware of a digital reissue for this that came out like a decade afterwards, which may or may not have a remaster, but even worse cover artwork, so I can't really speak if that solves the problem or if it's even just too late to matter...

Early At the Gates or Dark Tranquillity would be your reference point here, with thin and melodic rhythm guitars as the rule rather than constant barrages of thicker chords. Sure, the latter are present when it matters, but this is a band that simply THRIVES on those old classic metal melodies coursing across the verses and chorus sections. Even with this tinny mix, the mood being created by those lines and the chords and bass beneath is ample evidence enough that this was some choice stuff neutered by the low-impact recording. The vocals are actually fairy standard for the style, a protracted rasp that falls more in line with black metal, but it's just too loud in the mix and that sort of grinds against the more beautiful performance of the instruments. You do get some other vocals here, distant shouts of torment as in "Shades Embrace", and those are automatically more atmospheric and interesting, but it's again not that the vocals are bad, they are spot on for the style, just given a little too much heft against the true gifts that the album has to offer.

Clean guitar parts, leads, synths, I Bear the Burden of Time had a lot to offer, total 90s escapism that feels like melodeath flirting with a bit of proggy/Goth atmosphere, but sounding like a bad demo tape that your friends recorded in your basement one soggy afternoon with the early version of some dated digital recording software. If you could bulk this one up like a Whoracle, a Rusted Angel, or even to the level of a Steel Bath Suicide (which was itself a little rougher than normal, but a masterpiece by comparison to this), Embracing would have had their feet in the door towards that upper echelon of Swedish melodic death metal royalty, or at least this debut would enjoy a cult status greater than just a handful of curmudgeons who complain about what might have been...

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

Non Serviam - The Witches Sabbath (2000)

Necrotical was obviously not meant to be the end of Non Serviam's trajectory, as they released another single around the turn of the century, and there was enough interest to get their demos out through Nocturnal after Invasion Records had pretty much folded. Having only a middling opinion of their 1997 debut Between Light and Darkness, I wasn't too excited by what The Witches Sabbath would represent, a re-issue of the two demos the band released leading up to that debut. Also, like the two albums, the band just never had good cover art, it was always a little bland or obscured, and this twisty digitally tooled image of some chicks lusting with the devil or a demon is just another prime example of how this style wouldn't age well whatsoever...

The demos sound fine, however, in fact they probably sound a little more engaging than the debut album, and most of the same tracks appear on both, so it's understandable why the band might want these put out there for the public to consume. That doesn't really improve the musical quality, they were gunning for that nexus between the Swedish black metal and melodic death all along, but I would say that the sounds here, perhaps being slightly cruder, favor the former genre just a smidgeon. A couple of cuts like the title track from that second demo sound pretty decent in this incarnation, wistful and erotic black metal with enough atmosphere to carry you back to that vital 90s era when so much of this was breaking new ground for us crusty old heshers. In fact, I'd say that if you could just track this collection down, and then head straight over to Necrotical, or the Hellspell album; that would be in your best interest, the tunes just seem a little more authentic in this format. But then again, it's not that inspiring when there were so many better choices during these years.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

Non Serviam - Necrotical (1998)

If Necrotical surpasses the Non Serviam debut in any way, it's that it just remembers to rock your face off much harder; the way they've taken the same elements they were championing on Between Light and Darkness and translated those into punishingly fun tracks. Perhaps they cranked up the death metal influence here a little bit, as you'll feel in a tune like "Hatred Unleashed" in the verses, but you've got still got plenty of that vintage Swedish melodeath, and some surges of obvious black metal. The sophomore doesn't really settle down for any one style more than its predecessor, but it doesn't actually need to, because this time the chords and vocals fit together in more memorable patterns, and they really lose nothing of the wider net they were casting just a year before.

Don't get too excited, because this one can't exactly rub elbows with any of the A- or B-tier successes from that Swedish scene, but if you were into albums like Night in Gales' Thunderbeast or either of the Gandalf full-lengths from Finland, you might appreciate how this is just a simpler and rocking distillation of the black and melodic death metal ingredients. The harsh vocals are more sustained and carnal, and the scarce cleans sound better placed, though still a little awkward. The drums just sound like a thunder sustaining the rest of the instruments, and they'll tear out these brief leads like in "Which Eternal Lie" that soar over the remainder. When the band gets mellow, too, they actually do well to set up the transitions back into the crushing force, but my favorite bits here are tunes like "Haunted Domains" which are just catchy as fuck headbangers which balance off the evil and the melody.

Now two of the members of this band also released Hellspell's Devil's Might, which was clearly a better produced and higher quality extension of the black metal aesthetics from Non Serviam, and I would recommend that album before either of these, despite its ugly cover. But Necrotical is one I can listen to from time to time and won't switch off once it starts, it's very straightforward in catching your attention, and while its own production isn't much better than the debut, it's just denser and darker and effective.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

Non Serviam - Between Light and Darkness (1997)

Non Serviam was another Invasion Records act which was attempting to service a number of the dominant Scandinavian metal trends of the time, without falling too much into a single category. Certainly there is a giant amount of Dark Tranquillity or At the Gates going into this debut, from the melodic riffing heavily reminiscent of the former, to the main rasped vocal that resembles Lindberg. At the same time, they were obviously immersed in the melodic black metal of peers like Dissection, Dawn and Dissection, so you have these two represented in about equal measure through Between Light and Darkness, without either one ever winning out, and both performed competently enough that anyone who was seeking out some of the same on either end might have have a go at this for a couple weeks when it was new.

As for myself, I don't particularly enjoy the production throughout this debut, it's snarly and does the job enough to make out all the riffs and instruments, but feels a little dry and depthless. The keys and bass guitars sound decent, the drums a little too splashy, and the vocals feel a bit plain when they are supposed to be spitting such vitriol. Non Serviam was not a band that lacked competence in the riffs, and the selections here were passable for either of the main styles wound through this, but often they come off as bland and predictable. There are quite a few that feel like pure heavy metal progressions (as in the title track), but these have just been done before elsewhere and better. The synthesizers were wisely just used for some emphasis on atmosphere, but even then they seem a little dull, they border on transforming the album into pure symphonic black metal in places but never quite arrive.

There are also some obnoxious clean vocals that pop up ("Satan's Spree") which aren't necessarily a bad idea on paper, but come off a little rough. However, once can't really deny some of the positives to this one, like the excellent bass playing or the kind of dark, dingy mood to which they twine these styles together. Between Light and Darkness has lots of potential, and they'll have another chance to manifest that, but I usually only listen to this one in small bursts, it's just not an album I wanna visit from one end to the other. Still, if you're basically a living encyclopedia for all these Swedish sounds of yore, this is one you might want to at least sample since it forms like a nexus of so much of what was happening in that scene in the mid 90s.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

Vargavinter - Frostfödd (1996)

Back in the 90s there was a bit of an explosion in popularity around the AD&D campaigns I was running, and we somehow ended up with a few dozen players (some at my University, some in my hometown), and I bring this up because for some reason long lost to my memory, this particular black metal album became like a 'mascot' for our play group. Perhaps we were just being ironic because those of us who were also metalheads had become so inundated with the black metal genre that we found it a bit silly or cliched, but we were constantly lavishing praise upon this as some sort of gag. In the end, though, the joke was really on us, because Frostfödd is actually a solid, unsung Swedish black metal effort and one of the Invasion Records releases that I pull out most often when I'm in the mood.

It has all the staples: the purply-frost artwork mirrored photography, the glowing digital logo and title, and a sound which nobody would ever accuse of any sort of originality. There are times when I get this one mixed up with other Swedish -vinter bands, like Midvinter, or Vinterland, but in truth this is defined by a strictly straightforward, blasting black metal aesthetic which doesn't often attempt to leap out at you with severely catchy riffing, but will throw in a few surprises like the flute in the title track, or an oboe, or some spoken word pieces. When it comes to the majority metal ingredients, it's quite akin to a Marduk or Dark Funeral, blasting away with abandon, simple migrations of chords that get you fully in the mood for this old Swedish stuff, slathered with strong, impish rasping, intense drums that never need to let up, and a pretty swarthy low end with some audible bass, although it too often mimics the rhythm guitar patterns and doesn't quite stand out.

There can also be a folksy swagger as with the great initial riff on "Den lybska örn", but even that one cedes to the incorruptible blasting purity. However, where a Marduk might use such a constrained and aggressive style to convey imagery of warfare or Hell, you can subtly feel a more nature-oriented warmth coming through the chord choices on Frostfödd, and it simultaneously feels like the writing was not terribly original, but also a head of its time, since there are floods of notes here that feel like precursors to so much of the nature black metal or post-black metal of later years. Vargavinter had nothing on much more memorable, interesting bands like Dissection or Mörk Gryning in the same scene, but it's solidly produced, purist black metal that with just a little something extra for when I'm combing the shelves for a good frosty face-blasting...perhaps a poor choice of words.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

Hellspell - Devil's Might (1999)

Another forgotten album that haunted the Invasion Records roster, Hellspell's Devil's Might was a one-off Swedish black metal effort which resembled a lot of its peers for the day. The band's name was rather a catchy one, but perhaps it was the completely awful digital artwork of the devil himself that held fans back from checking this one out, or a saturation of Satanic black metal by the close of the millennium when the audience was starting to seek out something different. I feel confident though, that had this album dropped 3-4 years earlier, and been better-looking, it would be one of those gems we froth over akin to a Sacramentum, Lord Belial, or Setherial. That's not to say it's in any way unique or remarkable, but it's one that I can break out from time to time and enjoy listening through.

Part of that is the great production, which highlights every evil riff, snarling vocal, and the intense battery and blasting of the drums. Hellspell is like a more compact Dark Funeral, the songs tend not to wear out their welcome like some of their more elongated Swedish peers, they hone in on just a few riffs, dowse them in wicked chords and atmospheres and growling, and entertain. It's never just mindless blasting, the bands is fully capable of doing so, but always chooses to service the riff and structure rather than go on muscular tandems with no payoff. When they do opt for a longer tune, like "Reconstruction of a Lost World", the riffing goes wider and more adventurous, they play around with some slower tempos and mood over the more conventional black metal aesthetics, but you can already tell that it's starting to stretch itself a little thin, and thankfully there are fewer cases of this, and the nearly 6 minute closer "Devil's Might" is one of the best tunes on the whole album. The male clean choir to open "Demon Lord" is also sweet, but I wish that tune was a little more substantial to support more of them.

All told, though, Devil's Might is a scorcher that never really dulls other than perhaps that one longest track, and certainly strong enough that it should have garnered more attention than it got. Again, this might have been a question of packaging or the limited reach of the label, I personally found Invasion to be a fascinating way to connect with underground European black or melodic death metal acts that were new to me over in the states, but not a lot of bands emerged from that roster with much success. Still, they had a good ear for the second-stringers or third-stringers and I often have nostalgia to listen back to a lot of these, which is why I'm covering so many. This sole Hellspell album is no classic, but it's also got an evergreen feel to it that sounds just as potent today as it did when I first heard it, and it was also the work of a duo that was also responsible for another band on the same roster, Non Serviam.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

Indungeon - The Misanthropocalypse (1999)

Indungeon must have come to the same conclusion about their debut Machinegunnery of Doom that I did 25 years after the fact, because their sophomore effort The Misanthropocalypse is instantly more explosive and exciting than what they were writing just a few years prior. Now, they might not have really settled on a real direction yet, having just slapped it all together as a project, and the shift in quality here does come at the potential expensive that this could be considered a lot more trendy and 'current' with the melodeath explosion of the later 90s. With bands like Darkane and Soilwork releasing great statements in the wake of At the Gates, this group wasn't to be left too far behind, and thus there is very little sense of being deliberately old school as they were with Machinegunnery.

You might have encountered this album if you were digging deeper into the 'melodeath' of the era, or possibly the melodic Swedish black metal stuff like Dissection and Sacramentum, and that's exactly the crowd it would appear to. Workmanlike, but fast and involved melodic rhythms twisting about the shuffle of upbeat drumming, with the snarled, tortured vocals spilling all over it like fleshy entrails being torn from the carapace of some robot or Space Marine's armor. Yes, at its foundations you still have the 80s thrash influences, like most of this style, I can hear a little Slayer at the onset of "Sentenced to the Flames", for instance, but this one's meant for the brawling, boisterous weekend clubs where the band would presumably open up or interact with some of those bigger names in melodic death metal that were exploding all around the world, beyond just the Swedish scene. To that end, it's competitive, convulsing with energy, gang shouts and riffs that never suck even if they don't swindle their way straight into your memory.

It's furious, frenetic, and makes the debut sound like the tanks on its cover slowly treading along and taking heavy fire. The leads are serviceable, but there aren't enough of them and they don't stand out against the more brazen rhythm guitars crashing about the record's atmosphere. There's also a little bit of a bluesy flair that occasionally pops up like some of the licks in "Battletank No. II" that sound a fraction out of place and make The Misanthropocalypse sound more like a party than you'd hope. But considering that this would prove the project's swan song, you might as well go all out and bring your best Jimi Hendrix with the Bolt Thrower-meets-Nocturnus cover artwork. There is nothing really exceptional about the album, but if you're craving lost underground gems from this style and/or period, or you're a fan of perusing the good old Invasion Records roster (as I am), this one can still be a decent use of 35 minutes.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

Indungeon - Machinegunnery of Doom (1997)

Indungeon seems like it had the potential to be the sickest thing ever. A cool portmanteau band moniker. A clear nod to Warhammer 40K or some other sci-fi wargaming with a cover that belonged on a Bolt Thrower demo. The album title Machinegunnery of Doom, just how awesome is that? Then you look through the band's lineup and it's essentially a who's who of the Swedish underground, members of Indungeon had been involved with or would LATER be involved with Falconer, Thy Primordial, Vanhelgd, King of Asgard, Mithotyn, and Lucifer. This album also came around when bands were first starting to fish around in that retro territory with regards to blending vintage speed, thrash, death and black metal together much like their influences did during the Dawn of Time (otherwise known as the 80s). Sweden was ahead of the game in that regard, Bewitched being a prime example.

So with all that going for it, I am sad to say that Machinegunnery of Doom doesn't quite live up to all the expectations it created. It's competent enough, don't get me wrong, and has a well balanced production that lets all of its instruments and aesthetics shine, but it's absolutely the sort of metal import you'll bang your head along to a few times, appreciate the sincerity and execution, and then forget within a few moments, aside from perhaps the superficial details above. They basically play thrash metal from both the Slayer-ific and Teutonic schools, but it's very often meted out at a moderate pace and lacks many truly explosive or exciting moments. It might be that they were trying to give the material a more melodic, epic feel, almost as if Sodom around 1987 was dabbling around more with some NWOBHM influences like Iron Maiden, and it does actually pull that off, but the issue is that the riffs just don't really stick, and the nasty, gnarly rasped vocals, which are well-suited to a black/thrash or death/thrash outing, can't overcome the lukewarm songwriting.

I don't mean to bash on the thing, because again, it's got some solid production values, and if you were merely looking for some authentic blend of these seminal sounds, it's decent enough to spin in the background, but compared to something like Bewitched or the first two Witchery albums, both of which fall within the same mortar-shell scarred ballpark as this, the tunes come up short, like a bunch of average riffs strung together just to have another side project. There's a little bit of variation, with some slower grooving heavy metal tunes on there ("Desolate Creation"), but in either case it's just never all that heavy or aggressive or exciting, just competent to showcase the obvious proficiency of its constituents. Kind of a lost relic on the Full Moon Productions imprint, but they'll get another chance.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

Lake of Tears - Ominous (2021)

Had Lake of Tears remained consistent through its near 30 year existence, I would count Daniel Brennare's baby as one of my favorite doom bands of all time. Yet for every record I worship...Headstones, A Crimson Cosmos and the wonderful surprise that was Moons and Mushrooms, there seem to be a few disappointing duds that feel almost like contractual fulfillments that don't exactly forward their music or aesthetics in any tangible way. Forever Autumn from 1999 was as dull as a stump (though I seem to be in the minority there), and the band's last effort Illwill left something to be desired. After a decade, the longest break in Lake of Tears' history, Daniel returns with Ominous, an album that, while not quite in the company of those favorites, is compelling and sees the Swedish doom outfit along a fresh path...

What if you took the band's simple, drudging sound and complemented it with electronics that feel at once both novel and retro? Throw a little distortion on the vocals, a little sci-fi influence mixed with their usual introspective lyrics, and I am back on board in a big way. Ominous is by far the band's biggest risk, their most 'experimental', but at the same time it still feels distinctly like Lake of Tears. The moody, dreary ambience of "In Wait and In Worries" is propelled by a guitar pattern that wouldn't have been out of place on their older records, and "Lost in a Moment" takes its more tribal, dissonance riffing and swirling bits of ambiance into a big rocking rhythm that feels like right at home. Even the soothing "Ominous Too", which reeks of David Bowie jamming with Pink Floyd, is transformed into something essentially Brennare, and even gives you a payoff riff deep in its depths. The album's dark tones certainly live up to the great cover artwork, and the electronic beats or synth tones never feel intrusive, but a natural mutation of the style the band has been cultivating for so long...

It's not perfect, as there are a few empty moments or tracks without a real climax, but there's probably something here for fans of all the bands' prior phases...and further...like the pseudo-death metal riffing behind the windy, frightening atmosphere of instrumental "The End of This World". Psychedelic, gloomy escape, touching upon the fantasy inspirations of their yesteryears, but from a different angle invoking a bleak futurism. Does Brennare go far enough with this here? Maybe not, maybe there are moments where he pulls back to the secure, pastoral 70s-informed doom of the first 3-4 albums, familiar patterns in the chords or choruses, but clearly there was no intention to thoroughly repeat himself, and Ominous benefits from all the new ground it churns through, while giving you a look back at the greener fields behind.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.lakeoftears.net/

Skymning - Artificial Supernova (2002)

If Stormchoirs was a sign of its times, then Artificial Supernova might be seen as AHEAD of its times. Since three years had already passed, I could hardly call this an abrupt shift, but the band members obviously looked around at the landscape and decided to forge ahead rather than remaining one in a crowd of melodic death metal scenesters from the country of Sweden. Granted, industrial or futurist elements in metal were hardly novel after the turn of the century, but for a band in that particular melodic scene to start incorporating more grooves and electronic elements in this specific was felt rather unique. Sure, In Flames, Soilwork, Darkane, all had a very contemporary vibe about them, not shying away from synthesizers and other modernizations, but Artificial Supernova had a way of sounding like organic industrial metal, that is, performed with the mechanic aesthetics to the beats, but with the normal array of instruments.

It's still melodic death metal at its heart, and tracks like "Shadowed (Astral Silver)" and "Exoskeletal X.T.C." still had some of their best individual riffs and guitar lines in that style, but even then they are tempered with some weirdness, like the bizarre pickup in the latter tune's bridge where the drums start to shuffle along and all manner of noises are thrown in. It's actually quite involved here, and the beats reminded me a lot of Prong when they had transitioned from gutter thrash into the industrial region through Cleansing and Rude Awakening. Skymning just remembers that the focus should be on the guitars, and thus this is an endless riff onslaught which just never really lets up, and always rebounds from wherever it tries to stretch the envelope the furthest. It's so well written that I can't think of even a moment or two here in which I started to lose interest, and despite being over two decades into the future of its manifestation, this one still feels fresh.

The production, too, is so much richer than on Stormchoirs, which clear and potent guitars, lots of nice effects filtered through the melodies like, and a uniform, machine-like step to the drumming which is the perfect seat for all the myriad awesome riffs. Vocally it's cleaner than the debut, but still using the rasped style with a few samples. The bass is much more important here, and really the whole mix kicks ass of even stuff like In Flame's Reroute to Remain which felt a bit too compressed. The Swedes had moved on to bigger exposure with a release through Candlelight and Blackend, and really I cannot tell you why this one didn't succeed. Perhaps the audience was turned off by its evolution away from the power metal-infused melodeath, but many bands at this time were exploring new ground, and not nearly as well as Skymning. Easily my favorite of their catalogue.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

Skymning - Stormchoirs (1999)

Another gem from the Invasion Records roster, Skymning arrived onto the Swedish melodic death metal scene with an even more pronounced reliance on the former half of that genre. Essentially, they were writing power metal tunes and slathering the sorts of growled vocals you'd expect form their peers right on top of them. Certainly, bands like a Dark Tranquillity or In Flames could also be equated to using traditional, melodic metal aesthetics, but this group took it to a whole new level on their debut. You could imagine this entire record with a different vocalist and it might sound like a large number of Euro power metal acts, and I'd also say that in that capacity, it might not wind up with more of an impact that Stormchoirs did. Having the nastier vocals does the music a service, since it wouldn't be considered expert level in that more accessible genre.

It's a rush, a pretty good album for those who were diehards for melodic death metal at the time, but I do have a few surface complaints. The cover artwork and digital logo look pretty bad in retrospect, and I find the production to this one very washed out, and not in a particularly memorable way that just places it in an older studio era. Also, while the riff patterns were quite exciting for their day, nowadays they feel rather predictable since we've heard them all so many times since. There wasn't a novelty to the songwriting here as, say, a Soilwork or Darkane had, and again I think that's because the actual songwriting was being confined more to carrying these glorious power metal anthems forward, hell there are even some harmonies here (as in "The Question") which harken back to Iron Maiden and direct NWOHBM influence. But when the time was right, and this melodic death style was enormous here in the States due to the popularity of At the Gates or In Flames, I think Skymning would have banked a lot more if they only had better exposure. Right time, right place, wrong band?!

I like the music, but a lot of the components do feel dated, from the mix on some of the drum kit to the overall lack of power in the instruments. Not the compositions, mind you, because they blaze forward with abandon, but the heavier, faster passages sound a bit murkier than when they tear out some gleaming harmony. They have some softer parts where the bass becomes prominent, again reminding me of Steve Harris and Iron Maiden, but they don't exactly set up the ensuing elevations into harder riffing very well. It's apparent that Skyming also grew tired of this style, and potentially also thought of it as being more trendy than interesting, and so their later albums showed a lot of progression and growth, but there's no question that Stormchoirs had a potential which would have been realized with greater exposure and top notch production budget, and I think they were initially one of the more hype Invasion bands because their style just hit the mark at that exact point in time.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]