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Rating: Among the main proponents of that Swedish scene that between the late '80s and the early '90s shook the world's metal scene, Dismember have always been authentic champions of consistency or perhaps musicians completely unable to vary their formula. No one has ever really understood this.
They took their first steps in a Sweden whose national (and popular) idols were the heavily coiffed Europe, the five from Stockholm, together with their comrades Entombed, Grave and a thousand others, at least had the merit of shining a spotlight on a scene, the Swedish one precisely, that until that moment in the rock field seemed to have produced very little. Starting from the lessons of various Celtic Frost, Slayer, and Sodom, then all little more than teenagers, they managed, paradoxically also thanks to the lack of resources, to forge a sound so unique and particular that, in its own way, it would have set a standard, that of the Stockholm Scene. That deafening noise, made of hardcore, extreme metal, and Motorhead, would go on to define a way of understanding and living music, enjoying a good five years of success but at the same time showing a certain inability, at least on the part of the historic names, to renew themselves or at least attempt to modify and update that formula which at first had been so revolutionary. If the world around marched on and, in order, absorbed all the missed musical revolutions of the time, namely Grunge, Alternative/Post/Nu-Metal, Power Metal revival, and so on, in Stockholm and its surroundings it seemed to be eternally in a time limbo oscillating between 1990 and 1992. While on one hand, it's even nice that at least when you spend your money you already know what you're buying, on the other hand, one frankly has to wonder what sense there is in eternally playing the same record. In reality, it is not exactly like that, it's objective that here and there some changes of course have occurred over the years, for example, if the first "Like an Everflowing Stream" was "swedish" 100%, "Massive Killing Capacity" from 1995 showed some pleasant melodic openings and a more refined sound, while records like "Hate Campaign", recorded in lean years, were and remain superfluous.
This "The God that Never Was," released in 2006, was one of the last outputs from Dismember before their breakup a few years ago and, despite being the seventh in their discography, it is also one of those that is listened to with the most pleasure, between reminiscences of the rawest vintage thrash and tributes, at the guitar level, to the eternal masters Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. An examination of the individual tracks would be useless, just as for a band like theirs, an analysis of every single album would be unnecessary, each time the umpteenth piece of a mosaic with well-defined outlines already from the start. After this record, paradoxically one of the most appreciable of a long and articulate discography, the band began to show signs of fatigue, with the historical drummer and founder Fred Estby leaving the sticks, effectively opening a crisis that would leave them, not before one last testament, the dignified "Dismember," in the limbo of total inactivity for several years: no records, no concerts, until the final farewells a couple of years ago. The Dismember thus were this: the postcard of an era as pioneering as it is romanticized today, made of cassette demos, rigorously sent by mail, photocopied fanzines, and dusty vinyl records, an era, and a sound, that they themselves have endlessly paid tribute to, unable, or perhaps simply not willing, to detach themselves from a stylistic model as fresh then as dated today, but in its own way still vital and exciting. Pioneers in their own way.
Fred Estby, drums Martin Persson, bass, guitars David Blomqvist, bass, guitars Matti Kärki, vocals
1. The God That Never Was 2. Shadows of the Mutilated 3. Time Heals Nothing 4. Autopsy 5. Never Forget, Never Forgive 6. Trail of the Dead 7. Phantoms (Of the Oath) 8. Into the Temple of Humiliation 9. Blood for Paradise 10. Feel the Darkness 11. Where No Ghost Is Holy
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Shadows of the Mutilated (03:26)
Pale faces twisted in pain
Their hollow eyes watching me
Shadows of the mutilated weep
I dare not to sleep
Days and nights I stay awake
With chemical eyes I greet the sun
Through darkness I waited
For the light to set me free
Insomnia, dementia
I hear the fallen angels sing
Die, die
Lunacy, blasphemy
I hear dying voices whisper
Kill, kill
Behind the wall of sleep
I hear myself scream
Behind the wall of sleep
The horrors beckon me
Feed the demons raging inside
03 Time Heals Nothing (03:39)
Martyrs of the world
A bleeding nation weep
Decades have come to pass
But scars remain unhealed
The blood on their hands
Will wash ours clean
As we strive for dominance
And our sacred dream
Terror awakens
Death walks among our midst
Resistance fuel hatred
And must be crushed beneath an iron fist
Do unto others
As they've done to us
The world must bleed
As we have bled
Sins of the past
Will keep our cause alive
And as the world try to forget
08 Into the Temple of Humiliation (04:08)
Long since dust the ethics of man
Unanimous prayer nothing more than grains of desert sand
The salvation they strive for will not come from above
I'll keep watching them from below keeping a blade to hand
When gods are dethroned and prophets lie dead
Long dead lords awaiting fire ahead
Serpent from forgotten depths
Turning whispers into roars
Forever changing
The martyr's heaven bound course
Another burst of crimson
To the sea already spilt
Blood raining down
On mosques and temples like guilt
Angel of punishment
Obscuring the sky
Shaped from redemption
Selling suicide
Haunted eyes
Paralyzed
Something dead
Resides inside
Unwelcome in this tomb
Destined to terror a promise breeding from darkened wombs
Raw fear the sharpest weapon at war
Fanatic madness profound naming the path of the pure
Paramount desire burning at the stake
To avenge something sacred a message of unending hate
The ground will drink their blood when I've cut their throats
Into the temple of humiliation the righteous will float
11 Where No Ghost Is Holy (03:40)
Ruled by ruin the city of god
Collective madness of the holy squad
Divine violations of dignity
Corrupted secrecy
Hordes of the fallen
Lost and slain
Not epic but insane
Abolition of Christianity
Termination of religious greed
Where no ghost is holy the mind is free
Retribution for persecution
All religions adversary
Where no ghost is holy the blind shall see
The essence of contradiction brings
Blind faith built on sins
Propaganda of unhealing scars
The catholic cancer wont reach this far
Final silence of the battlefield
Where no god is holy the church will kneel
Non-religious eternally
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