Edge of Sanity
Purgatory Afterglow

Dan Swanö is (or was) a fundamental figure within the Swedish death metal scene of the 1990s: not only for his role as a musician (numerous, in addition to Edge of Sanity themselves, his side projects, one above all: the crazy Pan.Thy.Monium), but also for his fruitful activity as a producer (it is to him that we owe the artistic maturation of bands like Opeth and Katatonia, both of which grew under his protective wing).

Nonetheless, hyperactivity definitely plays nasty tricks (Peter Tagtgren’s Hypocrisy are a glaring example!): Edge of Sanity imploded within a few years due to internal disputes and a Swanö increasingly exhausted and caught up in his commitments behind the mixing desk. But that's not all: if one looks calmly and detachedly at the entire discography of the band today, it turns out that the Scandinavian friends didn’t exactly flood us with masterpieces. To be fair, we might almost say that the successful season of Edge of Sanity was exhausted over just two albums: "Purgatory Afterglow", which I am about to review, and the subsequent "Crimson", which likely remains their masterpiece.

If in "Crimson" our heroes crowned their slightly megalomaniac ambition of crafting a single forty-minute suite, with this 1994 work they already demonstrated all those potentialities that they would be able to express fully in the future.
"Purgatory Afterglow", perhaps because it is a canonical album (ten tracks, and that's it!), is less indigestible compared to "Crimson" and certainly constitutes the ideal step for a first approach to the band.

Nevertheless, this work has the merit of condensing in itself the most authentic spirit of Sweden in those years: it contains not only the impact power of the first wave of Swedish death metal bands (Entombed, Dismember, Unleashed, etc., among which Edge of Sanity themselves can be included, since their debut dates back to 1991!). "Purgatory Afterglow" actually shines for a melodic talent and a freshness that are typical of all those bands that in the same years, starting from more or less extreme sounds, were approaching increasingly original and innovative solutions (just think of the melodic death of various Dark Tranquillity and In Flames, the doom/gothic of Tiamat, the death'n'roll of the late Entombed). And not only that: it even anticipates certain progressive insights that will make Opeth's fortune (and which they will inherit from master Swanö), as well as the intimate moods that we will find in the works of Katatonia. All this without neglecting that punk/hardcore attitude that has always found fertile ground in Scandinavian soil.

Therefore, "Purgatory Afterglow", while still maintaining good levels of aggressiveness, can easily be placed among those seminal works called to represent with dignity that generation of bands that right in those years were demonstrating the open mindset and courage to dare (state incentives helped!): the fact that the album is dedicated to the memory of Kurt Cobain (a ghost that we actually won’t encounter throughout the album) is the changing proof of how metal was already at the time no longer that army of irremediable defenders that the eighties had handed down to us and which some would like, alas, to restore today.

That we are not facing a mediocre group is already evident from the very first suggestive notes of "Twilight", the imposing opening track: airy keyboards and an evocative clean voice thicken like fog along the path that leads us into the world of Edge of Sanity. But it will only be a matter of moments, because a powerful riff of unmistakable Swedish stamp breaks in and sweeps everything away, thus driving an impetuous ride that in its eight epic minutes well represents the band's potential: speed, power, dynamism, melody, creativity. Five elements that we will find well mixed throughout the entire duration of the album.

Rough and powerful, yet well-defined sounds (including the purely Swedish ones!), are the perfect attire for this versatile and idea-rich band: a technically prepared ensemble at the peak of their inspiration that will skillfully combine impactful moments with more thought-out passages, often within the same track. The compositions, in fact, present complex and constantly changing structures; and if there’s a flaw to be pointed out, it is a slight tendency to dissipate ideas, so much so that at times one may feel a vague sense of bewilderment. Also, because the band's experiments are not one-sided, and in the mélange of sounds that "Purgatory Afterglow" offers us, we find fused in intricate passages melodic segments, dissonant guitar mash-ups, schizophrenia, and grinding boldness: all elements borrowed from both classic metal and the hardcore universe.

Among other things, the irresistible "Blood-Colored" and "Black Tears" are noteworthy: two tracks with a rock-gothic influence in which Swanö sets aside his caveman-like deep voice (perhaps the work's most quintessential death metal component) to embrace a seductive clean singing: two extremely catchy pieces that help to relieve the tension generated by the continuous tempo changes (great performance by drummer Benny Larsson) and the relentless churning of guitars (incredible synergy of the two axes Dread and Sami Nerberg, always paired to weave undeniably melodious interlaces).

The gritty bass of Anders Lindberg, although it claims very few protagonist spaces, plays a crucial role in generating that vitriolic wall of sound so typical of Swedish-made death metal. A wall of sound that finds its most perfect expression in the concluding "Song of Sirens" which, despite the title, reveals itself to be a hardcore-influenced piece very close, in immediacy and catchiness, to Entombed's "Wolverine Blues" (thanks also to the brash screams of the two guitarists, whose throats remind quite a bit of the ever-excellent L.G. Petrov).

Personally, I would have ended it all with lingering feedback and a cover of "Polly" by Nirvana, but you can’t have it all in life... Nonsense aside, how it ended is now well known: with the subsequent "Crimson", the peak of the career was reached, but thereafter the divergences between Swanö (increasingly oriented towards progressive solutions) and the other members (irrevocably supporting further hardening of the sound) would be destined to grow from album to album, eventually leading to dissolution (in 2003 Swanö would resurrect the band's name and try again alone with "Crimson II", but this time without leaving a mark!).

This does not change the fact that "Purgatory Afterglow" and "Crimson" remain in fact among the brightest testimonies of a truly bountiful historical period rich in consequences for the evolution of extreme-but-no-longer-extreme metal.

Listen to remember...