•
Rating:
A year after the debut "Nothing But Death Remains" from 1991, a record I would describe as anything but exciting, although not a bad work, Dan Swanö, a notable figure in the Swedish death metal scene involved in multiple bands and projects both as a musician and a producer, leads his Edge of Sanity to the creation of the second album titled "Unorthodox".
From the first notes of the intro "The Unorthodox", it becomes immediately apparent that something has changed compared to the past, and any doubt vanishes when the monumental "Enigma" begins, itself divided into the three parts "The Blessing", "Celestial Dissension", and "The Loss of Hallowed Life", a small "Crimson" in miniature where for seven minutes the full personality of the group emerges, which has finally found its own personal style while remaining faithful to the buzzing guitars and infernal rhythms that have made Swedish death metal successful. Furthermore, in the chorus, Swanö gives up, for the first time, his growl like a true polar bear in heat, the absolute best death metal growl for this writer, in favor of his clean voice with which he manages to convey a proper sense of solemnity and resulting in one of the band's best songs, so much so that the comparison with "Crimson" is more than justified, even with the appropriate proportions, and "Enigma" can be considered an interesting preview of it.
If the rest of the album were on the level of this song, we would be facing an authentic masterpiece, but alongside other notable tracks like "Everlasting (Epidemic Reign Part III), "After Afterlife" and "A Curfew for the Damned (… Blind Belief)", there are others a bit less convincing for a total of fourteen songs that bring the album's length to about sixty minutes, truly too much for a work of this kind. With some cuts here and there, thus reducing its length by about twenty minutes, "Unorthodox" could have been the perfect album to testify to the greatness of the band in its old school period, when its two souls, the more unyielding and traditionalist one of guitarist Andreas Axellsson and the one more open to experimentation of singer Dan Swanö, were still united and indissoluble, considering that already from the next "The Spectral Sorrows" they would begin to express themselves independently. Unfortunately, however, the excessive length undermines the result and the first phase of Edge of Sanity's career is doomed to remain in the shadow of what they accomplished later.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Enigma: a) The Blessing / b) Celestial Dissension / c) The Loss of Hallowed Life (07:05)
07 Beyond the Unknown (03:51)
Take a trip with me, to endless insanity
where no souls could live. Where no
soule could rest the echoes of tormenti-
on, rips so psychic wounds into your
mind. The longer we go, feeling the anaestesia of
your soul, rise above the seas, the seas of
torment.
[Chorus:]</i>
A creation of abnormal
souls an evil place that grows the dark-
ness of the abyss knows a creation of thee.
beyond the unknown life? Now take a trip
with me to a world of insanity where no
souls could live. Where no souls could
rest the echoes of tormention. Rips so
psychic wounds into your mind. The lon-
ger we go.
[repeat chorus]</i> Go... Ia...
[Riffs: Swan�?/Nerberg]
[Lyrics: Axelsson]
[Performed and arranged by Edge of sanity]
[Creation:1990]
[Also performed on 1990 demo 'Kur-nu-gi-a']
08 Nocturnal (05:35)
[Intro: A hymn to the nightly]
(Preserve, preserve) Preserve me from
the rays of dawn. I only feast at night. My
sharp claws taste the flesh. I am the
angel of the twilight. With deadly charm
and sweet caresses I touch the virgin
skin. As my soul becomes one with yours,
your pain is my gain. Come with me. Beco-
me eternity, as you die! Join & die to re-
arise, re-arise, I am of nocturnal nature.
I cannotstand the sun. I am an abominati-
on, blood's my kinda fun. As the darkness
sweeps my castle, and cast shadows on
the northern light. Now my sleep is over.
I spread my wings across the night,
human but still a creature I trust for
human blood, now begins my ritual I
swallow your fucking soul! Come with
me, become eternity, as you fucking die.
Join'n'die to re-arise, re-arise...
[Riffs: Swan�?/Nerberg/Axelsson]
[Lyrics: Axelsson]
[Arranged and performed by Edge of sanity]
[Creation: 1991]
[Intro: Rex Gissl&eacuten & Edge of sanity]
[Sampled concrete, screams created 1992.]
11 The Day of Maturity (03:44)
Massive nuclear death. Screams of pain
and sorrow all has lost its faith, for
them there's no tomorrow. Bodies all
around, smell of burnt flesh and vomit
black and white has turned to grey. Earth
of horror and decay Bush and Gorbatjov
dead. Humanity has lost its world it's one
thing has won? Burial... The day of maturity.
Suffocation... The day of dying parents
look for their children in masses of gore
and bones smell the rancid flesh. The
toxic taste is in the air <i>[repeat chorus]
Dyin' the slowly way. Your hunger beco-
mes your decay eating your own flesh,
the horrible way you end destroying
beyond belief. The day of maturity look
what it's done to me. I'm off the edge of
sanity. <i>[repeat chorus]
[Riffs and lyrics by Axelsson]
[Performed and arranged by Edge of sanity]
[Creation: 89/90]
[Also featured on 1990 demo 'Kur-nu-gi-a']
Loading comments slowly
