Liers In Wait - Spiritually Uncontrolled Art

Hoppy Hoppy Easter everyone. I was racking my brain trying to come up with the most blasphemous thing that I could post on this holy day and came up with this little nugget. Formed by Necrolord (the renowned album cover artist) and utilizing the vocal talents of Christofer Johnsson (Therion, Carbonized), Liers unleashed this short and non too sweet EP back in '92. Owing much to the furious sounds of Altars era Morbid Angel, Spiritually Uncontrolled Art is a chaotic onslaught of Lovecraftian trem-picked math madness. Perfect as an addendum to that Easter Egg hunt or a more ribald game of "hide the egg".

Happy Easter Fuckers!

Habitat - Entombed In Habitat

Wily demo from Leukemia bros. Quite a fun little romp.

Entombed In Habitat

Leukemia - Suck My Heaven

Suck my heaven, suck my kiss. Rambunctious death metal with a lot of pizazz and that rock'n'roll fervor that we all love so much.

Suck My Heaven

Anata - The Conductor's Departure

The Swedish melodeath version of Gorgut's Obscura....one helluva an album. Maybe someday they'll come out with a new one?? I gotsta hear more of Conny's drumming. That guy is a madman.

The Conductor's Departure

Tiamat - The Astral Sleep

Happy 420 everyone, on this most glorious of holidaze I must boast of this classick death metal album. Nowadays Tiamat is not exactly death metal, in fact they are not metal at all, playing more of a gothick cock rock. However back in 1991 Tiamat were playing ultra-glorious dirty death! Sounding like Mortuary Drape meeting Ophthalamia in a dark crypt, these songs have absolute perfect pacing...not toooo aggressive, just stuff you can headbang to. So go ahead and light one up, crank up Ancient Entity and let the good times roll.

The Astral Sleep

Carbonized - Disharmonization

I sure hope you fucker's have been enjoyin' Swedish death metal week, it's been a real pleasure going back and listening to some of these great old records. One that I really love is Carbonized's experimental death du jour Disharmonization.
Carbonized is in many respects Therion's weird little stepbrother...the one that wasn't quite smart enough for regular school, so he stayed home ate velveeta and scoop chips, watched old dracula and UFO movies, and devoted an unhealthy portion of the day to amputee porn. He slowly turned into a twisted degenerate, but one with a fantastic music sensibility...listening to Napalm Death in one earbud, Yes in the second and Voivod in the third. The screwy little invalid is Disharmonization, and you should be very pleased to meet him.

Disharmonization

Unleashed - Hell's Unleashed

I'm not a huge Unleashed fan, don't hate 'em, they've always just been one of those "meh" bands for me. Hell's Unleashed was their comeback album after about a 5 year absence, and I can safely say that from all the Unleashed material I've ever heard, this is by far the worst. It's not just that the songs are bad...they are laughably bad. I mean who in their right mind names a death metal song Joy In the Sun? But it's exactly this absurdist sense of humor (intentional or not) that makes Hell's Unleashed such a great guilty pleasure. It must be said that there are some really great riffs...the main melody line in Mrs. Minister springs instantly to mind. BUT then you have lyrics like "wanna go on a date, gonna have some fun, pick you up in my new car, take a ride in the sun..." I tend to think it's great. A total win-win of riffy goodness and meathead goofiness. But definitely take this recommendation with a grain of salt.

Hell's Unleashed

Furbowl - Those Shredded Dreams

Old thymey classic death metal done the way that only those Swedes can do it. SO, why Furbowl? I have no idea, but after this they changed their name to Wonderflow...I don't know which is worse.

Those Shredded Dreams

Pan.Thy.Monium - Dawn of Dreams

More Swanö please...well ask and ye shall receive. Dan and his bro Dag came up with this crazy premise of the unkown cult of Raagoonshinaah (god of emptiness and gloom). The music sounds very cult like with swedish keyboards and saxophone bits floating around some of the most gut-churning death metal riffs you'll ever here.  This one has caused me to go stompin' through the night on more than one occasion.

Dawn of Dreams

Edge of Sanity - Infernal

Dan Swanö...the man's name is synonymous with Swedish metal. A true workaholic and a little bit of a nut, Swanö has had his grubby mitts in so many noteworthy bands it's truly ridiculous, just check out this rundown on his wiki page.
Edge of Sanity is one of my favorite Swanö bands, and Infernal is progressive death metal of the highest order. Almost makes up for his involvement in Battlelore....almost.

Infernal

Theory In Practice - Colonizing The Sun

Captivating electrically charged techness that takes you on a wild wild ride.  Barely in control song structures harness insectoid riffing into shambling yet somehow impossibly streamlined patterns. This stuff hurts my brain, I don't know how in the hell the Swedes do it!!

Peter Lake is da bomb!!

Colonize That Sun

God Macabre - The Winterlong

One of those lost all time classic albums that you're always reading about. Does it live up to the hype?

ABSOLUTLELY

Probably the best Swedish death metal album this side of Clandestine.

The Winterlong

Dark Tranquillity - Damage Done

I think it's rare when a well-respected band puts out their best album mid career, but that's exactly what DT did with Damage Done; one of the most streamlined, sophisticated death metal albums I've ever heard. The phrase "tight as a virgin's hoo-ha" comes to mind. I'd be interested in knowing if Stanne, Sundin and krew spent months painstakingly crafting these tunes or if they were written quickly as a flash of brilliance, perhaps after meditating b'neath that elusive Bodhi tree... cuz that's exactly how I feel after listening to this monster.

Damage Done

Entombed - Clandestine

Ok this is probably the best death metal album ever. No hyperbole, just a straight up fact. Entombed have been fairly hit or miss during their incredibly lengthy career, but their first few albums were just knocked out of the park humdingers. Clandestine fires on all cylinders led by the crackerjack drumming of Nicke Andersson (who also handles vocals, Ol' LG sat out on this one). This is death metal before it became an athletic event, before it was mandatory to cram as many swoop picked arpeggiated ghost notes into a measure as was inhumanly possible. This was back when grooove mattered, when the brutality was in the guitar tone, and the vocals felt like vomit.
This was Swedish death metal circa 1991, and it was damn good.

Clandestine

Therion - Symphony Masses: Ho Drakon Ho Megas

Welcome to Swedish death metal week! I'll kick things off with one of my favorites of the genre--Therion's Symphony Masses: Ho Drakon Ho Megas.

Therion share a lot in common with Atrocity - both started out playing strange forms of death metal, and began adding less savory constituents as they "matured". At least Therion have remained somewhat listenable, but this is neither here nor there because Ho Drakon is one of Therion's earlier death metal offerings and remains the crown jewel in their discography.  

Hemming together a mixture of classick Swedish death metal riffs and unconventional songwriting + sound effects that bring to mind Celtic Frost's Into the Pandeamonium, Therion created an album that is a pure headbanging delight. The best thing about this Ho Drakon is that there is nothing else that sounds like it...I mean nothing. It seems to have caught that last arterial thump of creativity that pulsated in early '90's Swedish death metal...when band's were either kicking ass or being weird, and sometimes doing both!! Ho Drakon does both ridiculously well.

Ho Drakon

Cryptopsy - Whisper Supremacy

Imagine...there was a time when Cryptopsy was the baddest death metal band in the land. Back when eye's glowed bright and Flo was rockin' the Umbro gear.

Whisper Supremacy

Rolling Stones - Tattoo You

Already posted this one quite a while ago, but the mood strikes again. You can listen to this album and it'll make you feeeel real goooood, no matter what ailz ya. Just listen to Mr. Richards now...

Tattoo You

Drohm - The Oracles of Darkend Time

More like Oracles of their Darkend Slime. Really wicked slithering metal here. I want to get in touch with the artist who did the cover art, I got a mural for him to do on the wall opposite my crapper.

The Oracles of Darkend Time

Siren - The Calling...

For fans of RALF Projekt.

The Calling...

Virus - Live in London 3/22/11

LIVE VIRUS!! WOOHOOOO!!!

Live in London

RALF Projekt - A Good Day To Be Human...

An all-out aural attak that transmogriphies Merzbow like non-rhythms into the punked out ferocity of a mid-80's Peruvian thrash band...the bar has been set.

A Good Day To Be Human...