Product Description
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In the mid-80 s, a small underground movement started to emerge
from the small towns and suburbs of Sweden. In search for the
most extreme music available, the teenagers picked up instruments
themselves and created what in a few years would dominate the
world of extreme music Swedish Death Metal. Featuring more than
50 relevant tracks aing to a playing time of over 200
minutes. Apart from essential classics of the genre, this audio
companion to the book of the same title contains many rare
s and insiders tips from the heyday of the Swedish Death
Metal scene the ideal rtunity for anyone who s interested to
get a taste of this explosive style of music in all its creative
diversity.
Review
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This compilation is a three-CD companion to an equally
exhaustive book of the same name, and each in its own way is an
authoritative and wholly enjoyable tour guide to a scene the
reverberations of which have echoed throughout the entire metal
world since the late 1980s. The Swedish death metal scene has
given us some of the most melodic, fist-pumping, anthemic, and
classic music to ever emerge under that subgenre's banner, from
At the Gates and Arch Enemy to Entombed, Grave, Dismember,
Unleashed, Therion...the list is seemingly endless. And yet, many
of the bands featured here will be new to the average listener,
because compiler Daniel Ekeroth is attempting to chart the
earliest days of the scene and pay respect to bands that never
broke out of their homeland (if, indeed, they were even renowned
beyond their home towns). Consequently, the entire first disc is
taken up by never-before officially released tracks from demo
tapes, originally circulated by hand and by mail in the
pre-Internet era. Bands like Grave, Therion, and Nihilist (who
would become Entombed) are heard alongside more obscure peers
like Carbonized, Afflicted Convulsion, and the aptly named
Obscurity. The second and third discs offer songs by Marduk,
Dissection, At the Gates, Unleashed, and many more, and again,
acts known only to diehards like Toxaemia, Liers in Wait, Crypt
of Kerberos, and Repugnant get their moment in the (midnight)
sun. Virtually everything here boasts the thick, distorted guitar
sound that was the trademark of the Swedish scene, though some
bands display greater ambition than others, experimenting with
keyboards, progressive song structures, and greater length (with
the longest track here, Dissection's proto-black metal epic
"Black Horizons," coming in at a patience-testing 8:10). There
are some big names absent, whether it's because of licensing
issues or Ekeroth's personal tastes, notably Amon Amarth and
Opeth; in the latter case, it's easy to suspect aesthetic choice
at work, since they were ignored in the book as well. Ekeroth's
tastes clearly run to the primitive and the obscure; he's one of
those "they were better before anybody knew who they were" guys,
which is one of the things that makes this trip through the
history of the Swedish metal underground a bounty of surprises,
no matter how knowledgeable you may think you are. But even a
total newcomer will find much to enjoy here. --Phil Freeman - All
Music Guide.