Monday, August 31, 2020

Revolting - Dreadful Pleasures (2009)

   Revolting is also one of the numerous bands of Rogga Johansson. If his name already became similar to a trademark because of his nearly saturating death metal bands, it might be not hard to figure out what to expect from Revolting.
   Old school Swedish death metal, but somehow a bit different from what the audience was used to. The style features are easy to notice, but Revolting is more thrash influenced, so therefore more intense and sounds friendlier than most ordinary Swedish death. The style itself is definitely not a progressive contest, so to hear quite simple and basic themes might be not surprising. In the case of Revolting these are maybe simpler than before because of the thrashy roots, and some catchy leading melodies were involved too. So even though the lyrical concept is horror and gore based, the main impression could seem happy for the death metal trained audience. The album is like the mix of some '80s nostalgia feeling and modern sound. That's also a returning feature, but not only at Mr. Johansson's projects, but also in the modern Swedish metal scene. "Dreadful Pleasures" could be enjoyable for the fans of Swedish death metal.

Thursday, August 6, 2020

Tribulation - The Horror (2009)

   Even though there's no lack of old school references in Swedish death metal, Tribulation's debut is still somehow extraodrinary compared to the most common tendencies.
   If we think about the classics of the local scene, because of their typical sound and primitively rude impression it's easy to distinguish them. Tribulation's "The Horror" is still old school to the core, but not traditionally old school. This direction to throw back to '80s references showed up first at bands like Witchery, Pagainzer or Mordant, and exactly in death metal Death Breath involved similarly '80s referring tharshing influences. It's not a shockingly new thing, especially in the main scene, but not so usual in the local scene. The album is very intense therefore, and shows very enjoyable variety of fast thrashing and catchy melodies embedded into death metal. So the direction is kind of new, the concept is old school, and the sound is high quality. Beacause of that, unlike at most bands with similar ambitions, nobody would think that "The Horror" is some kind on unrevealed and long time forgotten relic of the '80s. But the modern interpretation of a heavy, but still catchy feeling of an era that was long time missing from the main scene. Excellent and very stunning for a debut.

Saturday, August 1, 2020

Pagainzer - Basic Instructions for Dying (2009)

   Paganizer's "Basic Instructions for Dying" is an enjoyable compilation album of unreleased songs from 2003 to 2007. Shows nothing new for the fans of the band, but still it's something interesting enough to get for their collection.
   The wide time range of the song recordings means also sound diversity, but unlike at most throwback compilations, all songs having studio quality instead of demo sound. Even though the sound isn't unified, the album definitely is, partly because the band's style didn't change since they've switched from the mixed heavy/speed/thrashy influenced style of "Deadbanger" to death metal. And the other thing is that the old school sound of Swedish death doesn't give many opportunities. It keeps staying between a quite narrow range of sound preferences to be easily identifiable. By being mean it could be said that even a compilation of various different Swedish death metal bands could be seem the same unified like if they were all one band. But that may be not so far from the reality if we think about that one of the songs meant to be a Ribspreader song, but it was kept for Paganizer. It might be also not shocking to know that it's also a side project of Rogga Johansson, the dumping master of Swedish death metal.
   The album is strongly recommended for those who never can get enough from the sound of the Swedish scene.