Wicked Material Sanity

Nihilist/Entombed, Carnage/Dismember, Grave... I've either got your attention already or lost you, right? This compilation/split CD is in the same boat.

Nothing here is going to surprise you much or blow your mind. There are nasty buzzsaw guitars. There are bellowed, LG Petrovian vocals. There are thrash beats aplenty. There are slower passages that are more Entombed groove than Incantation doom. It has that characteristic Sunlight Studio sound and that characteristic Stockholm death metal quality.

But I don't mean to write this off as a lesser clone affair. Members of Mastication were also in Excruciate and Grave; members of Exhumed also played in Dismember, Necrophobic, and Nifelheim. Clearly these guys have cred to spare, and these demos date back to the dawn of the scene - recorded during Sunlight's boom period, 1990-91. Just because they are less known than the big boys, or even the more renowned demo bands like Nirvana 2002 and Crematory, doesn't mean these recordings are sub-par. Quite the contrary: this is prime Swedish death, and if it falls short of "Left Hand Path" or "Ever Flowing Stream" glory, it at least rivals the likes of Cemetary, Wombbath, Epitaph, and others.

As for the specific bands, Mastication is very much in the Nihilist template to my ears. Exhumed has a different sound, with a distinctly separate guitar tone, more blast beats, and more riffs with a somewhat NYDM character to them. The completely obscure two-song demo by Egypt is the biggest surprise; though it was recorded in Sunlight and has that familiar sound to it, the music is grasping to be its own thing, with acoustic passages (mostly unknown to Swedish death) and eerie, howling synths here and there. If I had to compare it to other bands I might invoke Cemetary and Darkified (who are pretty obscure in their own right). For someone craving more than another spin on a well-worn formula, the Egypt demo qualifies and then some.

All of this is presented with great clarity and excellent mastering by Necroharmonic. The booklet also contains plenty of notes on the bands involved, as any proper demography ought to, and is worth poring over as you listen. Following their Crematory and Interment comp CDs, Necroharmonic shows they are serious about exploring the hidden recesses of this classic scene. More power to 'em, if the music is as good as this.