Anata

Anata vs. Bethzaida - War Vol. II
Season of Mist, 1999
Genre: Death Metal

Anata:
1. Let Me Become Your Fallen Messiah
2. With Me You Shall Fall
3. Day of Suffering (Morbid Angel Cover)
4. The Tranquility of My Last Breath (Bethzaida Cover)
Bethzaida:
5. Last Days of Sodoma
6. Expulsion
7. Epistel Nr. 30: Drick Ur Ditt Glas (Swedish Traditional)
8. Under Azure Skies (Anata Cover)

Side Bethzaida here
Side Anata:

This is the second installment of Season of Mist’s War Volume series where two bands face off against each other.  With the success of the first one, which was …And Oceans vs. Bloodthorn they decided to put another volume together.  This one features Anata and Bethzaida, two very good bands in my opinion, especially after listening to this.

Well this is my first time hearing Anata and I’ve got to say, goddamn what a good band.  This is not your run of the mill Death Metal band because the production is so dirty and bears elements to Black Metal from time to time.  But regardless of the dirty sounding guitar style, they exude so much power riff after riff and with a vocalist like this it’s easy to be backed up and get really into the music.  The first song “Let me Become Your Fallen Messiah” plows through one of the more intense sounding songs I’ve heard, which surprises me because it’s actually a fairly short song, but it’s just so well written.  Thrown in for good measure are elements of thrash here and there which amazingly add to the power behind the progression in the riffs.  One of the four songs they recorded is a great cover of “Day of Suffering” by Morbid Angel and they do the song justice with a quality cover.  I actually think Anata’s vocalist sounds better for the recording of the song than the original recording of David Vincent.  Albeit David did a great job on the original, but boy can Anata’s front man bellow through a song.  Being that this is one of Season of Mists War Volume’s Anata had to also do a cover of a Bethzaida song and surprisingly they do a superb job because Bethzaida’s original masterpiece didn’t lose much of its edge at all.  In fact Anata increased the intensity of the original version and made it a much more crushing experience, but they managed to keep in quite an excellent dose of the originals melody.  

The War Volume series is obviously a great idea on behalf of the record label Seasons of Mist since it introduces you to the bands on their label as well as gives you new tracks from bands you may already enjoy.  I think this is yet another very successful installment, since from my point of view I probably would have never gotten this if I had never heard Bethzaida before, so in the end I was exposed to Anata, which turned out to be a more than excellent band.  Obviously this is something to be checked out.

Entombed

Entombed - Left Hand Path
Earache, 1990
Genre: Death Metal

1. Left Hand Path
2. Drowned
3. Revel in Flesh
4. When Life has Ceased
5. Supposed to Rot
6. But Life Goes On
7. Bitter Loss
8. Morbid Devourement
9. Abnormally Deceased
10. The Truth Beyond
11. Carnal Leftovers
12. Premature Autopsy



Now this is what I call a tough review to fill. It’s 2008 as I’m writing this and I’m finally going back to rewrite this review. Honestly I don’t think my teenager charged initial review did the full breadth of this release justice. Sure made sensible points, but a single paragraph for “Left Hand Path” kind of downplays how groundbreaking this album was for it’s time.

It seems like in the late 80’s/early 90’s the Swedish Death Metal scene just came out of nowhere. England and the U.S. were sort of making a name for themselves with bands like Napalm Death, Carcass, Morbid Angel, Obituary, Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation… but all of a sudden these Swedish bands hit the stage and really gave our world a hell of a shaking. These bands were doing something that just felt different from the fairly sped up brutality of the U.S. bands (aside from Obituary). Here we see the Swedish onslaught begin with Entombed, Dismember, Grave, and Unleashed. While Unleashed felt a bit more like German Death Metallers Morgoth at the time, they were still a major part of the Swedish scene. However, the other three bands Entombed, Dismember, and Grave had a distinctly different feel.

Aside from Suffocation I can’t think of another band that was playing Death Metal that sounded as heavy as the Swedes. We can probably add Carnage into this mix, but most of those guys ended up in Dismember as well. Anyway, while Grave basically focused on heaviness, Entombed and Dismember threw a lot more groove into their songs. I’ll go over Dismember on their own page, so for now we have Entombed. Carnage and Entombed were the first to get their CD’s put out into the market place, but I think Entombed had the bigger advantage because it was initially released on Earache, instead of Necrosis like Carnage was… even though Necrosis was a subset. Regardless, I think Entombed was essentially their major test band to see if this brand of Death Metal would catch on with the public. Needless to say it really did!

“Left Hand Path” musically adheres to a couple things. It firstly focuses on the crushing heavy guitar tone that so few bands were using at this time. Secondly, and here’s what really separated Entombed from the average Death Metal band, they add in a very good degree of groove/rock styled riffing. Don’t get this confused, this is a Death Metal album through and through, but it just has much catchier riffing rather than blasting through the album to pummel the listener. This is where Entombed proved to the world that you didn’t need speed to play heavy and brutal sounding Death Metal. Obituary and Bolt Thrower were essentially working with the same general concepts, but forgive me if I’m wrong, they just didn’t sound nearly as catchy! Just listen to that guitar riff after the bass lick in “Bitter Loss”! Now that really grabs your attention.

The vocals on this album aren’t entirely a growl, but they’re somewhere in between a yell and a growl. It’s an interesting vocal technique and it really adds to the power of Entombed’s music. Lars-Göran is definitely the perfect vocalist for them. They really loaded the reverb onto the vocals and when he does go into a scream of sorts it’s just chilling. As you can guess Nicke Andersson’s drum work isn’t centered on speed based drum patterns, but he does do blast beats in a couple songs. Most of the beats are your standard Thrash based beat mixed in with some Rock or Speed Metal patterns.

This is already pretty well known, but for the sake of a complete review I’ll throw in Entombed’s early inceptions. Prior to this Entombed was known as Nihilist, so you see a lot of tracks on “Left Hand Path” that were taken from the Nihilist demos. Though, I will say that the Nihilist demo material was still pretty solid, but the studio recording is naturally the better. However, this just goes to show that Entombed were doing this even before they put out the “But Life Goes On” demo.

Again, this is an absolutely classic release. I really don’t know how much more I can stress that point. Frankly, in my book, if you’re a fan of Death Metal this album should be in your music library. If you’re only looking for speed and brutality Entombed may not have been your cup of tea, but you can’t deny their general influence.

Carnage

Carnage - Dark Recollections
Earache, 2000
Genre: Death Metal

Dark Recollections: 1990
1. Dark Recollections
2. Torn Apart
3. Blasphemies of the Flesh
4. Infestation of Evil
5. Gentle Exhuming
6. Deranged from Blood
7. Malignant Epitaph
8. Self Dissection
9. Death Evocation
10. Outro
The Day Man Lost: 1989
11. Crime Against Humanity
12. Aftermath
13. The Day Man Lost
The Day Man Lost (Rough Mix)
14. Crime Against Humanity
15. Aftermath
16. The Day Man Lost
Infestation of Evil: 1989
17. Torn Apart
18. Infestation of Evil


Carnage really changed their methods from their demo days with the release of “Dark Recollections”. Luckily on this re-release we get to hear what their earlier material sounded like, so you can hear the huge change that went over the band. The demo material is practically blatant Carcass worship and I’m not surprised this earned Michael Amott a spot in the future of Carcass.

Despite all this I say “Dark Recollections” is a lot more influenced by the likes of Entombed and Dismember. In fact if you basically blended those two bands sounds together, you’d have Carnage. Carnage is a lot more straight forward than both bands, but who out of the three is heavier could probably be argued pretty well. I think sometimes Carnage can be a bit heavier sounding, but the guitar tone is basically the same as the other two bands.

Obviously, I got this Carnage album after I had become quite familiar with Dismember and I have to say it’s interesting to hear Karki do a much more straight forward Death Metal vocal tone. In Dismember he has more of a guttural yell similar to what Petrov has in Entombed, but on here it’s much more guttural and deeper. However, at times he does use that kind of yelling technique like on “Deranged from Blood”, but the guttural tones are probably more derived from their earlier grind days.

This reissue is a great deal for anyone that’s just getting into Carnage or for a long time collector because it comes coupled with the full length and demo material! Looking back in history Carnage is one of those original super groups before any of the members played in any of their more well known bands. I think Earache put together a good product and add incentive to those who may already have the original album.

Carnage is definitely one of those Classic Death Metal bands that should get a lot more recognition. Unfortunately since Carnage broke up after one album, I think they got lost in history next to the bigger names like Entombed, Dismember, and Unleashed. However, you can’t deny that back then they were on the same playing field as those more well known bands. Fans of that Swedish Death Metal sound will definitely not be disappointed with what Carnage put out for us all to hear!