Thrust back into the limelight after a 12-year hiatus are these legends of the Swedish death metal underground scene. Their two earlier offerings are still revered by many fans and upon receiving this album it has helped me find favour with them again. This album has all the technical mastery associated with a classic disc, much like what Séance have done recently with their comeback album.
So lets try and settle one big question, are they a death metal band or a black metal band? I found it hard to categorise this one. On the one hand you have total gritty Swedish style death metal, yet on the other side of the coin there are many Dissection-isms and blast beats a-plenty coupled with chainsaw heavy riffs. A good metal band pure and simple! “Have you washed your hands with the blood of the land?” (I think!) lyrically splits out during ‘Retribution in Blood’, the arrangement is both powerful and to be honest very epic. Rasping vocals from Micke Jansson are just what you metal heads have been waiting for, whilst relentless drumming from Peter Stjärnvind shows the experience that he has gained in Merciless, Nifelheim and Entombed. The cold melody that the band manage to produce during the start of ‘The Endless Beyond’ is truly magical, before the battering rams are brought out to proceed into the main section of the track with a pure guttural vocal assault landing back squarely into death metal territory. The albums title track reminds me of the melody and journey of Dissection’s ‘Where Dead Angels Lie’, but not merely a copycat, Unanimated bring a freshness to the table and manage to back this up with some riffing that would shake up a barren landscape into giving life again. ‘Serpents Curse’ is the track that the band and label are promoting on their myspace sites, but this is to me not even the whole story. There are numerous more accomplished songs on the remainder of the album, but it is a good accurate taster of what is to come, the rest of the album reeks of atmosphere and class.
This album has had me hooked for over 2 weeks solid; now that is something bearing in mind the amount of albums I normally get through in that period! Unanimated have produced what I’d consider a future classic and it has already been entered into my top 3 albums of the year thus far. Blackened Death metal does not come any better than this; the arrangements are immense and the delivery is truly like a repeated hammer blow to your head, a Scandinavian battle summoning the forces of darkness to end the world in just over 45 minutes of atmosphere and rejuvenated energy. You seriously need to purchase this album!
http://www.myspace.com/unanimated08
http://www.regainrecords.com
