Before the moniker Goat found me, friends called me Sven because after a few bonghits my conversation tended toward praise of Swedish death metal. The Swedes perfected death metal, working in melody as structure and turning rhythm into a primitive but nuanced weapon.
Unleashed — like Therion, Carnage, At the Gates, Necrophobic, Hypocrisy, Nihilist, and Merciless — laid the groundwork for a new vocabulary of death metal songwriting and the moods required to perceive the world in order to conceptualize mythopoetic atavism from horror, folkloric, and Romantic literature tropes.
This compilation of Unleashed demos, compilation, and seven inch tracks shows the evolution of this band in two ways: first, the development of layered rhythms, and second, the transition of guitar from bluesy noodling with assloads of accidentals to little melodic compositions that harmonized the pattern of the song like another layer of rhythm tracking.
Hearing this band seize the day and slash out their raw vision, then refine it to the point where it grew its own voice and finally, its own toolbox of expressive insights into composition, makes this compilation worth it, but it also provides early Unleashed with a bassy and rudimentary production that lets the music speak louder than the surface.
The label says:
Formed in 1989 after Johnny Hedlund was kicked out of NIHILIST (who split up and reformed as ENTOMBED to avoid firing him directly), UNLEASHED are credited to be one of the first death metal groups to write songs about Viking/Scandinavian history and heritage instead of the more typical subjects like death and gore.
Since those times UNLEASHED have counted as one of the leading acts of the Scandinavian death metal scene.
On this compilation you can find every song the band recorded before their classic debut album Where No Life Dwells from 1991!
It includes “The Utter Dark” (3 songs), “…Revenge” (3 songs) and the complete Bielefeld recording session (7 songs) which contains songs from the And The Laughter Has Died… 7″ EP, the Century Media Promo Tape and songs from the Century Media compilation In The Eyes Of Death.
A long in-depth interview with Johnny Hedlund held especially and exclusive for this compilation is also included. All songs have been carefully restored and remastered by Patrick W. Engel at the Temple of Disharmony studio.
Jewel-case CD, 16-page booklet
Tracklist:
1. The Dark One (The Utter Dark)
2. Ancient Dead (The Utter Dark)
3. Violent Ecstacy (The Utter Dark)
4. The Utterdark Revenge (…Revenge)
5. Unleashed (…Revenge)
6. Where Life Ends (…Revenge)
7. The Dark One (Bielefeld session)
8. If They Had Eyes (Bielefeld session)
9. Dead Forever (Bielefeld session)
10. Unleashed (Bielefeld session)
11. Where Life Ends (Bielefeld session)
12. The Utterdark Revenge (Bielefeld session)
13. Violent Ecstacy (Bielefeld session)
You can pre-order the CD here.
