CIMMERIAN

A pretty surprising debut album from this Swedish death metal band.

The surprise is not their sound though. It is the typical Swedish death metal sound which the likes of Dismember and Entombed developed. So far, so familiar. But Unmoored is not a Dismember clone. Their inclusion of Type O Negative like clear vocals, hip hop and some neo metal elements in the vein of all these new metal bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit and the types of band people half my age knows better than I do. A very strange, ultra-heavy eclectic mix it is. A blend of Dismember and Korn. What has the world come to ?

I am not a fan of this rapping type of vocals and neither am I a fan of this hip hop thingy. The songs here are not that good either. There are some decent songs here and this album is by no means a bad album. But I guess men half my age will like this album more than I do. In short; if you are older than 25 years old; don't bother. If you are a young man, get this album.

2 stars (yes, give me a straw with that mug of tea)

Just. . . . don't

The Swede band Unmoored came to my attention due to their last album, the fantastic Indefinite Soul-Extension, and, because of the great listening experience their 2003 album provides, I started to move back in their discography, with an ever increasing sense of regreat as I did due to disregarding one golden rule I have about melodic death metal: be EXTRA careful with it.

Being recorded in the mid 1990's, Cimmerian manages to gather in just one place practically everything that made people hate and scorn at melodeath. That is no exaggeration at all, it has almost every negative characteristic that this genre of heavy metal has to offer, you just name it: odds are it is here. Time has also not been kind to this kind of sound: if it already sounded bad and cheesy back then, when it was "popular", now it sounds simply awful. The immaturity, lack of focus, amateurism and the not-very-good production just helps to consider this release negatively.

Rating and final thoughts

As hard as I try, I can't think of any redeeming quality for this album. It is one of those things that should have been kept as a demo, hidden somewhere in a shelf from one of the bandmembers and eventually released as a bonus disc somewhere in the future. For this, I believe that the one star rating fills in perfectly: this is a poor album and most of those who, at this point in time, buy it, would probably do it in order to complete their own Unmoored discography.

"Cimmerian" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish metal act Unmoored. The album was released through Pulverised Records in the summer of 1999. "Cimmerian" was already recorded in late 1997 but the release was postponed because of label issues. On this release Unmoored are a two-piece consisting of Henrik Schönström on drums and Christian Älvestam on bass, guitars and vocals. The latter is quite the prolific character on the Swedish metal scene having been a member of acts such as Scar Symmetry, Torchbearer and Miseration. Unmoored are one of his first projects though.

The music on the album is a mix of melodic death metal, death´n´roll and large doses of groove metal. There´s even a hint at goth metal in the closing track "Final State" so "Cimmerian" is certainly a diverse album. The vocals are mostly growling/raw shouting but Älvestam masters clean vocals too and he uses them often. His clean vocals on "Cimmerian" remind me quite a lot of Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity, Nightingale...etc.). The sound production is decent even though the drums have an artificial sounding quality to them that isn´t too pleasant.

It´s obvious that the two guys in the band are pretty skilled musicians, but the music is a bit directionless to my ears. Unmoored simply take their mouths too full and incorporate elements from too many genres and the outcome is of mixed quality. It´s never really bad but it´s seldom really good either so I guess a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.