THE SPECTRAL SORROWS

Judged from a death metal point of view, Edge of Sanity's third is probably better then Unorthodox. I've never spent much time with it but given my grown enjoyment of Unorthodox, I gave it another round of spins in the car. Belgian traffic statistics noticed a steady growth of incidents!

This album is as fun as death metal gets. Fast riffing, constant tempo changes, brutally low bass and with Dan Swanö, this band has one of the best death metal throats ever. In fact, he has the doubtful honour of winning me over to death metal vocals. But that wasn't about to happen till a few albums later.

As with most metal albums I find it difficult to single out tracks. Everything follows the same template, so only the extent by which a certain riff appeals more to me then the next one, makes me appreciate one song a bit more or less then those around it. The only few exceptions would be Blood of My Ennemies, Sacrificed and Feeding the Charlatan. On the first, Swanö tries to recreate the Nordic spirit of Bathory with a forceful Viking chant. Unfortunately it's a rather weak track. On Sacrificed he pays tribute to the Sisters of Mercy. Not to say it's a Lucretia / Vision Thing rip off. He has the right voice for it but the song isn't convincing again. Feeding the Charlatan is an attempt at hardcore.

It's a fine album when it just sticks to death metal. The few experiments outside that comfort zone are few and unsatisfactory. It's good, but a definite style album for fans of the genre. 2.5 stars