CRIMSON

Edge Of Sanity are one of the many bands to come out of the Scandinavian metal scene. Dan Swano is the leader here but would leave after this album. I'm more familiar with his work in his other projects rather than in Edge Of Sanity. Crimson was one of those albums I had heard about and wanted to hear. This is currently out-of-print AFAIK and if you cannot find it you will not be missing a masterpiece of prog. You will find a very good death metal album though. The proggiest aspects of this album are the fact that it is a 40 minute song and it reprises earlier sections. It does not flow like an epic but rather sounds like 8 or 10 different metal songs all cut up and edited out of sync. Mr. Opeth, Mikael Akerfeldt guests here on guitar and vocals. There is some growling on the album but thankfully it's not the only kind of singing.

Starting out with growling and heavy riffs it quickly calms down before staying in a death metal style for awhile. Eventually some modified 'normal' singing and clean guitars for awhile. Some piano as well. I like this section. Then some Spanish style acoustic guitar. A part that reminds me of Pantera before before some fast speed metal/death metal stuff. A repeated guitar figure with some vocals that remind me of Type O Negative. What sounds like violin around 8 minutes. Another clean guitar/non-growled vocal part. Sounds like some keyboards before it goes into Tool like drumming. A short spoken word section with great guitar playing. More fast sh*t and growling. After 13 minutes great bass with those Tool style drums again with some good mini-soloing from guitar. More fast sh*t and screaming.

Nice thrash groove around 15 minutes. Really love the drumming before just before 23 minutes. Type O Negative style vocals come back. The riff starting before 25 minutes sounds like a Type O riff. More fast sh*t. More clean guitar stuff with some very alterna-rock type vocals (think Creed). A decent guitar solo at one point. I like the echoed/delayed/chorused/whatever guitar parts although you only briefly hear them once in awhile. More fast sh*t. The music stops after 32 minutes or so and then you hear a great a cappella part with studio altered vocals. This album needed more unpredictable parts like that. You know what follows that part? More fast sh*t. The Type O riff from earlier starts to get played slower and slower. This leads to the conclusion of the piece which features some good symphonic keyboards. A little more spoken word. Ends with the growling and heavy riffs of the beginning.

I don't really care for the beginning and ending of the album; starts and ends too abrupt for my tastes. I like the album cover although I'm not exactly sure what it is. There is nothing here that wasn't already being done by at least 1992. Nothing very original but a consistent metal album from the 1990s. Of interest to prog fans but nothing essential. Not as great as I originally expected but after several listens I certainly enjoyed it more than the first listen. My final verdict will be 3 stars.