I must confess that I had other reviews to write before even thinking about reviewing Mr.
Death’s
Detached from Life. But then again, writing reviews is a lot about feelings and motivation. Some stuff you receive, you do because you have to, others because you want to.
Mr.
Death falls into the latter category.
I must say I wasn’t particularly enthralled by
Agonia Records’ description. Using too many dithyrambic words usually makes me cautious and one word usually pops up in my head: Marketing. Citing
Detached from Life as one of the best ever recorded albums for the last 20 years is a bold statement. Well… they’re freaking right.
Built up around ex-members of
Tiamat and former Swedish old-school glory
Treblinka, Mr.
Death plays
Death Metal. I won’t add the usual mile-long epithets like
Brutal, Technical and what not. Mr.
Death plays
Death Metal.
And that’s a perfectly fitting description.
Produced by the mighty mighty Tomas Skogsberg at the mighty mighty Sunlight Studios,
Detached from Life offers everything you’d wish to have featured on only one record album.
The production is indeed brilliant. Though in the first half of the 90’s, I was growing a bit tired of records coming from what seemed at the time a mere music plant: Sunlight Studios. Every goddamn Swedish band ended up sounding just the same based on
Entombed’s Left
Hand Path’s footprint. Though I’d never deny the qualities of albums like
Dark Recollections, Like An
Ever Flowing
Fondlecorpse or Into The Grave, one must admit that some of these releases “made in Sweden” bore too many similarities between each other. Here with
Detached from Life, a more mature and certainly more experienced Skogsberg gives each and every song their own respective personality. Sure it’s Swedish
Death Metal, let there be no doubt about it. But besides the obvious, you can tell that all the tracks have a life of their own and while the whole result is homogeneous, you will find yourself immersed in various worlds.
The music is both catchy and groovy and has a distinct raw feel very reminiscent of past productions like
Master’s eponymous album or something close to
Entombed’s
Wolverine Blues except it’s not as
Death n’ Roll. Jocke’s vocals are quite intelligible but do not expect or fear clean vocals. It’s raw as fuck and you’ll find yourself with the irrepressible need to “sing” along one of the many catchy choruses like the ones featured on Combined
Anatomy or
Suffer.
At times, the music will display riffing very much similar to
Carcass’ Symphonies Of
Sickness, which in my book, is never ever a bad thing. This is also quite a nice plus considering the lyrical contents of the records mainly deal with
Death, the
Dead and the Living-
Dead (in no particular order!). This also compliments the graphical content used on the album and I could have sworn that by the cover only it was yet another
Razorback Records release.
And that is more credit to
Agonia Records. Not only have they signed a band that will soon make a name for itself but they’ve acknowledged the fact that plain and catchy
Death Metal is the way it’s supposed to be made and that you don’t need to play either too technical prog-like stuff or too regressive occult shit to deliver a mind-blowing record.
I’m very pleased to see that this trend of playing
Death Metal that knows where it came from but yet incorporates modern production is now catching up with the two aforementioned genres.
Together with bands like
Fondlecorpse,
Corpus Mortale or
Vicious Art, Mr.
Death is a rising new star that will likely shine for years to come. To ignore such an album would be a serious mistake. Don’t make it.
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