[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-1vcuKcXeI]

Here Daniel Ekeroth, author of the massive Swedish Death Metal book (not to mention bassist of TYRANT and INSISION), unleashes a short session explaining the classic Swedish death metal guitar sound invented by Leif Cuzner of NIHILIST and perfected at Studio Sunlight in Stockholm on albums by ENTOMBED, DISMEMBER, and countless others. As you can tell by sunburned face, this is on day ten of a recent trip to New York. As soon as he finished making this clip, his body was chopped into pieces and sold as drugs to other Swedish tourists. That’s how we roll in New York…I guess.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8UCnDgFZYM]

The book is always better than the YouTube, but with a few weeks to go before Daniel Ekeroth’s Swedish Death Metal book is available, at least this video preview offers a quick fix.

Man does not live by blog alone, and in fact the monster project for the past six months has been getting all the pieces in place to publish SWEDISH DEATH METAL by Daniel Ekeroth in a fat, dark new edition. The cover test and page proofs arrived from the printer a couple weeks back–take a look for yourself. By the end of July, every household of ghouls around the world will be able to own a copy, suitable for endless obsessing and secondary use as a butcher’s block. More to come, in the meantime check the pulse here:

Swedish Death Metal book site

The demo digitization program has slowed a little lately while I prepare the the US edition of Daniel Ekeroth’s outstanding Swedish Death Metal for press. This is the first book through my new indie publishing house, Bazillion Points, and everything takes twice as long the first time through. I’ll unveil the appropriate hoopla in the next couple weeks–for now let me just say this is the best document of any underground music scene that I’ve ever read. More soon…

Thanks to recently-reactivated At the Gates drummer Adrian Erlandsson (also ex-Cradle of Filth) for posting three great demo songs recorded in two days in 1994 by his Terror project. Fulfilling some kind of Gothenburg headbanger fantasy, this is basically Erlandsson, the Björler twins from At the Gates, and dearly-departed Dissection frontman Jon Nödtveidt doing a tight-as-hell take on catchy Terrorizer-style death metal/grind. Nödtveidt’s vocals are especially cool, with occasional effects and a lower-range delivery of his trademark ghastly approach. With a total running time of exactly five minutes, the songs are called “Radiation,” “Destruction,” and “Terror”–what more do you need to know?

TERROR * 3-song demo 1994 [4.5MB .rar]

UPDATE: There’s been trouble with this link–hopefully it’s a bandwidth issue and the demo will be back online soon.

Thanks, Adrian Erlandsson!

While getting the manuscript for Daniel Ekeroth’s Swedish Death Metal ready for print, I picked up a good copy of Obscurity’s 2nd demo, “Damnation’s Pride,” from 1987. I don’t think the world could have been handed a bigger hint that Sweden would take over everything in five years’ time.

Their truth-in-advertising band name aside, Obscurity had a commanding presence. A far cry from their chaotic first demo (where the guitarists dubbed in drums after recording everything else!), “Damnation’s Pride” is just a triumph of ripping madness. The thick guitars, the gut-spewing vocals, the intense speed, and most of all that loveable Swedish death-groove are already in full swing here. If you like Nihilist’s 1988 demos but want to go deeper into the genesis of death metal, look no further:

OBSCURITY * “Damnations Pride” demo 1987 [14.9MB .rar]

My friends at Scarlet Records in Italy reissued both demos on CD back in 1998. The band themselves host a cryptic web site HERE, and their minimal MySpace streaming the four songs from this demo is HERE. Now if only the band would reform…

Not many people know this, because the launch date is still several months away, but I’ve started a small publishing company, and the second title will be the North American edition of Insision bassist Daniel Ekeroth’s excellent and exhaustive book Swedish Death Metal. Almost nobody’s seen this masterpiece in the Western Hemisphere, because it costs roughly $100 to mail order the three-pound monster from Sweden. That’s about to change. More news soon…

For now, I’ll take a page from Chapter 2 of SDM and post “A Lesson in Love” from Fagersta, Sweden’s nearly-forgotten thrashers Kazjurol. This well-executed riff-a-thon exploded in 1988, showing a technical mastery of Metallica, Slayer, DRI, and Excel riffage that approached greatness at times. With its artwork and well-meaning lyrics, Kazjurol seemed to be mounting a one-band assault against the increasingly mindless violence in American thrash by copycats of Exodus and S.O.D.

There’s a drawback to this demo, though — its long-winded repetition. Even the speediest and tightest guitar riff loses its oomph after the 8th repeat. As Ekeroth writes in his book: “When you listen to Kazjurol today it’s hard to understand why they got so much attention — but you have to remember that the world was a different place back then.” The total running time is 28 minutes — I think at 18 minutes this winner would have been a masterwork. It’s definitely worth a listen:

KAZJUROL * “A Lesson in Love” 5-song demo 1988 [39MB .rar]

The band released a slew of singles between 1987 and 1991, and considering the lengthy list of ex-members, I’d expect at least some of these energetic love-thrashers to have carried on playing music, whether hardcore, metal, or alterna-pop. Any updates — or at least a well-overdue explanation of the band’s name?

Great news in Grimpoint today, as it looks like my publishing imprint Bazillion Points will be printing the amazing Swedish Death Metal book in North America during 2008. Hold all calls — more details to come.

For now, let’s talk about the run-up to Swedish death metal, when Sweden suddenly filled with energetic, evil-obsessed thrash acts that went largely unnoticed outside Scandinavia. One my favorites is Hyste’riah from Landskrona, who were fluid, supple thrash masters with the weirdest vocals this side of early Bathory. I think the closest description I can muster is the guy sings like the ghost of Nuclear Assault’s John Connelly, banging against the barn windows while the band inside makes hay.

Guitar-wise, Hyste’riah is completely in the pocket, as the old jazz guys used to say. They plumb mid-paced thrash grooves to hypnotic effect, and it’s fun to play a game called “death metal dress-up” where you mentally start adding sicker vocals and thick Sunlight production until you make the connection to Entombed’s famous sound. Small surprise that Hyste’riah’s guitarist Cliff T, aka Klas Ideberg, is still a force in Swedish metal, generating gruff grooves to this day in Darkane, the Defaced, and Terror 2000.

HYSTE’RIAH * “Attempt the Life” 4-song demo 1987 [22MB .rar]

This tape was recorded on 26 Nov 1987. The following year, Hyste’riah briefly joined forces with the singer of God BC, briefly existing under the cryptic moniker Hyste’riah GBC. Yet alas, Sweden was not destined to earn its metal oats during the thrash epoch.

I’m putting together a Women in Metal episode of my Bloody Roots show for Sirius later this month, listening to lots of Gallhammer, Détente, Girlschool, and 13. So I guess I’m feeling extra-receptive to this fair green 1986-87 demo from all-woman Swedish quartet Ice Age.

With its stop-start songwriting and relentless melodicism the band’s second demo “General Alert” is like a very tame precursor to the hometown Goteborg sound. Though their feathered hair is piled high, and their pouty faces are slapped on the cover of this cassette case, don’t be distracted — Ice Age knows their metal theory. Despite carrying loads of of baggage from before the girls discovered Exodus, they patch together rollicking good upbeat metal.

The first three tracks come from 1987, and evidence more thrashisms like shoutalong backing vocals, E-string chunking, and song titles like “A Case of Cerebral Death.” Sounds like the title of a Swedish crime film, doesn’t it?

The final two tracks came from side II and were recorded in 1986, and are of a much more classic style. Competent Yngwie classicism and gutsy Doro wails dominate. Point these songs at your nearest Euro-metal purist and they’ll gush all over you. I can’t help but think that Ice Age was thrilled to discover thrash, though, so they could be part of sculpting something new instead of joining the tail end of the legions of the past.

ICE AGE * “General Alert” 5-song demo 1987 [32.5MB .rar]

The band’s founder/guitarist/vocalist Sabrina Kihlstrand has launched an Ice Age MySpace page, which features a technical Coroner-esque 1989 song called “Instant Justice” that is truly astonishing. Though Ice Age traded talent across the seas and eventually recruited past and future members of Rock Goddess and Sentinel Beast, there isn’t any vinyl available.

If you’re looking for photos of these heartthrobs picking their noses, check an old SLAYER mag from Norway. Ice Age melted the heart of editor Jon Metali0n, dominating coverage in early issues — thus possibly delaying the second wave of Norwegian black metal for a few years? (Ha!)