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?
Brownloading. Thank you.
ian
I actually remember seeing Kazjurol live in Fagersta around 87-89. Think it was at a one day festival sort of thing called “Fagerstarocken”. A lot of cool bands used to play there like carcas, pestilence, paradise lost, kreator, biohazard, candlemass, forbidden…
frownloading, thanks. let’s turn my frown upside down shall we?
Hehe, my father plays bass on this! 🙂
me end Tban are still rocking hard in “BAD DREAMS ALWAYS”
andy and i do som hobby redneck rockin in a band called
Sack of sweat
Even if i’m not a Fagersta rock fan, I was thrilled on hearing this music. I downloaded the files incorporated in this post and I listened to the music, like a pamper to my ears.
thanks!! we will release a comp cd/lp soon with fiv totaly unrelesed track in true “lesson in love style” but more intense and a bit shorter tracks!! watch out o KEEP ROCKING!!!