DISSECTION - THE PAST IS ALIVE (THE EARLY MISCHIEF)

 

 

Classic Dissection material, what more can you ask for?

 

Are you one of those people who simply has to have the original pressing of every album? And you have been searching for esteemed Swedish Melodic Black Metal band Dissection’s first two, and extremely rare, demos entitled Into Infinite Obscurity and The Grief Prophecy? You could search forever but will have no success. That album that compiles the songs from both Into Infinite Obscurity and The Grief Prophecy, as well as tracks from the promo album for The Somberlain is in re-press now. Also included are two interesting tracks from a side project in which frontman Jon Nodtveidt played in entitled Satanized. 

 

While you have heard most of the songs on here before, it is still great to hear the demo versions of them, since they are a bit different and are really interesting to listen to. The production is not the best, but do not complain, this is Black Metal history. In fact, in most of the songs the production brings out the underlying rawness in Dissection’s sound, much unlike the well produced albums which followed in their career. The songs which were on the promo for The Somberlain are shorter than they turned out to be on the official release of the album. Even with the undergrounds production and the somewhat short track lengths, the album is an awesome look at classic Dissection material from back when they were playing their best stuff. The riffs are jaw-dropping. We are also treated to the fantastic, soothing acoustic guitar on the two instrumentals “Into Infinite Obscurity” and “Feathers Fell”.

 

The vocals of Jon Nodtveidt are a bit different than what we were used to hear from him. Aside from his usual Black Metal voice, which has that awesome echo effect which makes them sound distant and more pure, he makes some awesome Death Metal growls which are much lower, the prime example being in the song “Son Of The Mourning”, which is more of a straight up Death Metal song, not Black Metal. 

 

Included at the end is an extremely rare rehearsal of a side project of Nodtveidt called Satanized. They play a insane mix of Black and Death Metal, with no melody at all. All in all this album is an automatic buy for any big Dissection fan. This will quench your thirst for more Dissection material, because as we all know there will never be another album by this legendary band.

 

For fans of: Dark Funeral, Marduk, Necrophobic, Emperor, Watain