Edge of Sanity
| Edge of Sanity | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Melodic death metal , progressive metal |
| founding | 1989 |
| resolution | 2003 |
| Founding members | |
| Dan Swanö | |
| Andreas Axelsson (until 2001) | |
| Last occupation | |
Vocals, drums |
Dan Swanö (1989–1997, 2003) |
| former members | |
guitar |
Sami Nerberg (1991-2001) |
| Anders Lindberg (1991-2001) | |
Drums |
Benny Larsson (1991-2001) |
singing |
Robert Karlsson (1997-2001) |
Edge of Sanity was a Swedish melodic death metal band that started as a pure project in 1989 and became known for their combination of melodic death metal and progressive rock .
Band history
1989–1992 foundation and early development
The music group was founded by singer and drummer Dan Swanö and bassist Andreas Axelsson. Shortly after the founding, Axelsson switched to guitar and Anders Lindberg took over bass. A second guitarist was found in Sami Nerberg, while the drums were soon taken over by Benny Larsson.
Several demos were recorded with this line-up. The demo Kur-Nu-Gi-A helped the band to sign a contract with the Black Mark Production label in 1990 . The debut Nothing but Death Remains (1991) was then recorded in the Stockholm Montezuma Studio, directed by The Boss (who produced Bathory among others ).
A year later the band released their second album Unorthodox , which partly left the genre-typical limitation behind. Polyphonic guitar leads, acoustic elements and various other variations flowed into the band's death metal . The last track on the album, When All Is Said , has a completely death-metal-untypical ballad character. A music video was also made for this song. Furthermore, in the song Enigma you could hear Dan Swanö's clear singing voice for the first time alongside growls .
At this time Swanö was also working increasingly intensively as a music producer for various bands in his own Gorysound studio and thereby achieved a certain degree of awareness within the music scene.
1993–1997 International success
The third album The Spectral Sorrows (1993) was unusually progressive and, according to laut.de, seemed very influenced by Dan Swano's work on his side project Unicorn. The album contained, among other things, the Manowar cover Blood of My Enemies and the song Sacrificed , which according to laut.de " honors the Sisters Of Mercy ". On the following EP Until Eternity Ends (1994), Invisible Sun was a cover for The Police .
Also in 1994 was Purgatory Afterglow , which can be seen as a consensus album between Dan Swanö's penchant for unusual experiments and the wishes of his fellow musicians with an affinity for death metal. Nevertheless Swanö wrote the album almost completely alone, the first major disputes arose within the band. Swanö then devoted himself to his new one-man project Nightingale , which can be assigned more to Gothic Metal .
In 1996 the album Crimson was released , in which Dan Swanö consistently implemented his idea of an album that only consists of one song. The album was recorded within 24 hours and consists only of a single 40-minute song, which represents the diversity of the group: Among other things, there are fast and sustained parts, Swanö's voice varies from melodic singing to various guttural singing techniques , and related comparisons with Marillion can be drawn on the keyboard voice . Crimson became the band's most commercially successful work. After the release, the only headlining tour through Germany in the history of Edge of Sanity followed.
1997–2001 band crisis and unofficial dissolution
For the album Infernal , released in 1997, Dan Swanö composed half of the material and recorded it himself except for the drums, while the other half was composed and recorded by the rest of the group that was still in the original line-up, with Swanö only contributing the vocals. While working in Peter Tägegren's Abyss Studio , it became clear that the band could not last long in this constellation.
Dan Swanö wanted to continue the band on his own after the recordings, but was rejected by his label Black Mark Production: The rest of Edge of Sanity was already working with Robert Karlsson on vocals to create the follow-up album Cryptic . The album was also released in 1997 and was again clearly based on the original sound of the band. Another tour followed and a "best of" double CD under the title Evolution (1999), before the band split up in 2001.
2003 last album and final dissolution
Swanö had meanwhile founded his third solo project, Moontower , and was working on songs for Nightingale at the same time . Although he kept hearing from fans that they wanted another release of Edge of Sanity, he no longer wanted to be active with this band. It was only after an Iranian fan pleaded with him to write a veritable successor to Crimson , and even offered to cover the production costs, that Swanö began to consider this possibility. After Black Mark Production offered Swanö a sufficient budget to produce the album and hastily passed this news on to the media, Swanö was ultimately convinced and began writing another album for Edge of Sanity.
The Crimson II (2003) named album played Swanö alone in his own apartment one (The individual studios he calls it such. B. The Room and The Office ). Only the lead guitars were recorded by guest musicians Mike Wead ( King Diamond , Mercyful Fate ) and Simon Johansson ( Memory Garden ) and, since Swanö was no longer satisfied with his growls, Roger Johansson ( Paganizer ) took them over. Nevertheless, Swanö ultimately took on about half of all guttural vocal parts himself.
According to Swanö, the band's definitely last album is musically linked to its eponymous predecessor, consists of just one single song (but which was divided into different titles) and once again convinced both critics and fans. Lyrically, Crimson II tells a coherent, poetic story that was conceived by Clive Nolan ( Arena ).
Discography
- 1989: Euthanasia (demo)
- 1990: The Dead (demo)
- 1990: Kur-Nu-Gi-A (demo)
- 1990: The Immortal Rehearsals (Demo)
- 1991: Nothing but Death Remains
- 1992: Dead but Dreaming (demo)
- 1992: Unorthodox
- 1993: The Spectral Sorrows
- 1994: Until Eternity Ends (EP)
- 1994: Purgatory Afterglow
- 1996: Crimson
- 1997: Infernal
- 1997: Cryptic
- 1999: Evolution (compilation)
- 2003: Crimson II
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Edge of Sanity , laut.de, accessed on November 18, 2011.
- ^ Faust: Edge Of Sanity - Crimson (1996) ( Memento from February 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), metalmob.de, accessed on November 18, 2011.
- ↑ Christian Heckmann: CD Review: Edge Of Sanity - Crimson ( Memento from August 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), metal1.info, accessed on November 18, 2011.
- ↑ a b Christian Heckmann: CD Review: Edge Of Sanity - Crimson II ( Memento from October 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), metal1.info, accessed on November 18, 2011.
- ↑ Sebastian König: Edge Of Sanity - Crimson II , metalnews.de, accessed on November 18, 2011.