UMUR "Converging Conspiracies" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Comecon. The album was released through Century Media Records in November 1993. Comecon was a project more than a "real" band and they released three studio albums in the years 1992 - 1996, featuring three different vocalists. The band´s debut album "Megatrends in Brutality (1992)" featured L-G Petrov on vocals (who at the time was unemployed after being fired from Entombed in 1991). "Converging Conspiracies" features Dutch singer Martin van Drunen (Pestilence, Asphyx) on vocals.

Stylistically the music is old school Swedish death metal, but not the most standard representation of the style, as Comecon incorporate elements from other music styles and even some "light" avant garde type moments. van Drunen was always the embodiment of old school death metal, so I´m actually a bit surprised to hear him participating here, but there is of course still a good deal of old school death metal brutality present here, to make up for the occasional "different" sounding moments on the album.

To my ears the unconventional elements of the band´s sound often don´t work that well though, and they would probably have been better off keeping it simple and more traditional. As it is "Converging Conspiracies" sits a bit between two chairs and could have prospered from a more consistent and less adventurous style. The musical performances are decent (including van Drunen´s tortured growling), and the (at the time unconventional) choice of using drum programming instead of a human drummer, isn´t something that neither does good nor bad things for the music.

"Converging Conspiracies" features a sound production which is decent for the time, but nothing out of the ordinary, and upon conclusion "Converging Conspiracies" is a pretty standard quality old school Swedish death metal release, even though it features some different/unconventional sounding elements. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.