UMUR Released in November 1991 through Infest Records, this release is a split between the two Swedish death metal acts Excruciate and Epitaph. The split features all material from Excruciate´s second demo tape "Hymns of Mortality" from January 1991 (except closing track "Sabbath in the Mortuary") and all material from Epitaph´s first demo tape "Disorientation..." (July 1991). The split was originally released on 12" vinyl and limited to 3.000 copies.

While neither Excruciate nor Epitaph achieved much commercial success, and are seldom mentioned along with seminal Swedish death metal acts like Nihilist/Entombed, Dismember, Grave, and Unleashed, both bands were a part of the late 80s/early 90s Stockholm scene and made some waves in the underground demo tape trading community with their demos releases.

Excruciate play a deathgrind influenced brutal death metal style, which doesn´t sound inherently Swedish. It´s intense, featuring deep growling vocals, and some fast-paced grinding parts spiced up with heavier mid-paced death metal parts. "Hymns of Mortality" is definitely a demo worth a listen, but it´s not the most groundbreaking nor the most unique sounding Swedish demo release.

The material from the "Disorientation..." demo by Epitaph is slightly more interesting and also a bit more unique in sound. Epitaph started out in 1989 under the Dark Abbey monicker and played a vicious, grim, and aggressive style of death/thrash metal, but after changing their name to Epitaph in 1990 they started incorporating more death metal elements (like growling vocals and heavier brutal riffs and rhythms), which is the sound you hear on "Disorientation...". Epitaph still play a lot of sharp and brutal thrash metal riffs and rhythms, but in a death metal context.

Both demos are relatively well produced and both feature solid musicianship and decent songwriting ideas, so it´s a split release worth checking out for fans of the early Swedish demo death metal scene. A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.

UMUR "Hymns of Mortality" is the second demo release by Swedish death metal act Excruciate. The demo was independently released in January 1991. It´s the successor to the "Mutilation of the Past" demo from April 1990. The material from this demo was released on a split with the material form Epitaph´s July 1991 "Disorientation..." demo in November 1991 through Infest Records. Excruciate formed in 1989 and although they didn´t achieve the same level of success as act like Nihilist/Entombed, Dismember, and Grave, they were part of the late 80s/early 90s Stockholm scene and at least nationally they were regarded as an important band in those days.

Stylistically the material on the 6 track (one is a short intro), 26:01 minutes long demo is a deathgrind influenced death metal style which doesn´t necessarily sound much like the contemporary Sunlight Studio recordings. Excruciate are generally a much more brutal and pummeling act, and they take no prisoners on "Hymns of Mortality". It gets a bit one-dimensional along the way though, and a bit more variation between tracks would have made "Hymns of Mortality" a more memorable and accessible release. It´s fairly well produced, but of course still pretty raw and unpolished as expected from a 1991 death metal demo. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

UMUR "Mutilation of the Past" is the debut demo cassette tape by Swedish death metal act Excruciate. The demo was released in a very limited number of copies (including 100 on red tape) in April 1990. Excruciate were a rather short-lived act and besides demos and a split they only released the "Passage of Life (1993)" full-length studio album before disbanding.

"Mutilation of the Past" is a 6 track (the first track is an intro, which interestingly enough is a spoken sample taken from "Cyborg". The post-apocalyptic motion picture from 1989, which among others features Jean-Claude Van Damme), 24:09 minutes long demo, and with that much material on a demo, the listener is given a good opportunity to learn what Excruciate are about. But that´s actually apparent already after listening to the first "real" track on the album "Eternal Incubation". This is old school Swedish death metal to the core. Brutal and raw but still with enough memorable catchy moments to never drown in brutality. The band are relatively well playing, the growling vocals convincing and aggressive and the songwriting, while still a bit imature, is pretty decent too. The shifts between sections are a bit awkward though, but that wasn´t unusual for the genre in those days.

The sound production is dark, murky and reeks of rehearsal room atmosphere, but considering the fact that "Mutilation of the Past" was probably recorded on a 4 or an 8 track tape recorder, the band have actually created a pretty good sound, where it´s only occasionally hard to distinguish the instruments/vocals from each other.

"Mutilation of the Past" isn´t a revelation by any means, but it could prove interesting to fans of old school Swedish death metal, interested in listening to an authentic recording from the golden age of death metal. A 3 star (60%) rating is fair.

UMUR "Passage of Life" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Excruciate. The album was released in 1993 through Thrash Records. "Passage of Life" was recorded and mixed at Sunlight Studio with producer Tomas Skogsberg.

Bearing the above info in mind, it´s no surprise that the music on "Passage of Life" is old school Swedish death metal. Excruciate had been around since the early nineties, releasing a couple of acclaimed demo tapes and a split with Epitaph, but unfortunately it wasn´t until 1993 that this debut album was released. "Passage of Life" was already recorded in November - December 1991, so my guess is, that it was label problems (probably issues finding a label) which resulted in the late release date. It´s actually a shame because "Passage of Life" already sounded a bit outdated in 1993. You have to understand that the death metal scene where in rapid movement in those years and what was thought of as "new" in 1991 could already sound "old" in 1993.

Taking that into consideration "Passage of Life" is however a good example of how Swedish death metal sounded in 1991. The vocals are brutal, the guitars are downtuned and have a thick crunchy brutal sound, the bass is gone in the mix and the drums are relatively simple and effective. Pretty much the recipe for most old school Swedish death metal acts back in the day (although Excruciate stand out a tiny bit for having the occasional deathgrind influence and not many hardcore influences). Of course there were acts who stood out, but the music on "Passage of Life" is pretty much run of the mill old school Swedish death metal and I can´t find any sensible reason to seek out this album instead of some of the early classic albums by for example Entombed, Dismember, Therion, or Grave. Still the album features some pretty well executed old school Swedish death metal so a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.