UMUR
Where No Life Dwells is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Unleashed. The album was released in May 1991 by Century Media Records.
Unlike most other Swedish death metal acts at the time, Unleashed went to the Woodhouse Studios in Dortmund, Germany with producer Waldemar Sorychta to record the album, and not to the Sunlight Studio in Stockholm, Sweden, where most of their fellow countrymen recorded their early albums. That´s instantly audible when you listen to Where No Life Dwells, which has a very different sound compared to most other old school Swedish death metal recordings. The sound on Where No Life Dwells is "lighter" and not as muddy as the sound on many early nineties death metal recordings. The brutality is intact though, which is ensured by the brutal growls by lead vocalist/ bassist Johnny Hedlund. The album begins with the beautiful acoustic title track intro but from the first notes of the second track Dead Forever to the last notes of the closing track Where Life Ends, there´s little variation to be found. The songs are simple, formualic and for the most part pretty effective. I wouldn´t be out of line calling the album a bit one-dimensional though and while tracks like Dead Forever, Before the Creation of Time, Into Glory Ride and Unleashed stand out in my book, I find the album a bit too formulaic and lacking surprises as a whole.
I used to absolutely worship this album back when it was released, but back then I didn´t notice lack of variation and details in music, which is something I´m very sensitive about today. Now I won´t dispute the classic status that Where No Life Dwells has in Swedish death metal history, because it is without a doubt one of the great classic albums in the genre, but personally I find it too one-dimensional to warrant more than a 3 star rating.