UNLEASHED — The Utter Dark (review)

UNLEASHED — The Utter Dark album cover Demo · 1990 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"The Utter Dark" is the first demo release by Swedish death metal act Unleashed. The demo was independently released on cassette tape in May 1990. The demo sold around 3.000 copies. Unleashed was formed in 1989 after Nihilist disbanded. Bassist (later lead vocalist) Johnny Hedlund was not invited to join Entombed, which was formed one week after by the other members of Nihilist. In fact disbanding Nihilist and forming Entombed, was their way of getting rid of Hedlund instead of just telling him, that he was fired. Hedlund soon after formed Unleashed and recruited drummer Anders Schultz and guitarist Fredrik Lindgren, who were both part of the local Stockholm death metal scene, and to complete the lineup former Dismember frontman/guitarist Robert Sennebäck.

"The Utter Dark" features 3 tracks and a total playing time of 12:36 minutes and although both "The Dark One" and "Violent Ecstacy" would be re-recorded and included on Unleashed´s debut full-length studio album "Where No Life Dwells" (May 1991, Century Media Records), "The Utter Dark" sounds quite different from how Unleased would sound just a year down the line. This is a much darker and more raw sounding death metal release, than what you´re used to hearing from Unleashed. Personally I wouldn´t have guessed that it was Unleashed playing if I didn´t know it. It´s also a bit more doomy in places, although the pace is generally pretty high (seldom blasting though). "Ancient Dead" is exclusive to this demo.

Upon conclusion it´s certainly a worthy old school Swedish death metal demo and it´s obvious that Unleashed had something going for them, although they still needed to hone their skills and perfect their songwriting to produce the distinct sound they did on their debut album. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.
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