It’s not a secret that Swedish
death metal is my favourite thing. And Excruciate belongs to my favourite bands
from there, yes! I had their “Passage of Life” tape (released on Loud Out
Records) for many years in the 90’s, but I truly was happy, when I discovered
that a vinyl is released by a new label. It was in 2009, this LP was very
limited (200 black and 100 red copies), so I grabbed a copy quickly. It
actually was the first release of The Crypt, now so well known and respected
for their killer releases, but in my opinion already the CRYPT 01 release
looked and sounded damn awesome. I got everything I wanted with it, but obviously
the music was what brought the biggest joy, since it’s such a damn awesome
death metal.
Sweden has been lucky to have
so many amazing bands (in the past but also in the present). But when listing
the best bands, people usually mention only bands, which have been signed by
major labels or have been around for more than just few years of early 90’s. I
can understand it, but to be honest most of the Swedish bands that I personally
like the most are those, who could be called “smaller and lesser known”. And
Excruciate is among them. I love this band a lot, their music meant a lot to me
back in the old days and “Passage of Life” still gives me goose skin. Of course
they started with two great demos “Mutilation of the Past” and “Hymns of
Mortality” (which also appeared on the split LP with Epitaph). But it’s “Passage
of Life”, which shows Excruciate at their best. What I enjoy the most about
this album is that on one hand it is pretty typical and classic Swedish death
metal thing; with that trademark Sunlight Studio sound that you cannot mistake
with anything else, more so the band had obviously used a lot of the typical
Swedish melodic riffs and leads, the vocals and atmosphere of the music are
also very Swedish like. But when compared to some other bands, Excruciate on
“Passage of Life” seems to be faster, more aggressive and vicious. And this is
why I like it so much. Let’s pass on the production value, which maybe could
have been better (I like it anyways, haha!), but as a whole this is a complete,
near perfect Swedish death metal album in my opinion.
The songwriting is just
fantastic. There’s no song, which I would not like or which would seem to be a
filler. Each track brings just extremely great riffs and harmonies, some
awesome ideas and arrangements that also distinguish them from many other acts.
And Lars Levin’s vocals also sound so harsh and nasty... But first and
foremost, “Passage of Life” is powerful and energetic album. Play it loud and
you’ll feel its fierce power. Of course it’s not as brutal and extreme as the
US or some European death metal bands, but it’s even better when the atmosphere
and aggression have been mixed in such an interesting and enjoyable way. And
Excruciate sounds awesome when they play slow and when they fast. It’s almost
difficult to pick up favourite songs, when the whole album is so even from
start to finish. But surely the opening track “Confused Mind” is the one that
stands out, for its great dose of more harmonic themes, but also some more
brutal and blasting parts. “Inhumation Postnatal” is very alike, as again
you’ll hear many fantastic melodies there, almost epic bits, but also ravaging
death metal. All in all, they both are great, very diverse, heavy songs. I can
also mention “Anatomical Self-Fertilization”, which is mainly fast as hell, but
somewhere in the middle it allowed a slow, quite mournful sounding piece to
enter. There are sons like “Suffocate”, which are a bit more twisted, with many
tempo changes, great, varied guitar work, what almost reminds me such Utumno or
Afflicted (but less weird that the latter haha!). But these are just examples,
as every song is filled with great riffs, ideas, fantastic arrangements, so we
can speak of each track in details. Great, great Swedish death metal, this is
what you get with this album!
It’s really shame that
“Passage of Life” is the only Excruciate full length and that the band split up
so soon (well, just like many other killer acts like Utumno, God Macabre,
Epitaph, Goddefied, Gorement, etc). I understand that the death metal
popularity at that time went down a lot and black metal started to be number
one thing, but who cares about that? A lot of other bands survived and kept on
releasing killer stuff. Of course I don’t think that smaller death metal
attention was the reason for splitting up of the band, but damn it, I wish so
much that “Passage of Life” was continued. Sadly, it wasn’t. Anyway, this is in
my opinion a great band, killer album, so if you’re into the Swedish death
metal do yourself a favour and spend some good money on it!
Standout tracks: “Confused Mind”,
“Suffocate”, “Inhumation Postnatal”
Final rate: 90/100
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