EPITAPH - Seeming Salvation (THRASH Records - LP 1992)
Swedish death metal! Is there
anything better than that? I think not! I love this music, I love this sound
and always preferred the Scandinavian bands over American death metal for instance
(with few exceptions obviously!). And Epitaph was one of my favourites back in
the early 90’s! Of course I liked Dismember, Grave, Desultory, Entombed or Necrophobic
the most, but at some point I also bought (blindly, without knowing anything
about those bands, but I loved the artwork haha) licensed cassettes with such
albums like “Passage of Life” and “Seeming Salvation” – both on Loud Out Records
– and for me these smaller and lesser known bands were just as great as the big
names everyone knew. They were both clicking all the right boxes about “what I
like in the Swedish death metal”, and more so, there was also this feeling of
satisfaction that I got two bands, which none of my friends knew about, so I
could brag about finding new death metal killers haha! Anyways, it’s now over
20 years later and I still come back to these albums quite often. I have that
original LP of “Seeming Salvation”, released on Thrash Records, which I bough
around 2005 for quite small price – and laugh seeing how much people want to
pay these days not only for the original CD or LP, but even for the repress CD.
It is just hilarious! I am not even sure, if this album is worth so much?
Probably not, because let’s be honest – it’s great record, but nothing really
special or groundbreaking for the Swedish death metal in general. It’s not “Left
Hand Path” or “Like an Ever Flowing Stream”, if you know what I mean. Epitaph
were just adopting to what other Swedish bands already created. Sure, they had
a great demo “Disorientation” from 1991 (also released on the split LP with
Excruciate) and this full length is also killer, but in the scale of the entire
scene, they were just as common and typical as most of the other bands. There
was nothing what would really differ Epitaph from the likes of Cemetary, Mastication,
Excruciate and so on. Which is nothing wrong, as now we all love these bands
even more than we did twenty years ago haha!
So, let’s see what is this
album like. One thing, which I think did not survive the test of time is the
production of “Seeming Salvation”. I think this is one of the weakest Sunlight
Studios recorded albums. The sound is quite clean, maybe too clean, the guitars
are thin as fuck and just not aggressive at all. Of course Epitaph had that
characteristic guitar tone, which most of the Sunlight bands had, but these
guitars are not heavy enough and not so downtuned as on the demo or as most of
the other Swedish bands tuned. For example it doesn’t sound as aggressive as “Passage
of Life”, which was recorded in similar time.
But I have to admit that I
love “Seeming Salvation” despite all its drawbacks. Musically, this is just a
killer record, from start to finish it offers great melodic, atmospheric death
metal songs and even though I’ve listened to this album hundreds of times, it
still doesn’t bore me at all. Epitaph had good skills to come up with great,
memorable songs and infectious melodies that shall stick in your head for good,
but at the same time you will bang your head like crazy, because this is still
a ravaging death metal. Yes, melodic stuff, but Epitaph was not forgetting
about having many killer, vicious parts and incorporated even some blasts here
and there, so it’s very diverse material. It begins with “Chastity”, which is
sort of doomy intro with spoken words. It smoothly transforms into the title
song, which is a classic stuff, comparable to Cemetary, Desultory, Gorement or
Excruciate. It is all midpaced, with great guitar work on the harmonious riffs,
also with nice melodic leads, but still keeping that aggressive side intact. Meanwhile
the next song “Prey to Dismay” belongs to the most noticeable as well as
diverse pieces, as you have there some blasts in the opening part, which
suddenly changes into a slow, doomy and melodic theme. And again there’s this
great guitar solo and even a nice acoustic piece in the middle… This song has
just everything what I like about Swedish death metal, so yeah, for me it’s one
of the best songs on the album. If you like more aggressive stuff, then I recommend
you track called “The Twisted Grace”. It’s damn killer song, with few faster
parts, but again with a necessary dose of harmonic riffs here and there. Or
“Self Inflicted”, which is also very obscure and brutal. These two are
definitely the most aggressive tracks here.
Obviously I can mention more
songs and each would have something characteristic about them; there are some,
which are more focused on the aggressive death metal, some other are more doomy
and melodic… but the whole album is just a very good listen. “Seeming
Salvation” may have its drawbacks, but when speaking of the songwriting, it’s
very proper and well composed album. All songs are killer, in my opinion, even
if quite predictable and typical, but maybe Epitaph just picked up all the best
ingredients of killer Swedish death metal and glued them together?? So, it’s
great, classic album for me and for sure it’s in my top then of Swedish death
metal of all time.
Standout tracks: “Prey to
Dismay”, “Seeming Salvation”, “The Twisted Grace”
Final rate: 85/100
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