Edge Of Sanity – Crimson (1996)
Genre: Melodic/Progressive Death Metal
Intro:
Edge Of Sanity were a Swedish death metal band who formed in 1989 and disbanded in 2003.
The Band consists of:
• Dan Swanö − vocals, guitar, keyboards
• Andreas Axelsson − guitar (1989-1999)
• Sami Nerberg − guitar (1989-1999)
• Anders Lindberg − bass (1989-1999)
• Benny Larsson − drums (1989-1999)
“Crimson” was the bands first concept album, telling throughout the song a story of a future land.
The band consists of:
Review:
The album consists of only one track, “Crimson.”
The story behind the song summarized – A world in the future is infertile, but the King and Queen have a daughter. The Queen dies in birth leaving the girl to the king. The people believe that all is turning for the better, but it doesn’t and finally the king dies, shambles brakes out and everyone fights each other for the throne. The daughter finally takes the throne and is taken under some dark being’s wing, who gives her magical powers. She wrongs the people and kills of the older humans, which triggers a group of people to rebel against her reign and stop her, by blinding her. They then put her in the same tanks of CRIMSON as she did the elders. Needless to say, this is where the track and album get their title from.
The album begins by getting straight into the power and heavy riffs that are to follow it in this solo, 40 minute long track that. A strange start as the vocals as introduced almost momentarily as it commences, instead of a build-up of instrumental play like you would expect.
If you are thought to believe, as I was, that this album was just going to be an onslaught of heavy riffs, incoherent growling and crazy drumming to add to the concoction, you are in for a major surprise. At around 4 and a half minutes we are introduced to a beautiful piece which doesn’t last to long of clean vocals and acoustic guitar to support it, lovely contrast to the first 5 minutes. This occurs a few more times throughout the song but not to much effect until around 27 minutes.
Another invigorating part to the track is that every time you start to get the feeling that you are going back into a 10 minute running of the bulls with one angry cow, a soothing guitar piece pops out of nowhere and brings you back into the song.
Although the track is a revelation, you can get lost and be drawn to other things instead of focusing on the track itself, which is a huge mistake as you need to really get into the song to appreciate it. Personally I think it is a hit-or-miss song being that either you love it and can sit there for 40 minutes taking it in, or you sit there for 40 minutes staring out the window and not being consumed by the song, which in this instance is bad thing.
8.6/10
Edge Of Sanity – Crimson (part 1)