Search - Carnage :: Dark Recollections

A great companion piece to Entombed's "Left Hand Path"

Tom P. the Underground Navigator | Park Forest, IL USA | 01/02/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As hinted at in the headline, the tracks that Entombed layed down in the course of that one fateful week in December of 1989 that would become the classic "Left Hand Path" often seem like they have yet to be bettered nearly 20 years later. That is arguable, but no one can deny that they did serve to ignite a firestorm of a movement (that had already taken effect at the underground tape-trading level) that would become one of the most revered death metal scenes in all the world, namely the classic "Stockholm" Swedish death metal sound.



Only two months later, in February of 1990, sister band Carnage, featuring guitarist Michael Amott (who currently resides in Arch Enemy) and other members of leading Swedish death metal bands such as Dismember and Carbonized, assembled at the now famous Sunlight Studio, where Entombed had recorded, and created their one and only studio Long Player, the album in question "Dark Recollections." And if these guys didn't better Entombed (which sometimes I think they just may have), they certainly came as close as any other band ever did.



I'm sitting here listening to this near-masterpiece and I'm hit by how absolutely powerful the sound still is, how crystalline the production of Tomas Skogsberg remains, and how despite scores of imitators that have emerged since, this recording has not dated one bit and probably never will. From the 50 megaton bottom-end buzzsaw guitar and bass to the sick guttural vocals of Matti Karki to the well placed and not overused blast beats, this record remains a landmark for brutal death metal.



That sound is only enhanced on this stellar 2000 remastered version that brings out all the performances as clear as a bell, while taking away none of that essential rawness and immediacy that has made this material endure for nearly two decades.



Furthermore, included here are extensive liner notes from Amott himself detailing the history of both the band and this album, which was originally released on the tiny U.K. Necrosis label, a subsidiary of Earache that was run by a young Bill Steer and Jeff Walker (Carcass). The original CD pressing also included Cadaver's "Hallucinating Anxiety" (please see my review of that album on the Amazon U.K. site) and now commands considerably more than its original list price (I've seen it go for $80 or $90 many a time on eBay, sometimes more). Another thing I like about this reissue is that the band's thank list from the original 1990 pressing is preserved here and is like a time capsule to the underground death metal scene of the time.



Finally, even if you already own a past pressing of this album, this reissue is well worth picking up because included are bonus tracks taken from the 1989 demos, when the band was still more of a splatter-grind outfit in the vein of early Carcass, who served as the benchmark of brutality for underground bands of the day. Carnage's first demo "The Day Man Lost" reminds me of another demo existing at the same time, Xysma's seminal "Swarming of the Maggots." (Please see my review of the Xysma 2-CD discography set elsewhere on Amazon. It is well worth picking up as it includes this demo. Also note that Carnage thank Xysma on "Dark Recollections.")



All in all, a classic death metal release and an excellent reissue that does the album justice and includes enough goodies to be more than worth the asking price."