Century Media, 2004
- Winterland
- Destruction (of the Race of Men)
- Only the Dead
- The Longships are Coming
- Helljoy
- Insane for Blood
- I Bring You Death
- Attack!
- CEO
- One Night in Nazareth
- Praised be the Lord
- Metalheads
- To Miklagård
- Long Live the Beast
While still a great live band, before this album UNLEASHED hadn't released much of value since second album Shadows in the Deep, back in the early 90's when they were still a part of the Stockholm/Sunlight death metal scene. 2001's Hell's Unleashed, the follow-up to the abysmal Warrior, was supposedly something of a comeback, but ended up in severe disappointment for me and many others; while there were quality riffs here and there, the songwriting was generally uninspired. More importantly, however, the cheese factor was simply unbearable, with a lot of it being because of vocalist Johnny Hedlund's absolutely abysmal lyrics ("LIKE IT OR NOT BUT WE'RE BACK AGAIN! HELL'S UNLEASHED, YEAH ALL INSANE!") See, I listen to 80's thrash, it will take a whole fucking lot for the cheese levels to become unbearable to me, but Hell's Unleashed did it. I felt like I was turning dumber by every second I listened to it.
With this new offering, we have good news and we have bad news. The good news is that the songwriting is fucking BACK, for the most part. This doesn't have retarded stop-go riffing ("DUH-DUH! DUH! VIC-TIMS OF WAR!") nor does it ever turn unbearably simple rock'n'roll. No, see, for the most part, this is death fucking metal again, with riffs that will not be ignored ("Praised be the Lord"? WELCOME BACK TO WHERE NO LIFE DWELLS, CHOOSE SIDE FOLLOW MINE TAKE THEIR FUCKEN LIVES!) but will have you banging your head against the stage like you've never done before as if up from the dead 'til you fall on the floor. There are worthy solos, neat production, and even the fucking blastbeats are back at times (UNLEASHED were never heavy on them, which means more impact when they do blast.)
The bad news?
Lyrics not included with the promo, but I hear enough to make me fucking cringe. SERIOUSLY. Johnny is a funny guy and a competent vocalist and bassist, but either write some half decent lyrics like you did on Where No Life Dwells or get someone else to do it. Seriously, stuff like this ISN'T FUCKING CUTTING IT. It makes me lower the score on the album a fair bit, unfortunately.
So what we essentially have here is an album that is musically really enjoyable, totally old school death metal with some great riffs and an overall feeling of rejuvenation: UNLEASHED has succeeded to rise out of the abysmal depths of suckage they used to dwell in and return to some sort of relevance with their first truly listenable album in years and years... Unfortunately, the lyrics and their delivery ruin more than a fair portion of it, which is a shame really. If you think you can get past that, this is a recommended album for everyone into old-school butt-kicking death metal.
Rating: 7/10
* Actually, this particular lyric I can live with as a one-off fun sort of thing, it's sort of endearing in a way...
