Emotions Run Flaming
A glance
into the booklet: produced, engineered and mixed (with Utumno) by Tomas
Skogsberg, recorded at Sunlight Studios. Everything clear? Yes, Utumno is
another band coming from Swedish land. And another band which has been buried
many, many years ago and which failed to record a full-length. Even now, after
all these years when I know the stuff by heart, everything seems to be
incoherent. Let’s take the band’s name, Utumno, which was the first fortress of
mighty Melkor in Tolkien’s world. Yep, it fits in with any true black metal
executors. Going on, the fab front cover painted by Kristian Wåhlin which I
really liked isn’t a norm for death metal outfit. And what about Utumno members
picture in the booklet? They are nothing but a group of common secondary-school
pupils! With such inconsistencies the first song “The Light of Day” clunks. It
clunks without a mercy, showing the effective power of death metal.
If the
production is concerned, you won’t find a bungle here. I mean, I wouldn’t dare
to name it as another pure copy produced by Sunlight Studios in early nineties.
It is different a bit, yet nobody can be mistaken. Musically the whole seems to
kowtow to one recording originated from the Swedish soil. Its name is “Clandestine”,
however Utumno explores more atmospherical side of death metal with the best
example in “Sunrise”, or ending parts of the last three songs which are
splendid moments indeed. Not only fast scathing riffs (like in “In Misery I
Dwell”, the beginning of “Saviour Reborn” especially or the ending “Emotions
Run Cold”), but some whiles of reverie supported by good spoken clean parts as
well. That’s true Jonas Stålhammar shows his talent through the songs providing
quite good kind of growls and not stupid lyrics.
There
cannot be any complaints about instrumental layer. The rhythm section wedges
off the sound in a really devastating way. Bass lines are the next factor to
praise the Sunlight work, it’s perfect. Johansson and Lindahl duo doesn’t waste
my time and generates pretty memorable riffs and (rather short) leads, touching
a trashing madness hither and thither. It makes I can’t go wrong with the
tracks. About the highlights, I lean towards the absolutely fantastic tercet:
the opener, “I Cross the Horizons” and “Sunrise” strikes.
Even if “Across
the Horizon” was a strong impact into the underground, something went wrong and
Utumno (just like with the Melkor place) just split up, probably due to
problems with Cenotaph Records. What is more, only Jonas decided and to
continue his musical crusade, the rest left the deathly side of metal for good.
My tape edition released in 1994 by Carrion Records is still in a good
condition, but “Across the Horizon” has been re-issued several times on cd, tape
and vinyl formats. This is simply great stuff, not only for ears of Swedish
death metal maniacs. And sometimes I catch myself singing both aloud and in my
mind memorable words from “Sunrise” song: “watch the sunrise once again,
distant echoes now profane!”. Aaaarhgggg!!!!
90/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli
(written in April, 2016)
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