Technical demands aside, intellectual depth aside, the best Death Metal is still the one that just bangs into your face. And what the very early Death, Massacre, Repulsion, Master and consorts were for the US scene, namely the initial spark of a whole wave of death music, is Carnage for Sweden. Personal cross-references lead to Carbonized, Entombed, Carcass, Arch Enemy, but especially Dismember. And with them there is also the biggest stylistic overlap. Some pieces are even very old Dismember ideas due to the typical Swedish inbreeding. Unfortunately, the bunch only caught up with one single album, which was released in 1990. Dark Recollections caused quite a stir in the underground. Entombed and also Dismember were commercially ahead with their debuts, because Carnage had already disbanded at the time of the release after guitarist Michael Amott was poached by Carcass. But that doesn't diminish the importance or the pleasure of Dark Recollections, especially since the re-release has the two infernal demos of the band and several rough mixes on board. Check them out, the root of all evil. --Jan Jaedike Amazon.com With only two demos and one album, Carnage managed to fascinate whole armies of death metal disciples at that time, who even today, at the mere mention of the band name, fall reverently to their knees. Stylistically the band can be compared to Dismember, which is hardly surprising, since 3/5 of the line-up continued their career with Dismember later on. Dark Recollections was first released in 1990 as a split CD with the Norwegians of Cadaver, but in the last years it developed more and more to a sought-after rarity, so that this re-release makes sense. Especially since the regular longplayer was enriched by no less than eight bonus tracks, which cover the whole musical work of the Swedes in their demo phase. Furthermore the booklet was enhanced by liner notes, various old band photos, flyers and reproductions of the two demo covers. A Death Metal collection without Dark Recollections is definitely incomplete, so go for it now! --Frank Stove
