Dying metallic is a style that prides itself on extra. Blood, gore, viscera, homicide, serial killers and each different gnarly matter you’ll be able to assume are all inside its lyrical crosshairs, and throughout its near-four-decade historical past there have been a number of bands who’ve matched these excessive themes with some actually disgusting music.
Lik, a Stockholm supergroup that includes members of Katatonia and Massacre , are historians of their style. Their music revisits their style’s early-90s Scandinavian sound, whereas their new album Necro options songs about battle, dying, necrophilia and different such beautiful issues. So, I sat down with guitarist (and Katatonia bassist) Niklas Sandin to get his picks for probably the most disturbing, offensive and violent-sounding albums dying metallic has ever spat up. Get pleasure from!
LIK – Battle Reward (Official Video) – YouTube
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Disgorge – She Lay Gutted (Distinctive Chief, 1999)
“She Lay Gutted may be very relentless and fairly nasty. It’s very guttural and I really feel that it virtually crosses the border into grindcore . It’s technical: it’s a kind of albums the place you really want to focus to listen to the riffs. They’re very Stockholm dying metallic, with the chainsaw sound. And the paintings may be very romantic. Ha ha ha!
“I feel a pal really helpful it to me. He favored these sorts of bands from the Distinctive Chief roster. I don’t take heed to it a lot these days however I’m going again to it once I wish to clear my head. If I wish to do a crash-dump on my mind, it really works.”
“That is an album it is advisable take heed to again and again. The guitar work and the way they organize the music, it’s not, like, ‘straight-on’. You don’t simply go, ‘OK, that is this tune now.’ But it surely’s very brutal. I just like the manufacturing. It really works in the identical method because the Disgorge album: if I’m feeling sleepy on a airplane or going someplace, I can put it on and I’m energised once more.
“[Cannibal Corpse guitarist and Hate Eternal member] Erik Rutan produced this, and I feel he has what it is advisable be a superb dying metallic producer. It appears like he’s somebody who lives and breathes dying metallic, not solely by producing different bands however doing Hate Everlasting for ages.”
“My first Dismember album was Dying Steel . My sister gave it to me. She used to become involved in Sweden’s nationwide radio, one thing referred to as Grottan, which suggests ‘the cave’ in English. She’d keep up late and reply their questions on metallic. She gained a great deal of stuff, together with that album. She fell out of affection with metallic just a few years later and I adopted fairly just a few data from her.
“The factor with Dying Steel , it’s very brutal, however it additionally has melodic, Iron Maiden -esque leads. It’s a bit bit Gothenburg . It’s out and in with how melodic it’s. It begins very melodic, then comes a brutal tune! It’s like watching a horror film: if it’s monsters and gore and knives within the abdomen on a regular basis it loses its effectivity. There must be calm components as properly.”
Dismember in 2022 (Picture credit score: Nathaniel Shannon)
Decapitated – Natural Hallucinosis (Earache, 2006)
“I’ve all the time been a fan of Decapitated , particularly their earlier work. The one that basically resonates with me is Natural Hallucinosis . It’s their solely just one with Adrian Kowanek on vocals, as he was very sadly a part of that accident [the band’s tour bus crashed in 2007, paralysing Kowanek and killing drummer Witold Kiełtyka].
“It’s a really constant album, and its songs simply hit you more durable and more durable. It really works each time and I’m by no means dissatisfied once I put it on. It’s additionally an actual spotlight of Vogg’s [bandleader Wacław Kiełtyka]: he’s a terrific songriter and guitarist. He has one thing particular along with his solos. He has a really clear solo sound – typically it’s virtually too good for dying metallic!”
“After I was a youngster, I went right into a report store right here in Stockholm and noticed that cowl. I keep in mind enjoying that album for the primary time, cranking the quantity, and listening to that kick drum! Doc’s [late drummer Krzysztof Raczkowski] enjoying is so brutal! It flattens your face.
“My favorite monitor is Xeper and, if I’m not mistaken, Vader are going to be performing some Litany reveals. I’d like to see a kind of reveals, however I’m unsure I’m gonna make it. Ha ha!”
Lik’s new album Necro is out on April 18 by way of Steel Blade
