UMUR
"Hallucinating Anxiety" is the debut full-length studio album by Norwegian death metal act Cadaver. The album was released through Necrosis Records (an Earache Records imprint label) in November 1990. The album has an interesting release history, as it was originally only released as an individual album on vinyl and cassette tape. The CD version of the album was released as a split album which also featured the "Dark Recollections (1990)" album by Swedish death metal act Carnage. Cadaver was founded in 1988 and released the "Abnormal Deformity" demo in 1989, which is one of the earliest examples of Norwegian death metal, and they are widely considered a seminal Norwegian death metal act.
The music on "Hallucinating Anxiety" gore themed old school death metal. The guitar tone is brutal and buzzing, the drums are organic and played relatively varied for the style, and the vocals are brutal but also features an aggressive edge. The riffs are mostly downtuned tremolo picking, but there are quite a few heavier groove oriented brutal parts on the album too. A good example of the latter is already heard on the opening track "Ignominious Eczema" (after the short "Tuba" intro), where the band successfully, and to great effect, play a riff, then take the pace down and play a heavier version of the same riff, and then take the same riff down even further to an even heavier and slower pace. It might be simple, but it´s greatly effective and crushingly brutal.
The trio of Anders Odden (Guitars), René Jansen (Bass) and Ole Bjerkebakke (Drums, Vocals) are relatively well playing and the album features a suiting brutal murky sound production, so "Hallucinating Anxiety" is overall a good quality old school death metal release. The material is slightly one-dimensional, and a guitar solo here and there wouldn´t have hurt, to break the sometimes monotone brutality, but fans of uncompromising old school death metal should be able to appreciate "Hallucinating Anxiety" greatly. A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) is warranted.