UMUR
"Megatrends in Brutality" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Comecon. The album was released through Century Media Records in August 1992. Comecon was a project more than a "real" band and they released three studio albums in the years 1992 - 1996, featuring three different vocalists. "Megatrends in Brutality" features L-G Petrov on vocals. He was unemployed at the time as he had been kicked out of Entombed in 1991, alledgedly because of a situation that involved Entombed drummer Nicke Andersson´s girlfriend. L-G Petrov and Entombed would patch up their differences though and Petrov rejoined the band again in late 1992.
The music on "Megatrends in Brutality" is old school Swedish death metal, complete with crunchy downtuned guitars, morbid leads, growling intelligible vocals and D-beat drumming. Actually the drumming varies quite a lot with both D-beats, blast beats, and mid-paced heavier beats. The riffing is on the punked side at times but ultimately this is pretty typical old school Swedish death metal. Maybe that´s why "Megatrends in Brutality" seldom gets the recognition I think it deserves. It doesn´t stand out enough from the crowd, but I´m pretty sure fans of the genre will find it greatly enjoyable.
The musicianship, the sound production, and the songwriting are strong although seldom reaching excellence but less is sometimes enough and I think that´s the case with "Megatrends in Brutality", which is overall just a good representation of old school Swedish death metal. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is warranted.