Warthur "The Spectral Sorrows" could have been subtitled "We Weren't Kidding With The Last Album's Title", because if the previous release from Edge of Sanity was Unorthodox, this album well and truly embodies that idea. Though it continues the band's development of their own style of technically-inclined melodic death metal, it also includes a number of songs where the band members indulge their appreciation of other musical styles. Andreas Axelsson gets to take lead vocals on the thrashy Feedin' the Charlatan, for instance, whilst Dan Swanö indulges his taste for gothic rock (which would see further flowering on his Nightingale side project) on Sacrificed, which may be the best Sisters of Mercy pastiche out there.

The poster boy for the band's willingness to defy metal orthodoxy, however, has to be their decision to cover Manowar's Blood of My Enemies. At a time when the consensus among extreme metal fans was that Manowar were a total embarrassment and the living exemplars of everything cheesy about more traditional metal styles, Edge of Sanity manage to turn out a version of the song which adeptly twists it so that it fits their death metal aesthetic.

Well-produced, diverse, and with the band making a virtue of their divergent musical and artistic ideas rather than allowing those to be a bone of contention, this might be the best Edge of Sanity album aside from Crimson.

UMUR "The Spectral Sorrows" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Edge of Sanity. The album was released through Black Mark Productions in November 1993. Although bassist Anders Lindberg is credited as a member of the band, he actually didn´t play on "The Spectral Sorrows" due to serving mandatory Swedish military service. All bass on the album was performed by guitarist Andreas "Dread" Axelsson. While the two previous studio albums were recorded at Montezuma Studio in Stockholm, "The Spectral Sorrows" was recorded at lead vocalist Dan Swanö´s own Unisound Recordings.

The band didn´t waste any time in their early years, and "The Spectral Sorrows" is their third studio album in as many years. "Unorthodox (1992)" showed a progressive development of the bands sound compared to the slightly technical yet ultimately old school Swedish death metal sound of "Nothing but Death Remains (1991)". Therefore it´s no surprise that "The Spectral Sorrows" sees Edge of Sanity pursue new adventures and branch out even further.

The music on the 13 track, 54:02 minutes long album is still predominantly a well balanced mix of old school Swedish death metal and progressive rock/metal elements, but there are more new features on "The Spectral Sorrows". They´ve for example begun to incorporate more melodic guitar themes, and keyboards are used more on this album too compared to the predecessors. The vocals are still predominantly intelligible growls, but there are some clean vocals on the album too. Featured most prominantly on the cover of "Blood of My Enemies" by Manowar. A cover which at the time was quite the bold move for a death metal act. But it doesn´t stop there as Edge of Sanity have also included a full fledged goth rock track in "Sacrificed" on the album (featuring deep register male vocals and all). It´s like listening to a Sisters of Mercy song. While those two tracks stand out the most from the rest of the material, the Andreas "Dread" Axelsson led "Feedin' the Charlatan" is also quite different with it´s thrash/hardcore sound.

Other than those three tracks and the two shorter instrumentals which bookend the album, the remaining 8 tracks are more "regular" old school death metal with varying degrees of progressive leanings. To my ears highligts (among those 8 tracks) include "Darkday", "Lost", "The Masque", and "Jesus Cries", but the remaining tracks are also of a high quality. It´s an album where you´ll discover new details with every spin and tracks you initially thought sounded pretty simple, often reveal further depth and more details when listening a bit more focused to the music.

The diversity of the material makes the overall listening experience a bit fragmented and stylistically inconsistent, and I used to think of it as an issue (I´m sure there are others who share that opinion). Having listened to "The Spectral Sorrows" several times over the years though, the many musical styles, and how they are presented on the album, have grown to a strength in my opinion. There´s always something new happening, and no track sounds like the one before it, which also means that all tracks are memorable. I could have done without "Feedin' the Charlatan", which I feel is of a sub par compositinal quality, but the rest of the material (including "Blood of My Enemies" and "Sacrificed") is of a high quality and is loaded with intriguing details. "The Spectral Sorrows" features a well produced and distinct sounding production, and the musicianship is on a high level too, so upon conclusion a 4.5 star (90%) rating is deserved.

J-Man A Wonderful Death Metal Journey

The Spectral Sorrows is an interesting album, to say the very least. While Edge of Sanity's previous album, Unorthodox, was pretty standard death metal, The Spectral Sorrows is quick to change that. The band's third album is still (very) firmly rooted in the Swedish death metal scene, but you should expect to hear goth rock, progressive rock/metal, traditional heavy metal, and of course some brutal death metal packed inside of this very unique album.

As mentioned earlier, The Spectral Sorrows is hard to pin down as just one genre. This is a diverse album, and it will appeal to people with diverse tastes of music. If you're just looking for pure death metal, you will most likely be disappointed with this album. Of course, if you're okay with some variation this shouldn't be a problem at all! One of my biggest issues with many death metal releases is that the formula becomes tired and overused by the end of the album. That is not the case with this album. Whenever the standard death metal formula begins to get a little tiring, there is usually a song that will serve as a perfect breaking point between the death metal intensity.

The best songs on The Spectral Sorrows depends on what you are looking for. If you're looking for death metal, most of the album will surely impress you. You'll find some killer riffs on this album. If you're looking for proggy stuff, like Crimson, songs like Across The Fields of Forever, On The Other Side, and Lost should appeal to you, as well as the surprisingly beautiful A Serenade For The Dead. If you're in search of goth rock, Sacrificed and the Manowar cover, Blood of My Enemies should appeal to you. Clearly, The Spectral Sorrows will appeal to a wide variety of metalheads.

The musicians in Edge of Sanity are fantastic, despite all of their disagreements on later albums. Though Benny Larson's drumming, Andreas Axelsson's and Sami Nerberg's guitars are fantastic, Dan Swanö takes the cake. He is one of my musical idols, and I will always worship his godliness at the microphone, not to mention his superb songwriting.

The production is perfect for this kind of music. It's crushingly heavy, yet sophisticated enough to deliver a satisfying experience to any audiophile. Börje Forsberg and Edge of Sanity completely nailed the production on The Spectral Sorrows. Dan Swanö's brilliant mixing and engineering is worth noting as well.

Conclusion:

The Spectral Sorrows took a while for me to appreciate, but I've eventually grown to love it. I'm very glad that I dedicated a lot of time in an attempt to appreciate The Spectral Sorrows, because it is now one of my favorite Edge of Sanity albums. Of course, it doesn't rank up there with Crimson, Crimson II, or Purgatory Afterglow, but it is still an excellent 4 star album. Highly recommended to open minded death metal fans.

4 stars.

bonnek Judged from a death metal point of view, Edge of Sanity's third is probably better then Unorthodox. I've never spent much time with it but given my grown enjoyment of Unorthodox, I gave it another round of spins in the car. Belgian traffic statistics noticed a steady growth of incidents!

This album is as fun as death metal gets. Fast riffing, constant tempo changes, brutally low bass and with Dan Swanö, this band has one of the best death metal throats ever. In fact, he has the doubtful honour of winning me over to death metal vocals. But that wasn’t about to happen till a few albums later.

As with most metal albums I find it difficult to single out tracks. Everything follows the same template, so only the extent by which a certain riff appeals more to me then the next one, makes me appreciate one song a bit more or less then those around it. The only few exceptions would be Blood of My Ennemies, Sacrificed and Feeding the Charlatan. On the first, Swanö tries to recreate the Nordic spirit of Bathory with a forceful Viking chant. Unfortunately it’s a rather weak track. On Sacrificed he pays tribute to the Sisters of Mercy. Not to say it’s a Lucretia / Vision Thing rip off. He has the right voice for it but the song isn't convincing again. Feeding the Charlatan is an attempt at hardcore.

It’s a fine album when it just sticks to death metal. The few experiments outside that comfort zone are few and unsatisfactory. It's good, but a definite style album for fans of the genre.