UMUR
"Four Depressive Seasons" is the debut full-length studio album by Danish death metal act Illdisposed. The album was released through Progress Red Labels in 1993. The original version was limited to 500 copies, but the album has since been re-released by Nuclear Blast Records in larger numbers and with a different cover artwork.
It´s interesting to note that even though the album features a couple of elements not usually found on an Illdisposed album (like female singing), their trademark groove based death metal style is detectable right off the bat. Heavy and brutal as hell, but those groove based riffs are just irresistible and pretty much set them apart from all other death metal bands on the Danish scene. Back then and now. Bo Summer´s ultra deep growling style is processed and unintelligible, but unlike other death metal vocalists with a similar style, it actually works pretty well for Bo.
The songwriting is generally a bit imature and the same can certainly be said about the playing which is at times kinda sloppy. The sound production is really raw and almost lo-fi demo quality and while I don´t know this for sure, my guess is that the tracks were for the most part recorded live in the studio. But then again maybe not. This is not the first Jan Borsing produced release I´ve heard with a really bad sound quality.
"Four Depressive Seasons" is a decent debut album by Illdisposed, where especially the groove based riffs are enjoyable and severely headbanger friendly. There are too many flaws to call it a really good album though and a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.