UMUR
"Victory" is the 4th full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Unleashed. The album was released through Century Media Records in February 1995.
Three studio albums and a live album released in the years 1991 - 1994 and "Victory" is the first sign of any development of the band´s sound. While the roots of music are still buried deep in old school Swedish death metal the band have opted to incorporate quite a bit of groove to their music this time around. Not completely unlike what their contemporaries in Grave did around the same time. Probably to the great despair of the most conservative death metal fans, but personally I find this development a successful move by Unleashed. Suddenly their otherwise simple and sometimes slightly tame death metal actually grooves and kicks ass. It´s also as if lead vocalist/bassist Johnny Hedlund sounds more inspired an passionate here than his more one-dimensional vocal performances on the early albums. Tracks like "Victims of War", "Hail the New Age" and "In the Name of God" are great material and more or less representative of what you can expect from "Victory". The sound production is pretty strong here too.
Featuring 10 tracks and a full playing time of 33:59 minutes "Victory" is a very short and too the point type of album, and that seems to suit Unleashed well, as their relatively simple music is never allowed to drag on for too long. A 3.5 star (70%) rating isn´t all wrong.