COMECON — Fable Frolic (review)

COMECON — Fable Frolic album cover Album · 1995 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"Fable Frolic" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Comecon. The album was released through Century Media Records in July 1995. It´s the successor to "Converging Conspiracies" from 1993 and features the core two-piece lineup of Rasmus Ekman and Pelle Ström (both on guitars, bass, keyboards, and drum programming) and new session vocalist Marc Grewe (at that point the lead vocalist of German death metal act Morgoth). Grewe replaces Martin van Drunen (Pestilence, Asphyx), who sang on "Converging Conspiracies (1993)".

"Fable Frolic" was recorded at Sunlight Studios in December 1994, and features the characteristic old school death metal buzzaw guitar sound of that recording studio, but other than that the music style on "Fable Frolic" is not your standard Swedish old school death metal. I´d label it alternative Swedish death metal or something like that, because while the basis of the music is arguably pretty standard early 90s Swedish death metal, Comecon twist the conventions of the genre and challenge the listener with oddly placed acoustic breaks, groove laded riffs, programmed drums, and a generally adventurous songwriting approach, occasionally bordering progressive territories...

...and should be hailed for trying something different from the contemporary norm. When that is said the material on the album aren´t particulary memorable and the stiff and artificial sounding programmed drums aren´t exactly a plus either. This is definitely a case where a human drummer could have made the listening experience much better. Grewe is a great death metal vocalist, but here he sounds a little monotone and it´s like Comecon fail to use his vocal abilities in the best possible way.

So upon conclusion "Fable Frolic" more or less leaves me with the same feeling as its two predecessors, which is an album of standard quality material (which shouldn´t be confused with standard songwriting, because that would be a wrong statement in this case), decent musicianship, and a sound production a little sub par to other contemporary Sunlight Studios productions. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.
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