DISMEMBER — Like an Everflowing Stream (review)

DISMEMBER — Like an Everflowing Stream album cover

Album · 1991 · Death Metal

4/5 · 2017-10-01
voila_la_scorie

Explosive!

Crushingly explosive.

It's no wonder that Dismember's debut album appears on at least a few YouTube playlists of essential and classic old school death metal albums, songs, and bands. This album sounds like it's grinding civilization to iron filings.

The main reason for this immense sound comes from the guitars, which not only have a really raw distortion sound to them but also seem like they've been recorded with the needle as far into the red as possible. But not the rest of the instruments! The bass and drums, vocals as well, are recorded normally for an extreme metal band of the early nineties. Yet the guitars could rattle your teeth from your head if the volume were turned up too high.

The songs are generally short as in somewhere between 2 and 4 minutes mostly. But one thing I like about them is that the band mixes things up a bit with mid-tempo, fast, and furious as their choices for speed settings. Even though the album has an overall unified sound and it's not easy to pick out favourites, song by song you can easily hear that the band has a degree of versatility to make their album better than just a super-sonic blast through.

I find this album interesting too because the guitar sound and Matti Kärki's vocals resemble those on Entombed's "Wolverine Blues". Well, we do find Nicke Andersson of Entombed not only playing lead guitar as a guest but also designing the band's logo.

The Hammerheart records re-issue comes with bonus tracks that sound slightly different from the other songs but are a welcome addition to the collection. "Torn Apart" comes from the 1992 EP, "Pieces" and "Justifiable Homicide" is on the 1995 EP, "Casket Garden". This final song is perhaps the most outstanding because it captures that death 'n' roll feel that Entombed went for from "Wolverine Blues".

Nice, loud, destructive, and sonically grinding album.

more than 2 years ago
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voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I can give anything that's on YouTube a listen. Then it's all about how interested I am in the music. I might like it.

Vim Fuego wrote:

more than 2 years ago

You gotta give Massive Killing Capacity a listen though.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I´ll go as far as to agree to Pieces and Indicent and Obscene being worth your time, but that´s about it. I wouldn´t recommend spending time on Massive Killing Capacity. Dismember never released anything stinking bad, most of their releases just seem to rehash ideas from the debut in unremarkable forms.

voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Oh, Vim, now you’ve roused my curiosity. Yes, I will look a little more into their discography.

Vim Fuego wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I wouldn't stop at just this one. I can highly recommend the Pieces EP, as well as Indecent and Obscene, and Massive Killing Capacity, although the second two change sound a bit. Still brutal, but with a bit of melody.

voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Thanks, UMUR. It seems later releases don't get as high ratings as this one. With so many bands to explore, it's a relief to hear when one album is enough.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I absolutely adore this album...but when that is said, it´s about the only Dismember release I really enjoy and the only one you need in your Collection.