XYSMA — Yeah! (review)

XYSMA — Yeah! album cover Album · 1991 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
UMUR
"Yeah!" is the debut full-length studio album by Finnish death metal/grindcore act Xysma. The album was released through ComeBack Records in 1991. It follows the release of the April 1989 "Swarming of the Maggots" demo, and the two 1990 EPs "Above the Mind of Morbidity" and "Fata Morgana". Around the time of writing the material for "Yeah!", the members of Xysma started feeling death metal/grindcore fatique, and they discovered the stoner doom/heavy metal of Black Sabbath, and it had great impact on the musical direction of "Yeah!".

In fact the new stoner doom/heavy metal element makes "Yeah!" one of the most unique extreme metal albums of its time, because Xysma combines the heavy grooves and stoner doom riffs with filthy death-doom metal parts which smell a bit like Autopsy and with deathgrinding blasting which is not far from contemporary Carcass (there are quite a few harmony guitar parts on the album too pointing in the direction of 70s hard rock artists like Wishbone Ash and Thin Lizzy). At times there are sections which could arguably be labelled death´n´roll (before such a term was coined) and add to that a psychedelic edge and you have a very eclectic release on you hands. This really isn´t supposed to work...but it does. The vague existentialistic lyrical themes are quite unusual for a 1991 death metal release too.

It´s interesting to note that "Yeah!" was recorded at Sunlight Studio (Stockholm, Sweden) during the autumn of 1990 with engineer Tomas Skogsberg. What´s interesting is that the album does not feature a sound production which sounds like any of the Swedish death metal releases recorded at the studio around the same time. Xysma went their own ways musically but also when it came to production techniques and the tone of their instruments.

"Yeah!" is bound to be a release dividing the waters, because of the odd melting pot musical style, but personally I find it one of the most unique extreme metal releases from the early part of the 90s, and to my ears the combination of musical styles and elements work wonders. A 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating is deserved.
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