Edge Of Sanity

Cryptic

(c)(p)1997 Black Mark Production

Review by Neil St.Laurent

Edge Of Sanity has come a very long way over a very short period of time. Not a lot of people remember much about "Nothing But Death Remains", and "Unorthodox" is a fading memory, but EoS will always be remembered for their "The Spectral Sorrows" recording, which is without a doubt the best the band has ever done. With the departure of Swano the music has taken a turn back to the past, and with the departure of Axelson, a turn for the worse.

Introducing Robban Karlsson, the vocals are a suitable replacement, but the style is so much trying to match that of former EoS that Karlsson exercises little freedom. Nonetheless the vocals are good, too bad they're mixed a little too low. An interesting note is that despite Karlsson being the vocalist, Dread did all the lyrics for this album.

The music is heavily guitar driven and goes for simple melody with a moderate concern for transitions and timing. While the guitar fare is highly melodic, the span of the melody only reaches over individual riffs. Note however this doesn't cause a broken sound; the riffing is very similar in nature within a song so although it seems accidental at times, the transitions are usually done without problems. Often flowing rhythm segues into crunching guitars then into a segment of discontiunous flow, or a somewhat broken sound. Sometimes the more simple riffs produce catchy rock style sounds, at other moments we're greeted with an atmospheric lead that more often than not is subsequently replaced by a higher paced assault. It is difficult to ascertain whether the variety of riffing, from slightly more complex to slightly more simple, converges to form a unified sound, or diverges to produce a hapless cacophony. Without doubt, the music is interesting to listen to.

Too hard has the band tried to be like Edge Of Sanity was at some point in the past. In addition to a seeming loss of direction, the album doesn't benefit from the same level of production we've come to expect from the band. There are a lot of decent elements in this album, but they are buried within the music of a band that doesn't exist anymore. Unfortunately "The Last Song" for Edge Of Sanity was on the album "Infernal".

Go the way of the swan, form under a different name...

Edge Of Sanity is:
Anders Lindberg - Bass
Benny Larsson - Drums
Robban Karlsson - Vocals
Dread - Guitar
Sami Nerberg - Guitar

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