Most of you reading these lines will know that the mid of the 1990s were hard times for Metal maniacs, especially those of you who witnessed these dark years. Nearly all of the old heroes changed their style under the cloak of “evolution” or “adjusting to the times”. In fact, this change was the de-evolution of making music that was “hip” or “contemporary”. The result was a bunch of shitty albums from once great bands, even most of the few bands that still stood against that trend did release albums that were real lowlights compared to the masterpieces of the 1980s. The trend of “modernism” and “evolution” reached the Death Metal scene just one or two years later and with less impact. One of the bands that changed their style over the years was EDGE OF SANITY. They were part of the first wave of Swedish Death Metal in 1991 but became more progressive and more melodic with time. The climax of this development was the album “Crimson” in 1996. It contained only one song, but that song was 40 minutes long and took the listener on a rollercoaster ride through all the styles of Death Metal, touching Black and Gothic Metal as well. What sounds ambitious and maybe exciting on the first look turned out to be a walk on the razor’s edge. The song is of course filled with a lot of ideas, breaks, riffs and harmonies that take ‘Crimson’ through a lot of changes in mood, speed and volume. Crescendos and decrescendos affect the intensity of the moment and are responsible for the already depicted rollercoaster ride. Recurring themes hold the song together, just like it was with the Prog Rock masters of the 1970s that obviously were a huge source of inspiration for this album. Yet I am not able to help thinking that some parts of ‘Crimson’ were not thought through to the end, good approaches sometimes ended too soon. Thus this album left the impression of being unfinished in some moments, despite it’s very ambitious (some might say: over ambitious) approach and some very fine parts. Looking back at “Crimson” nearly three decades later, I can’t help the feeling that the inner disunity of EDGE OF SANITY was already there when “Crimson” was composed. This disunity led to the in my eyes disastrous album “Infernal” a year later, followed by the departure of Dan Swanö the same year and the ultimate end of the band some years later. Swanö composed a follow-up to “Crimson” in 2003, surprisingly titled “Crimson II”, without any original member of the band but still under the EDGE OF SANITY moniker. Like a lot of sequels, I remember it as just a pale imitation, but that is a different story to tell. Since “Crimson” wasn’t available for quite a while now, Century Media re-released the album recently like they already did with some other EDGE OF SANITY albums. It got remastered and contains a bonus disc as well. But the bonus material is definitely pretty pointless, as it features the whole album in a remixed version. And this remix is barely perceptible, maybe it sounds a little more balanced than the original mix, but in my eyes it is simply redundant to put out two nearly identical versions of the same material. But despite this flaw, it is not a bad idea to check out this new version of “Crimson” if you’re into Progressive Metal and Death Metal and haven’t got a copy of the album yet. Vinyl lovers get their share either, as “Crimson” will be available on a single LP in three different colours. Visit www.facebook.com/centurymedia for more.