The story of EDGE OF SANITY is a tale about how things should better not happen. The band was there in times when Death Metal was put on the map of music and bands from Sweden had a huge impact on the developing scene. The first EDGE OF SANITY album “Nothing But Death Remains” from 1991 is among the records that are highly influential for the genre. In the following years, the sound of the band from the Östergötland area of Sweden became more progressive and melodic, culminating in the album “Crimson” in 1996. This one consisted of only one song of 40 minutes and covered all styles of Death, Black and Gothic Metal. Sparkling to some, overambitious to most and a challenge for everyone, “Crimson” could have been a worthy end to the evolution of EDGE OF SANITY, either as a legacy or the turning point to a recollection of the roots of the band. Instead, it became the beginning of an end that ruined the reputation of the band at least a bit, as it led to disagreements about the future path of the band. While singer and multi-instrumentalist Dan Swanö wanted to lead the band to new musical shores, the other main songwriter Andreas “Dread” Axelsson preferred a return to the more extreme roots of the band, supported by the rest of the band. These disagreements lead to a follow-up album of the most patchy kind that foreshadowed the departure of Dan Swanö the same year and the ultimate split of the band two years later. “Infernal” was released in early 1997 and was more or less a split album of a Dan Swanö solo project and EDGE OF SANITY without Mr. Swanö. Drummer Benny Larsson was the only member who performed on all of the eleven songs, which is a proof of how disrupted the band was at that point. The diversity of the songs might have been somehow charming if the songs themselves wouldn’t have been rush jobs. The songs that Dan Swanö wrote sounded like half-assed attempts to get a piece of the cake of contemporary trends in Rock music. ‘Hell Is Where The Heart Is’ or ’15:36′ are really mundane compositions that had not much to do with the Death Metal sound EDGE OF SANITY was known for. On the other hand, Andreas Axelsson seemed to have used not too much time in composing either, as they all sounded as if they were created helter-skelter. It surely is not a coincidence that one of the songs had that title as well. Thus “Infernal” is not only an album that wasn’t worth the band logo on the cover, it even was nothing but a waste of time and resources. I don’t really understand why Century Media re-released “Infernal” some weeks ago and even remastered it. The only reason seems to be completeness, as they also made the other albums from EDGE OF SANITY available again. As we have the year 2025, no re-release is real without at least a ton of bonus material. In this case, we have some demos that Dan Swanö recorded for his part of the album in 1996. And I can surely state here that these four songs were for the birds from the beginning. Next we have a really interesting, yet short (100 seconds) remastered song. ‘Moonshine’ was up to now only released on the compilation “Evolution” in 1999. Though this song doesn’t sound like EDGE OF SANITY either, as it is a real fine Crustcore song in the vein of bands like SKITSYSTEM, it is by far better than any song on “Infernal”. And as a compensation for the old fans of the band, the bonus material features the recording of a 40 minute live show EDGE OF SANITY played in Esbjerg, Denmark, in 1991. The sound quality is quite good, it seems to be a soundboard recording as the guitars are a little bit in the background. The songs featured are nearly the whole “Nothing But Death Remains” album plus ‘Everlasting’ and ‘A Curfew For The Damned’ that later ended up on the album “Unorthodox” in 1992. And despite this nice extra I still vigorously doubt that this re-release is of any meaning unless you are a die-hard fan of EDGE OF SANITY. In the end, this double CD leads us to the question if it is really necessary to re-release any Metal record ever recorded, a question that I’d answer with a definite “No!”. You might find more answers to that question at www.facebook.com/centurymedia