
Levitised Spirit
(Chaos Records)
17:56min
SEANCE from Sweden was another Death Metal outfit, which was totally underrated in my opinion as their first two albums "Fornever Laid To Rest" and "Saltrubbed Eyes" are really classic gems in the Swedish underground Death Metal history. Before that, their first demo "Levitised Spirit" was released back in 1991 and brought them a lot of credits from underground fanzines and finally a record deal with Black Mark Production. Surely you can expect Swedish Death Metal from a band release of the early 90s but SEANCE and their sound was already a bit different to the well-known Swedish Death Metal known from DISMEMBER or ENTOMBED. Their version was far more Thrash Metal influenced and for me, they were as good as MERCILESS back then but SÉANCE also incorporated a good doze of US Death Metal in their sound as especially MORBID ANGEL was highly respected in Sweden back in the days. What might sound a bit weird, worked out pretty well and sounded already quite matured on their first demo. Songs like ‘Haunted’, ‘Reincarnage’ and ‘The Blessing Of Death’ delivered all what Death Metal lunatics were longing for. Fast and outstanding discordant riffing of Patrick Jensen and Tony Kampner complemented by very technical and brutal US styled leads. Furthermore precise and complex drumming with hellish blastbeats and pounding double-bass attacks and the deep guttural grunts of vocalist Johan Ekström really delivered the rest and made their sound brutal as hell. But SEANCE also managed to slow down the pace and wrote some really heavy mid-tempo stuff but always sounding very heavy and brutal. Also I always like Death Metal with audible bass-lines as this really makes more brutality. Four of the five songs afterwards have been re-recorded for their debut for Black Mark but I personally prefer the unpolished and raw versions. And as the cover artwork and their old logo were really killer, I am happy that this release gets a proper CD treatment now with only careful done remastering. If you want a copy of this output, you’d better be quick as the release is limited to 500 copies only. For more info check the following pages: www.facebook.com/seanceswe, www.chaos-records.com
Michael Kujawska