Not long after Entombed and Dismember (with the help of Unleashed, Grave and Tiamat) ignited a Swedish Death Metal explosion with their debut releases, the scene became infested with band after band who desperatley attempted to make a name for themselves by writing their own versions of Left Hand Path, most of which came off as nothing more than blatant rip offs, offering nothing new to the genre and lacking the talented musicianship or potent songwriting of their mentors. Standing out in this sea of mediocrity were a handful of bands who performed this style with such conviction and added a fresh approach which overshadowed the fact that they were travelling down a path that had been done to death and taken to its highest level of execution. One such band is Desultory, who released its debut album on Metal Blade in 1993, Into Eternity. In fact, I am convinced that had this band released this album a year or two earlier, we would be mentioning their name along with the more prominent bands who are noted for giving birth to the scene.

Much like nearly every Death Metal band from Sweden at this time, Into Eternity was produced and engineered by Tomas Skogsberg at Studio Sunlight, which is a fact very evident as soon as the music begins. It just has that famous Swedish sound. Within the album opening title track, it's clear to see what this band excels in, as they perform typical Swedish Death Metal with technical musicianship, maintaining the aggressiveness while injecting a strong dose of melody and atmosphere. Judging from the technical aspect of the song structures, Desultory seem to have drawn inspiration from Entombed's second album, Clandestine, rather than Left Hand Path. The vocals of guitarist Klas Morberg are suitably gutteral, yet his pronunciation of the lyrics is very clear, making it a bit easier to understand what he's saying than is usually the case with this style of music. Also unlike the majority of Death metal bands, Desultory's lyrics offer much more in terms of depth and substance, dealing with the mystery of the meaning to existence, emotional turmoil and the state of dreaming instead of the usuall themes of blood and guts...(with the exception of "Passed Away", which is the most aggressive song on the album and deals with the process of dying and eventual bodily decay). The lead guitar work of Stefan Poge is impressive, as he colors these songs with some nice solo work. However it is the performance of drummer Thomas Johnson that is the most impressive. This guy is amazing and certainly one of the most underrated drummers in the Metal scene. A very technical player, he spices these songs up with some great fills and never gets caught up playing the same pattern within the same song. It's his performance here that takes this album to a higher level. Highlights for me are the title track, with its atmospheric mid section, "Depression" (featuring guest vocals by Dismember's own Matti Karki), "Tears", "Forever Gone" (which has an intro that I'm willing to bet was very influenced by the intro to Dismember's "Dismembered") and "Asleep" which closes the album and drifts off into a void that brings the image of the astral photograph that is the album's cover to mind.

I don't think this band is still together today, as they released two more albums that I'm aware of, both on Metal Blade, 1994's Bitterness and 1996's Swallow The Snake, with the former being a great follow up to the debut and the latter being a disappointment with its groovy, almost Soundgarden-esque direction. However, Into Eternity is certainly one of the most underrated Death Metal albums of all time and if you are a Swedish Death Metal fan, this will most definitely not disappoint.

This review is credited to:
palewake