Review by Daniel for Dismember - Indecent & Obscene (1993)

For many extreme metal fans, the filthy Swedish death metal sound is the epitome of what death metal is all about. It's thick & noisy BOSS HM-2 Heavy Metal pedal guitar tone & up-beat, punky beats give it a lovely balance of savagery & accessibility. For me personally though, I've always preferred the more sophisticated & brutal US sound, even if I've been able to appreciate the way that the Swede's go about their craft. I was exposed to artists like Entombed, Carnage & Dismember very early on in the death metal story & had always found them to be interesting but rarely did I find myself making regular returns to these records which was telling. Entombed's classic "Clandestine" sophomore album was one of the rare exceptions & I still regard it as the clear pinnacle of the movement today with every other record simply competing for second place. Dismember are generally regarded as the undisputed runners-up & I did quite like their first two proper releases "Like an Ever Flowing Stream" & "Pieces" as well as two of their three early demo tapes but it was rare for me to place them into regular rotation like most death metal fans did. Despite that, I still found myself purchasing 1993's "Indecent & Obscene" sophomore album on CD upon release & I recall finding it to be one of the better Swedish death metal releases & my favourite Dismember record to the time. I've recently found myself wondering exactly where I'd place it in terms of the entire movement though so it's been on my radar for a return visit for some time now.

The whole "blood & guts/gore" thing was probably at its peak in 1993 with a lot of acts competing against each other to see who could shock the public the most &, in doing so, give themselves some additional hype & street credibility by getting their cover artwork banned. Dismember had already created some controversy off the back of a song called "Skin Her Alive" from their debut album so it was no surprise to see them trying to replicate that media exposure with the front cover of "Indecent & Obscene" which is unapologetically gruesome. From memory I think this was probably a factor in me picking the release up so early because I remember thinking that it'd be banned or censored shortly afterwards which would give my CD some added value. The band had returned with the same line-up that had recorded their first full-length & would once again record at the infamous Sunlight Studios in Stockholm with legendary Swedish producer Tomas Skogsberg. The result of their efforts sounds a little different to "Like an Ever Flowing Stream" & "Pieces" though with the overall production being noticeably cleaner. The classic Swedish wall-of-sound guitar crunch is still there but it's nowhere near as noisy as it had been up until that point & I think that element was something that attracted me to "Indecent & Obscene" more than other similar releases of the time. Everything is easily discernable in the mix with the excellent vocal performance of front man Matti Kärki (Carbonized/Carnage/General Surgery/Murder Squad/Therion) being given plenty of room to move over the top. The guitar solos are probably the only area where I think Skogsberg got it a little wrong as they sound unusually restrained at times given the carnage that surrounded them. In fact, the technical ability of lead guitarist David Blomqvist (Carnage/Entombed/The Dagger) was still fairly basic anyway so the solos wouldn't have been anything to write home about regardless to tell you the truth.

"Indecent & Obscene" kicks off in splendid fashion with opening cut "Fleshless" being my favourite inclusion on the album & a powerful way to begin proceedings. The short two-minute blast of energy that is "Eviscerated (Bitch)" is my other clear standout as it invariably manages to get my blood pumping. The remainder of the album hasn't quite hit the same sort of levels I expected of it given my lofty expectations though to be fair. I don't think there are any weak tracks included per se but there isn't anything that I'd suggest is particularly classic though either with the remaining seven tracks all being no more than decent. It's not mentioned all that often but there's a little more groove to this material than there was previously & I think you can hear the impact of Entombed's ground-breaking "Wolverine Blues" on Dismember to an extent, even if I wouldn't suggest that any of these numbers are fully-fledged death 'n' roll songs. There are certainly elements of that sound at play here though & perhaps that's why I've struggled to commit as I've never been the biggest fan of that style, despite holding a fair bit of respect for "Wolverine Blues" as the clear protagonist of the movement. Closer "Dreaming in Red" even sees Dismember adding a fair bit of melody to their sound, so much so that I'd suggest that it should qualify as melodic death metal.

Going into this revisit, I was fully expecting to come out of it with a solid four-star rating that would place "Indecent & Obscene" above Dismember's earlier releases in the death metal pecking order. That hasn't ended up being the case though & I've found the comparisons with the Swede's earlier releases to be much more closely fought. I think I'm gonna have to admit that I enjoy "Like an Ever Flowing Stream" the most of the three records these days but there's very little between the other two. I'm gonna have say that my gut tells me that I enjoyed my recent revisit to 1992's "Pieces" E.P. just slightly more than this resitting of Dismember's second album though so it's gonna be resigned to third place for the moment. I do recall really digging 1989's "Reborn in Blasphemy" demo tape during my tape trading days though so perhaps it might be worth checking out again at some point to see if it might actually usurp the lot of them. As it stands though, "Indecent" & Obscene" is another decent effort from one of the leaders of the Swedish death metal movement & I'm sure it'll offer plenty of appeal to the Swedish diehards but my misgivings about the style that Dismember plays have once again seen my rating being capped at a less than spectacular (yet still more than respectable) level.

For fans of Entombed, Carnage & Grave.