So Funebrarum is finally back after the brilliant full length “Beneath the Columns of Abandoned Gods” released 6 years ago and the deluxe gatefuld 7″ “Dormant Hallucinations” which I sadly skipped (for a serie of reasons I won’t go through right now). It has to e pointed out how this band actually preceded a few years the recent “old school” gimmick of the last 2-3 years, as it was really the first release to completely and courageously tribute the old Finnish/Swedish scene on an album that is close to perfection.

Releasing these two new songs as a split with Interment is surely a fitting choice as the band is still obsessed with the glorious and majestic sound of early nineties Finnish/Swedish Death Metal (which is my favourite genre ever as well by the way). Everything on these few minutes is still sweating old school grime, crusts and mold, and is as dark as the deepest zombie hole – and the sound is now, if possible, even slower and crunchier than before, resulting in a sticky web of sonorities that almost seem as if the tracks were recorded at 45rpm and played at 33. Like said before, there are only two new tracks in the album, considering one of the other 3 is an intro and the two remaining Abhorrence and Grave covers. I would use the same words that I used when I described their previous album but actually something has changed in the Funebrarum sound, and it’s that they have become much darker and heavier since the last time. The vocals are now very, very deep and the sound really fat and clogged by bass frequencies. I really love the new sound even if the riffs, by the contrary, seem a little bit less sicker and twisted.

 The cover art is still done by the most supreme of the vintage artists Chris Moyen, even though there is a sligth blue/violet filter over it which seems quite odd – I’d have preferred pure black and white a release like this. But anyway this is meant to be a “nocturnal” release so I’ll go for the dark night shades. All the influences by bands like Abhorrence, Funebre, Purtenance etc are still huge here, so if you want good shit one must really check this out.

The almost unknown label Step One from Uppsala released in 1992 the first full-length of a very interesting band. Furbowl was born a few years after Joahn Axelsson left Carnage (he was on “The Day Man Lost”). Far from the grindcore sonorities of early Carnage, Liiva composed with Furbowl one of the most interesting and underrated albums of the entire old Swedish Death Metal movement. The guitar sound is the one we know: pure “Pieces”/”Left Hand Path” mush, down tuned , loose and obscure. Composition-wise, however, Furbowl never pointed much towards aggression alone (thanks god we had Grave for that!), even if some songs have actually a good number of killer riffs (“Sharkheaven” for one). The songs are really well thought, and apart from some attempts at trying to experiment beyond their abilities (the Typo’0’Negative vocals on “Razorblades” are definitely useless), you get here a real brilliant chunk of elaborate Swedish Death, with excellent hateful vocals, disturbing harmonies, and a dose of heavy R’n’R groove far beyond its time. It has to be noted that this band was made up of only two members – Liiva was doing all vocals, bass and guitar, while Max Thornell was responsible of percussions and a bunch of extremely well arranged keyboards. Sometimes the music becomes somewhat symphonic, but in a Pan-Thy-Monium / Master’s Hammer way, not mellow – the sick element is always present. Furbowl was a band able to blend an excellent selection of aggressive riffs, rocking and rolling grooves and the classical Swedish evocative melodies. I also liked the lyrics, introspective and choked with depression and anger. Michael Amott from Carcass was guest for two solos on this album, and was also the one who produced the Cd. Could be fun to know that the band changed name to Devourment, for a while…