padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
ah yes - Unleashed, the AC/DC of Swedish death metal
that is high praise ofc - they stick to a basic formula and they do it well. and this is basically the quintessential Unleashed song.
right off everything SO mid-tempo gallop (i.e. latter Wolfbrigade/Disfear speed d-beat), those chugging palm muted triplets with single note accentuation
not the breakdown chug of post-Suffocation brutal/slam death metal, but catchy fist pumping FUCK YEAH chug
anyway, if there's something Swedes excel at, it's straightfoward mid-tempo d-beat grooves, and Unleashed is their champion
and now a bit of tremolo riffing over a blastbeat - i.e., death metal - but just a bit. still v mid-tempo by death metal standards.
this in fact much more of a verse-chorus structure than the Deicide-Suffocation etc lineage of song as succession of riffs - you can hear where Entombed was about to in a year or two with Wolverine Blues. you can also hear where the meta of Swedish death metal will eventually transition from the Stockholm to the Gothenburg sound.
on a related note, this is basically Amon Amarth's entire career encapsulated in 4 minutes
vocals guttural but not full on USDM-style brutal death growl/gurgle - more like a deeper Tom G. Warrior, complete with interspersed "huh" grunts - ofc great, no one ever went wrong worshiping at the altar of the great Tom G.
I like the guitar tone - they're one of the only big 1st wave Swedish bands not record at Sunlight with Tomas Skogsberg, so instead of the typical Swedeath overdriven Boss HM-2 fuzz (which is also awesome, tbc) a cleaner/more straightforward sound that fits their no-nonsense ethos. basically no lead guitar - Unleashed doesn't your frills, just the pummeling of mid-tempo gallop.
lyrics interesting in that they're the first DM band I know of to embrace Viking stuff - influenced I assume by latter Bathory's pioneering of Viking metal - in place of early death metal's typical obsession with death, rotting, zombies, etc and/or evil. it's since been done (pardon pun) to death - see above comment on Amon Amarth - but novel at the time. the line "crush the men of fashion's flow" makes me laugh, like they're going to raid and pillage Paris Fashion Week.
in summation - not the best, or most innovative, and would get stale quick I had to listen to it all the time, but when you want to fist pump and go FUCK YEAH and gear yourself up to march onward to the countless battles of adult life in the modern world, Unleashed is pretty great
