Nirvana 2002 (swe) - Disembodied Spirits (1990)

Genre - Old School Death Metal
Ratings - 97/100
Reviews -
Nirvana 2002 is another one of the forgotten Swedish death metal legend that one often overlooks while talking about old school death metal scene. For some unforeseen reasons the band could never come up with an entire full length but before quitting they left us with few songs of such skull crushing brutality that were set to become a cult in the underground death metal scene. In 1988, Eric and Orvar came together and decided to form a band. They came up with ideas and ended up releasing a few demo tapes. Few of them like Truth and Beauty and Excursions in 2002 became very famous among the underground fans. Both of them were independently released and hence the production was arguably poor but one could not overlook the musical talents of these maniacs and the labels started to take interests in them. Consequently one of their tracks appeared on the famous split consisting of Appendix, Authorize and Fallen Angel and Nirvana 2002 themselves. Finally they got to release their most famous work Disembodied Spirits under CBR records.

I firmly believe that this is the best EP I have ever heard in metal let alone death metal. Everything is just about perfect on the three tracks on this EP.There are no fillers, no cheesy moments, everything is just class.

The EP begins with the song Slumber which kicks off with a muddy chaotic riff followed by a solo only to make way for inhuman growls of Orvar Safstrom who goes like :

"Guilty
The seal has been broken the last door is shut
Ashes
Whirling in the slumbering dephts
A pale gleaming
The last lantern in the darkness to come
Rising from the veils of slumber
To reap the dark souls and bring blessing to some."

That sure turns out to be a blessing for the listener. Orvar may not be one of the best in the busines as far as death metal vcals are concerned, he may not be gifted with satan like voice box to be throwing evil growls like Jimmy Karlsson or Greg Chandler but he manages to create a brutal atmosphere with his vocals. He uses his inhaled breath sounds on mike to perfection. The best example can be seen on the song The Awakening Of... when he screams "Time To Die". That is certainly my favorite moment on the entire EP. Slumber is full of riffs after riffs and invaded by a few solos in between, that come as a pleasant surprise, with drum rolls and blastbeats thrown aptly at places. This song is orgasmic. The Zombieification and The Awakening of arent without great moments too. The drum intro of Zombieifiecation, solos on The Awakenings of.. are perfect examples of that. No matter how much I praise Orvar and Lars on guitars and drums, I still wouldn't be doing them justice. The excellent use and perfect timing of drum rolls on toms, drum fills on high-hats and cymbals and blastbeats just make him stand apart from the usual blastbeat predominant drummers of early 90s Scandinavian death metal bands.

Apart from the near flawless metal assault of these stalwarts, the production value is another one of the reasons why I chose this EP over any other. The guitar sound is well produced and never sounds buried under the sound of the bass drum which is often one of the frequently encountered problems with demos and EPs of early 90s death metal bands otherwise. The production of drums is phenomenal too. The snareshots pound directly on your ears and the bass drums are just loud enough to be heard clearly. The bass guitar does sound a bit subdued compared to the the others but I guess you wouldnt mind that.

Before you start to wonder "Why not a perfect 100 despite such mouthful of praise?" Well may be because the EP seems too short to me and the bass guitar production could have been better.

Oh, and by the way, I have not had the pleasure to own anything original by the band. There were news in 2007 that the band might start working again together when they played live for the last time in a gig. There have been talks of the release of their entire material as a compilation. I for one sure if going to buy because that will be like a diamond in my collection. So, watch out !!
JUST FUCKIN BUY THIS whenever its released as compilation.

Download (Mediafire)