Carnage - Dark Recollections LP

(Description from Earache) 

Carnage’s one and only album Dark Recollections is an essential slab of Swedish death metal; released in the same year as Entombed’s Left Hand Path, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this is one of the records that created the blueprint for the thick, detuned HM-2 driven Swe-death sound that has become so iconic today. Whilst oft imitated, few bands have even come close to the raw, unruly darkness that emanates from this album.

As a band, Carnage were short lived, but left the kind of legacy most acts can only dream of. They may not have made it to a second album, but vocalist Matti Karki, guitarist David Blomqvist and drummer Fred Estby would go on to form Dismember, releasing their classic debut Like An Ever Flowing Stream just a year later, whilst young guitar virtuoso Michael Amott would join Carcass for their seminal Necroticism and Heartwork records before forming the hugely successful Arch Enemy.

Even without taking into account these later achievements however, Dark Recollections remains a vital part of extreme metal history and one of the main pillars of the Swedish death metal sound. Now reissued as a Full Dynamic Range vinyl, with the audio taken from the original DAT tapes, this is the definitive version of this cult classic.