Daemon started as a side-project of Anders Lundemark of Konkhra and Nicke Andersson of Entombed and The Hellacopters. In a nutshell, the debut album 'Seven Deadly Sins' is a mixture of Konkhra and Entombed. Simple as that.

"Whoa man, balls."
- Quote from the movie "Se7en" (as well as all the other quotes here).

The album was, I quess, influenced by that movie. And the Bible. And fucking heavy music! There are many samples from that movie included. And there are samples from movie "The Name of the Rose", and no-one can go wrong with that! But the music, let's go into that. Old school Swedish death metal meets groovy post-thrash metal, with some sludgy rocking happening here and there. Heavy-handed guitar riffage all the way, often palm-muted, no matter which is the style. There are some Entombed style evil lead guitar melodies; familiar from the first three albums. 'Sloth' is an aggressive death metal assault, whereas 'Wrath' is a mid-paced groovy piece. Weird?! Maybe, but when heard, it's all understood. The vocals department is about ripping throat growling and shouting by Lundemark, accompanied by Andersson's wailing shouts in the manner of 'Clandestine' (1991).

"Wanting people to listen, you can't just tap them on the shoulder anymore."

The guitar tone is rusty and ripping, the Sunlight Studio way, thrusting through the speakers like no tomorrow, and the drums airy yet snapping. The rumbling bass guitar complements it, played by the lovechild of "Se7en" actors Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, Morgan Pitt. The drums are vivid, Mr. Andersson style, ranging from death metal to rock to punk rhythms. It is all rather fucking chaotic. It could be absolutely heavy, but for some reason a lot of lower frequencies are missing! I think it was meant to be released as a really dirty-sounding piss-take... But towards who? Beats me. There also miss-takes at the beginning of 'Lust', as well totally jammed bits, like long drum rolling on 'Pride'. No doubt this has a feel of a rehearsal at times. This takes us to 'The Eighth Sin', which which is a 22-seconds long instrumental grindcore piece, and over 4 minutes of silence, before a "Se7en" sample... Without samples, so there is 26 minutes of music on ths album. Here comes the revelation: The album was done, including songs, in three days. The song quality is surprisingly good for that.

"It's a dead dog!"

Nicke Andersson was already gone before the second album. Gene Hoglan (ex-Dark Angel, Testament) came in for the third, the final one from the band, but they did not survive. I still haven't heard the latter material to date, to tell the truth. Gotta check them out if they are still this Entombed-ish, but I highly doubt.

"What's in the box?!"

Listening to 'Seven Deadly Sins' now, over two decades after its release, makes me feel quite wistful indeed. The album was on and off my tradelist several times during the years, but now it gives me good vibes, definitely. I find the album peculiar, one of its kind. If an alloy of earlier material à la Entombed and Konkhra sounds like fun, then this is it. A party record. Right. Fucking. Here.

Rating: 7+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
02/04/2019 08:36