Swedish death metal from 1999. And there's no fucking rock 'n' roll in it! It's brutal and streetwise, not eerie or otherworldly. Coercion, from Stockholm, had a career of 13 years and put out only two full-length albums during all those years. This one's the latter.

'Delete' is a solid album. There's no throwaway stuff hindering its 39 minutes. Which is a good duration for this kind of music: Swedish death metal with some grinding and blasting bits boosting it up. There's an occasional groovy beat too, but hey, it's not nu-metal; headbangable for sure. The pacing is mostly fast, but momentary slow(er) parts show the band still be brute when not accelerating, 'Burst' being the prime example of this.

Abrasive and crunchy riffs, tremolo picking, both harmonic and disharmonic playing, and insane solos are what guitars are about. When it is Swedish death metal, surely riffing can be familiar. It is quite close to Vomitory and early Centinex, and Unleashed and Grave's 1996 album 'Hating Life', not so much to those bands with graveyard vibes or more melodic bands. Coercion are oppressive and outright aggressive, occasionally something like a Swedish version of 1990s Napalm Death (check out groovy 'Eclipsed' for example; not far from 'Diatribes' era [1996] ND at times). 'Mental Turmoil' has a warped melodic section, reminding of earlier Edge Of Sanity, and so does 'Life Denied' which also includes bits of blackened death metal in vein of Necrophobic. 'Discontinued' harks to Morbid Angel style madness. Then thre's doomy death metal edge, not too far from Paradise Lost. Coercion weren't like a pioneering band, no.

Note: I don't like to use name-dropping in my reviews too much, but this album feels like it just requires it. I do not feel it's unjustified in this case at all.

They also weren't perfect with their songwriting, like branching 'Life Denied' shows; it features streetwise attitude parts with blackened death ones. Still, Coercion's engine was generally working well and spitting out some rather memorable stuff. I mean branching out is okay for me who likes various metal music styles, but some parts just do not stick together very well at all, no matter how powerful the glue is. 'Delete' is suited for aggressive needs or then just for fun listening. The vocals are same beary growling through the album, which fits in well. The lyrics are about loathing, self and other way around.

The Mieszko Talacrzyk production is raw. There's no studio tricks utilized, except the volume knobs: The sound is on the brink of getting distorted! The bass guitar, which was performed by the guitarist, is somewhere in the background. It affects the whole, making it fairly less substantial in the boom department, and it's not a good thing. The artwork, design and layout all hark back to the early days of Photoshop: It is ugly, lots of effects were utilized and there's no red thread running through it. It's a fucking mess! I tried to grasp the cover's meaning, but alas, without any result. At least they got a pretty cool logo. But how many bought this ugly-looking album just because of the logo?!

So far from being a perfect record, 'Delete' is still a cool ride of Swedish death metal with several appendages of which some fit in better than others. Evil blackened death metal and hardcore breakups? Well, if you're not afraid of this kind of mixing of things, then you'll find some goodies here!

Rating: 7 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
03/29/2020 18:57