On their 1997 debut album Swedish melodic death/thrash band Taetre were hellish and bleak. It was hardly unique, though. The Haunted unleashed their highly revered debut album in 1998. It caused loads of tremors, and not only in Sweden, but also on the other side of the Atlantic. What happened to many a Swedish metal band was that they were severely inspired by by this strike by an exciting newcomer.

It is okay to get inspired. Taetre's second album, 'Out of Emotional Disorder', came out in 1999 and guess what..?! It sounds like the band were very much inspired by this new force. It was time for leaner songs and more streetwise aggression against the debut's grim and pestilent vibes. Which, thankfully, aren't all gone! If your can imagine a sound that mixes The Haunted, Dismember and Necrophobic, you're pretty close to how Taetre fared on this album. Maybe the music was composed partly prior to and partly after The Haunted's debut. That is my guess.

This does not suffer from songs being too similar inside out. Two first songs are of that "smack yer gob" style bragging à la The Haunted and At The Gates, and at times rather bloody boring. Non-distorted guitars on 'Your Illusion Unmasked' and subsequent evil-conjuring melodiousness, tremolo riffing and wooing synthesizer are real answers to the expectations about what I expected of this album. Yes! Here we go with the real goodies! Acoustic guitar bits, canorous guitar solos and harmonics, horror synthesizers really lift the atmosphere and allow more transforming compositions, which gladly start happening after the first two songs.

The band sounds truly tight, and there's no any sloppiness plaguing this album. The guitarists hack, machinegun-fire and hammer in their riffs. The bass guitar is part of the tapestry pounding therein with the hasty drums. The sound is a bit too trebly, perhaps, but this ain't HM-2 album, but a mixture of death and black metal anyway. The vocals are about orcish lacerating throat voice. The lyrical themes are hatred, death and Clive Barker's "Nightbreed", with both typical and atypical lines.

The intro and outro are unnecessary, and I could have lived without ever hearing this rendition of Rolling Stones' classic 'Paint It, Black'! I may well be one out of one people, who does not like the original either. Here the vocals are both shouted and shrieked, and joined by horrible clean ones. I feel dirty and my ears feel raped. So, basically over 4 out of 37 minutes are total bollocks here. And that damn cover art... burns my eyes! The whole artwork and design is bad.

But do not let these dings stop you from checking this one out. Being a mixed bag, I think pros weigh over cons in the end. I do not know what the band tried with this, to hunt more money or just give tribute to their new influencer. Without thinking about that too deeply, one actually can enjoy listening to this, I believe, if a mixture of Swedish death and thrash stylings tempts.

Rating: 7 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
01/24/2024 17:36