Edge of Sanity - Nothing But Death Remains - LP

EDGE OF SANITY – BEYOND THE UNKNOWN

Edge of Sanity were not alone in their extreme metal ascent but were unique. A few Swedish bands have accomplished more conceptually and musically throughout the group's journey from eager teenagers in the late eighties to Edge of Sanity's final throes in 2003. While what they did at the time caused alarm, in hindsight, it all makes sense. The first death metal "ballad" can be found in "When All Is Said". The clean vocal in "Enigma" was uncommon and possibly too forward-thinking in 1992. Fresh out of early retirement, Edge of Sanity imposed not only a gothic rock song ("Sacrificed") but also a Manowar cover ("Blood of My Enemies") when experimentation was not de rigueur. Coloring outside of well-established lines was career suicide in then-myopic death metal. Yet, Edge of Sanity did it time and again. They dared to make a single-song album on Crimson, a 40-minute adventure out of step with industry norms. And when it was all said and done, they vanished into thin air (as they had a few times before) in 2003: fourteen years and eight albums, a strident strike against convention yet a veritable spearhead of what was to come.

EDGE OF SANITY – CHAPTER I

Formed by Dan Swanö (vocals), Andreas "Dread" Axelsson (bass), Benny Larsson (drums) and Sami Nerberg (guitars) in Finspång, Sweden, in 1989, Edge of Sanity weren't purely death metal at the beginning. Their aggro-oriented thrash had more in common with Pestilence and Voivod than Death and Entombed. The group's rough five-song demo, Euthanasia, had all the usual earmarks—pissed-off teens inspired by rage-filled dark music. The demo was whisked off to various media outlets, and British magazine Kerrang! responded kindly. Inspired by the feedback, Edge of Sanity reconfigured their lineup—Dread moved from bass to guitar, and Anders Lindberg was employed on bass. This would be the Edge of Sanity lineup until Cryptic in 1997 and during a brief reanimation when it was solely Swanö on Crimson II in 2003. Back to the follow-up to Euthanasia: the first release to come out of the newly formed five-piece was The Immortal Rehearsals in 1990. Kur-Nu-Gi-A arrived next, also in 1990. Essentially, the band re-recorded The Immortal Rehearsals to form—with the addition of "Maze of Existence"—the Kur-Nu-Gi-A demo. On the strength of Kur-Nu-Gi-A, Edge of Sanity received a four-option deal from fledgling Swedish label Black Mark Production. The Dead, again in 1990, wasn't a demo per se but a promo for Black Mark's head honcho, Börje "Boss" Forsberg.

Edge of Sanity's debut album, Nothing But Death Remains, arrived on Black Mark Production in 1991. Competing for attention with Dismember's Like an Everflowing Stream, Unleashed's Where No Life Dwells and Grave's Into the Grave in Sweden, as well as Autopsy's Mental Funeral, Morbid Angel's Blessed Are the Sick and Death's Human in the States, the kids from Östergötland delivered a spry bruiser. At the behest of Boss, a series of promos led to Unorthodox in 1992. Moored by killer songwriting ("Everlasting", "In the Veins / Darker than Black"), an adventurous mindset ("Enigma", "When All is Said") and a more robust production, Unorthodox put the Swedes on the proverbial map. This was their ultimate and, for a brief time, final moment.

EDGE OF SANITY – CHAPTER II

The follow-up to Unorthodox might've never happened had Edge of Sanity not feared legal peril from Black Mark. In the band's eyes, they had delivered a "perfect death metal" album, and there was nowhere to go. They went into a brief, semi-imposed exile–until Boss called. Emerging unscathed, they did the unthinkable. Instead of doubling down on Unorthodox, Edge of Sanity–primarily songwriters Swanö and Dread–went into the wild, thinking that their dabbling in gothic rock, heavy metal covers, and clean vocals would effectively end their career. The Spectral Sorrows did the opposite. It sold and sold. There was a blink of an eye when the group opted to return to their roots, but Boss squashed that idea again. So, Edge of Sanity went into writing mode, delivering the stopgap EP, Until Eternity Ends, and album Purgatory Afterglow. The EP proved to be a masterstroke setup. Lead-off track "Until Eternity Ends" paired expertly with "Invisible Sun", a cover of The Police's 1981 hit. Encouraged to be different, Edge of Sanity went all in. If 1994 was a transitional year for death metal, Purgatory Afterglow was at the forefront, and "Black Tears" and "Twilight" were the vanguard.

Edge of Sanity weren't finished upending established norms. While the genre had largely moved on from by-the-numbers emanations, the industry was immovable from singles and radio/video play. Somehow, Boss bought into the idea of a single 40-minute song called "Crimson". If the group had succeeded on the merits of musical oddities, then Crimson, the album, would be the roll-up of every risk and reward before it. Against the grain yet again, Crimson was deemed by fans and press alike as a masterpiece in 1996. Edge of Sanity's greatest strength was its greatness weaknesses: the members were always moving in different directions musically. Thus far, this disparate motion had worked to their advantage, but with the follow-up to Crimson in view, divisions and subdivisions came into play—Swanö at one end, the rest (largely Dread and Larsson) at the other. When Infernal landed in 1997, nobody knew there were two different bands behind the scenes, but on the album, it sounded disconnected and not in Edge of Sanity's usual way. The fact that Nerberg was offline also didn't help matters.

EDGE OF SANITY – CHAPTER III

Swanö eventually left Edge of Sanity in 1997. Marshaled by Dread, the band rallied, pulling in friend and Pan-Thy-Monium vocalist Robban Karlsson to fill the vacant frontman spot. Without the creativity and tension of the collective, Cryptic, which silently hit shelves 10 months after Infernal in 1997, was incomplete, a retrograde from the zeniths of the previous decade. Edge of Sanity threw in the towel in 1999, ending a storied career without fanfare. When Swanö reconvened under the moniker in 2003, he did so solo, writing all songs and playing all instruments. Crimson II was an admirable return to the Crimson aesthetic, earning praise for reigniting Edge of Sanity's progressive death metal flame, particularly on "Passage of Time" and "The Forbidden Words". As vaunted as Crimson II was and the future promising, Swanö quickly closed shop. Edge of Sanity, for all intents and purposes, were over.

Legacy: Edge of Sanity were one of the greats. They were rarely associated with leaderboard bands of Stockholm or Gothenburg, but they didn't need to be. They were their own band on their own trajectory. No doubt death is inevitable, but while Edge of Sanity were with us—for about 14 years—they burned incredibly bright.