Incarnation of Morbidity

If you’ll ever think about making a list of the best Swedish death metal demo recordings from the early 90’s, here’s one that must be on it! Cemetary’s “Incarnation of Morbidity” is just fuckin brilliant! Yeah, I’m serious. I have a feeling that Cemetary is little bit forgotten, when listing the best Swedish death metal acts from the golden period, but I blame only the band for it, as their future brought the efforts so different musically (which went even as far as to techno) that they overshadowed band’s glorious beginnings. But man, they were great once. And it all started with this two song demo, “Incarnation of Morbidity”. These are some of my favourite 10 minutes in the history of the genre. Mind though that Cemetary wasn’t as straight forward and furious as Entombed or Dismember, or brutal as Grave. Mathias Lodmalm and his friends had an amazing ability to play melodic, dark, almost doomish death metal, which was all about the atmosphere. Of course there’s also room for some ass kicking and fast riffing, so in the end we get brilliant, varied and catchy music.

Both songs from “Incarnation of Morbidity” - “The Funeral” and “Beyond the Grave” – are excellent. First one is very melodic, almost mournful in some parts, while the second one is much faster and aggressive, although also there you may find great, melodic guitar solo or brilliant riff at 1:50. OK, maybe the drumming in the fast part isn’t the best one I’ve ever heard, it’s bit floppy, but that just a minor detail.“The Funeral” is so good that I wonder why the hell Cemetary didn’t re-record it on their album?! Opened with gloomy, eh, funeral-like keyboard part and great slow riffing, it creates the right mood immediately and even though the structure of the song is quite simple, it has everything in the right place. Another thing I spotted was Matthias’ vocal, which is deep and raw, much better than on the future recordings. The production of the demo is also cool, typical for Sunlight Studio, clean and selective, but with nice, raw edge to it. Finally, another great thing about this demo is the fact that none of these two songs have been used on the debut album... I don’t even understand why, as they’re really great and quality wise they’re not far afar from the album material… But nowadays it makes the demo even more special, so… put them on your “best off” list now!