This rehearsal is yet another part of the poorly documented, patchwork Grotesque discography. I get the impression that the band took a laissez-faire attitude to 'recording' in their early days. Most of their demos sound more like rehearsals than proper studio demos. This one is no exception, given that it is labelled as such. This shouldn’t be seen as a criticism. There has always been value in a well executed rehearsal session (Death/Mantas proved that). I’m sure this Grotesque tape was traded feverishly around the underground after it was recorded (early 1989). There was a limited amount of Grotesque material available at that point.
This is a great little rehearsal. There are three songs. The first is "Angels Blood", of which a 'trailer' had appeared on the band’s previous demo/rehearsal ("The Black Gate is Closed"). The version here is the full version, almost nine minutes long. It is one of the band's best, most convoluted and extreme songs. Lots of death metal bands were aping Possessed and Morbid Angel at this point, but few of them were using that influence to create songs of this magnitude. The whole song is a wonderful exercise in death metal excess, non-linearity and progressiveness. The combined talents of a teenage Kristian Wåhlin and Tomas Lindberg were something to behold.
The second song, "Fall into Decay", would also be re-recorded on the "In the Embrace of Evil" session. This early version sounds great, although not as powerful as that later version. The final song, "Rise of Armageddon", appears nowhere else. This is therefore the main draw of this rehearsal. It is a fine song, with a massive, sluggish Hellhammer-esque break in the middle. I would love to hear a proper studio recording of this song, but alas it never happened. It proves that Grotesque never wrote bad or unfinished songs. Everything from their demo days was great, even the songs they ditched. Wåhlin was an absolute riff monster. His musical talent and influence is often forgotten, overshadowed by his more famous associations as a painter (e.g., “In the Nightside Eclipse”, “Storm of the Light’s Bane”, etc.).
Taking their whole discography into consideration, I suggest that Grotesque were the finest death metal band never to record an album. I am aware that this is a bold statement. I am not 100% confident in it. I know it leaves out a lot of incredible bands (Crematory, Nirvana 2002, Necrovore, Terminal Death, etc.). Still, Grotesque were so inventive and energetic that they never cease to amaze me. These guys were real artists, and they only cared about making the most expressive music imaginable. As such, they sound different to every other Swedish (or American) death metal band of the time. Their music is timeless, even on these crappy rehearsal tapes.
Sure, this tape isn't one of the essential Grotesque recordings (all of which appear on the “In the Embrace of Evil” retrospective compilation). It is still worth a couple of listens. It shows that the band could play these complex, multi-faceted songs in a live environment (no studio trickery here). It also provides us with another Grotesque song that appears nowhere else. The short story is that this band were amazing and every old school death metal fan should know about them.