Welcome to another ¨Nasum¨ review, this review is about one of their best albums and this album is called ¨Helvete¨, the swedish word for ¨Hell¨. This album was performed by a trio which included Mieszko Talarczyk, Jesper Liveröd and Anders Jakobson, this album contains lot of anger, violation, energy and pure heaviness. This band was one of the best grincore bands in their days, maybe not the best but one of the better ones. The album has 22 tracks including an extra track which is a japanese bonus track, this album did also include some guest performances, one of them was Jörgen Knot Sandström (Entombed, Grave) and the grindcore legend Shane Embury from the famous grinders ¨Napalm Death¨.
As I told you before this album was performed by a trio, Mieszko who was nearly a master of this type of screaming, he even shows here that he could handle this type of screams and some growls. The screaming is a bit more sharp and ear-splitting one this album than in the albums who was about to come, the guitars is basically the same if you have heard some of their latest work. The guitars is very fast, the riffing is quite simple but they are played with great skill and precision. The bass in this album is played by Jesper Liveröd, the bass has been given some room in this album, most of the time it is just playing along the furious guitars but there are some small filler sections here and there in this album which was a very good thing. The drums is played by Anders Jakobson, this type of drumming would crack the Hoover Dam. Anders delivers blast beat after blast beat and ponding after pounding, but there is also some variety in the drums as well. Most of the time the drums in plying fast as h** but there are some sections that is actually slower and more rhythmic.
The songs is the best described as short, super fast, extremely aggressive and heavy. Many songs contains the basic frantic drumming and sharp screaming but there are also some songs that has quite good variety in them. Example of songs where there is more catchiness would be ¨Relics¨ with its gun-firing background effects, catchy riffing and slower drums, another song would be ¨Scoop¨, ¨The Final Sleep¨ is a song that has a very slow pace if you compare it to the other songs, the guitars are variating and the drums is pretty endurable. A song with some of the bass lines I mentioned before. Most of the songs has a very good mix of vocal work, many songs has both sharp screaming from Mieszko and deep growls from bassist Jesper I think, songs with these kinds of vocals would be ¨Stormshield¨, ¨Doombringer¨, ¨Slaves To The Grind¨ and ¨Illogic¨. And the rest of the songs with the basic grindcore formula would be songs like ¨Time To Discharge¨, ¨Living Next Door To Malice¨ and ¨Your Words Alone¨. The songs are non-stop hatred and energy with little catchiness and awesome vocal work.
That was all I guess, I was pretty sure that I would not listen to more grindcore after my first ¨Nasum¨ experience but I had to find out more about their music so I managed to get this album called ¨Helvete¨. This was very enjoying actually but not as good that I will get all of their albums, the things that I really enjoyed was three things. The first one was the big variety in the songs, the guitars was playing more types of riffs and brutal shredds and they were also a bit more catchier than the songs that I have heard before. The bass was a thing I also liked very much, the bass is though a bit low but when you hear you enjoy every note (I did though), there was not so much bass that I wanted but it was pretty ok. The drumming was basically the same story except for the more variating drum patterns which was good thing too, you didn't get so bored but you would've been that if the drums was playing the same 'style' if I say so. The second thing I enjoyed the most was the great mix of vocals, most songs had both screams mixed with deep and demonic growls and it made the songs very interesting to listen at. The things I didn't enjoy so much was the vocals of Mieszko, they are good but this time the vocals was a bit too sharp for my taste, it is truly amazing how a person can handle these kind of screaming.
There you go, this was all I could come up with and I hope it was to any help and it didn't got boring to read. I never thought that this album was this good, the song structures, the instruments and the vocals was pretty enjoying to listen at. But of course every song was not so good, most songs still has the basic elements that marks the grindcore genre. The songs in this album is also very short, most of them is about a bit longer than a minute, some are less than one minute and some of the songs are jsu about two minutes. I will recommend this album to grinders and I pretty sure that death-metal people would enjoy this because of the variety of the vocals.
PROS
+ The mix of two different vocals is great (screaming and growling)
+ The variety in the material makes it more interesting and a bit surprising
+ The guitars plays more different riffs and they also have some more variety
+ The bass is finally heard!
+ The little mix of drum patterns makes the songs less boring
CONS
- The vocals from Mieszko is a bit too sharp in this album
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Relics
-- Scoop
-- The Final Sleep
-- Illogic
-- Stormsheild
-- The Everlasting Shame
The overall album rating will be. 4.5/5
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