Unleashed

Dropping Thor’s Hammer The Making of Unleashed’s Where No Life Dwells In the early ’90s, the general death metal assumption was that bands from Sweden, particularly Stockholm and its suburbs, were carbon copies of Nihilist. And then Entombed. And then Dismember. Certainly, the second and third generation of Swedes that hell-spawned bands from the subterranean…

Maryland Deathfest was supposed to start today. Join us as we reminisce about MDFs gone by.

When Swedish supergroup–members also call Entombed A.D., Unleashed, Necrophobic, Usurpress home–Fireborn phoenixed into Firespawn in 2015, few expected such proficient, punishing death metal. The band’s debut, “Shadow Realms”, took the tenets of classic sounds, Stockholm and Tampa Bay, and twisted them into a nastier, more incendiary style. Thus, Firespawn was born! Two years after “Shadow…

5. Carcass – Carcass has had a few logos over their storied and infamous career, but none of them evinces the manic, electric quality of the group’s music quite like this iteration. Its angular, slightly italicized letters, the long stems of the two “c”s and “r,” and the near interlocking of the double “s” imparts…

Eleven full-lengths spanning two decades in the silly and oft-lethal record business requires a bit of fortitude and self-reinvention. Well, Unleashed — long known for pre-dating Super Wario Amon Amarth with their tales of Viking plunder and intrepidity — has fortitude in spades. Blonde-haired and Viking-large Johnny Hedlund’s been at the death metal game longer…