Infernal

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 Swan? (vocals), Andreas "Dread" Axelsson (bass), Benny Larsson (drums) and Sami Nerberg (guitars) in Finsp?ng, 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 Swan? 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, B?rje "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 ?sterg?tland delivered a spry bruiser. At the behest of Boss, a series of promos