Formed in the early 90's as Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström's personal and side project to his main body of work with Katatonia he released one demo, and four full-length albums between the period of 1993-2001. 2001's, 'Death Design' was his final release before his commitments and priorities to Katatonia took full control and eventually forced him to lay the band to rest in 2004. Before its actual release, Death Design was billed as a soundtrack to the movie of the same name and Anders went so far as to create a plot and even had various still images from this movie on his website, which naturally created a buzz of wonder. Eventually Anders broke the news that this movie wasn't being released because it was too explicit in nature, which is ridiculous, and not so long after that he finally stated it was just a gimmick, but I'm fairly sure he fooled most of us. I know I was looking forward to seeing it.
This album is a challenge and its not simply because the music is insanely diverse its because the whole thing is broken up in to sixty one tracks, but only forty two actual minutes of music. Curiously on the back of the album these sixty one tracks are grouped into 20 different movements, and why they weren't just put together as twenty songs is really beyond me, but I'll simply assume Mr. Blakkheim was trying to be weird... or annoying. There's tracks as short as 6-10 seconds on this album with the longest being just two minutes and nineteen seconds, so, that will give you an idea of what to expect, maybe.
Besides the somewhat trademark 'horror metal' sound that Blakkheim had established for his project through the previous three albums you'll also find qualities of blues and jazz music, progressive metal, various synthesized haunting soundtrack-ish pieces, ambient interludes, some electronic parts, minor black metal characteristics (the vocals) as well as some parts that I simply can't even begin to describe to you. Some songs are fierce and full of rage while others are softer and full of character, some melancholic, others creepy and mysterious, a few are totally dark in tone while others are just goddamn utterly beautiful sounding pieces of (very short) music.
It's entirely possible that just about anyone could find something to appreciate about this release, yet the odd nature of it all makes it a challenging listen. The simple fact that there's sixty one short tracks instead of twenty normal tracks really, seriously takes a great deal away from the album. Honestly though the whole thing kind of flows as one song so perhaps even making it a single track would have been a fine alternative, but no such luck. A bit frustrating too since there are several tracks on this album that literally make my jaw hit the floor with the awesomeness within.
I should also mention that Blakkheim handled the rhythm/lead/acoustic guitars, ambience's and vocals while Dan Swanö contributed with an additional guitar solo and keyboard input and a host of others handled drums, bass guitar, violin, cello and grand piano duties.
All in all I wouldn't hesitate to say this is an absolutely brilliant record with many highlights and I'm quite sure anyone that's into avantgarde and unique metal will love this record, but as already mentioned that whole sixty one song thing makes it a tough listen, but definitely give it a try if you ever stumble across it out there.
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