Pan-Thy-Monium "…..Dawn / Dream II" Cassette

Progressive / Avant-garde Death Metal masters from Sweden!!

Special edition 30th anniversary special remaster, comments and layout by Dan Swanö!!

A rather odd release, this. Most of the songs start off with a ticking clock, there's synths aplenty; I guess it just shows my general ignorance of death metal but I didn't really think anyone was doing this sort of avant-gardish death metal as early as '91.
Things get off to a weird start with the ticking clocks; no idea why they're here, hell, maybe that's just the drummer warming up his kicker. Bass intro, then a bunch of synths, riffs and even vocals that suggest a pre-pre demo era Amorphis, or even some sort of death/doom thing.
Although it's a fair bit better then Amorphis. I think it's just the rawer production and regular usage of more death metal sections; it doesn't quite match the melody of that band but it's a lot heavier and feels a good deal more convincing. 'II' in particular has some real fine faster moments, and it fits in pretty much perfectly with the slower, synth soaked sections. In general the band does a rather solid job of mixing things up; the heavier parts merge seamlessly with the slow, more doomy and graceful sections, and the vocals provide a solid underpinning to the whole thing.
It's short and the production's not all that great, but the songs have been well written; fairly dynamic and with a bunch of tempo changes throughout. The synth work is well advanced and meshes seamlessly with the rest of the band, and the whole thing definitely seems a bit ahead of it's time (again, probably just me not knowing anything). I imagine this is pretty much impossible to find in physical form but it's well worth downloading, certainly.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...