Description
Clear vinyl with printed innersleeve
The enigmatic Anders Nyström (aka Blackheim, aka, superhuman guitarist for Katatonia, aka, compositional genius) — whenever his name or talent is attached to a project, one should always take note. Because the guy is one the most talented musicians in all of metal-dom (even in popular music). His gentle, emotional sound waves, crafted in Katatonia, carry enough brevity to sink the moon, but Nyström also has a cold-hearted, brutally heavy, yet enormously original side to him. His unused inventive energy is combined with his equally pent-up, hateful bliss to form Diabolical Masquerade. Primarily a solo project, with the occasional assistance of “that guy musicians call when they are short a player,” Dan Swanö, to handle Nyström’s desired percussive assault and keyboard duties. This latest opus is justly that — a swan song (hopefully not) masterpiece which expounds all of Nyström’s juices and pushes the limits of extreme metal to unfathomable artistic heights. How, daresay, does he pull off this magic act? By creating a soundtrack to a supposed Swedish horror film, Death’s Design, that’s how. Employing the Maalten Quartet from Estonia to assist with the film orchestration, Nyström throws everything but the proverbial kitchen sink at his listeners. Sixty-one tracks of sonic madness filled with grinding death metal, circusy keyboards, venom-spewing vocals, deliciously melodic/sometimes-violent guitar orchestration, and of course Dan Swanö’s famous overly sentimental, Disney soundtrack-like clean vocals. That description alone is the tip of the iceberg, as the album is segmented into 20 movements, each with a distinct flavor and employing varied musical tricks. To individualize or nitpick certain tracks would take way too much time. The album, in all its overarching savageness, is poignantly beautiful. It encapsulates one man’s utter devotion to metal and his compositional freedom. Nyström not only outdoes past masterpieces like “Nightwork” with his rare brand of scope and grandeur, but he utterly annihilates groups like Rhapsody (who claim orchestral superiority) by giving listeners a total package they don’t have to be embarrassed showing their girlfriends. Folks, this is intelligent, highly progressive, extraordinarily heavy quasi-film score music (complete with token nods to Conan’s score) filled with various horror samples, repeating motifs, mixed emotions, and a bloodcurdling salutation from Nyström himself. Travis Smith’s artwork and photography are also staggering, as he puts himself on par with his luminous cover for Katatonia’s “Last Fair Deal Gone Down,” with its rare amalgam of organic imagery and cold, digital symmetry. Lastly, it should be noted that in order to achieve the intended level of listening satisfaction, one must start from the beginning. Then one can absorb Swanö’s keyboard nuances, Blackheim’s guitar exorcisms, and the overall ambiences which shape this release as one of metal’s rare peaks. Not until Death Design’s final disharmonic notes subside can one shake the cobwebs, returning to a grounded consciousness and the glass house they call reality. Or do they?
Track listing:
1. Nerves In Rush
2. Death Ascends – The Hunt (Part I)
3. You Can’t Hide Forever
4. Right On Time For Murder – The Hunt (Part II)
5. Conscious In No Materia
6. A Different Plane
7. Invisible To Us
8. The One Who Hides A Face Inside
9. And Don’t Ever Listen To What It Says
10. Revelation Of The Puzzle
11. Human Prophecy
12. Where The Suffering Leads
13. The Remains Of Galactic Expulsions
14. With Panic In The Heart
15. Out From The Dark
16. Still Coming At You
17. Out From A Deeper Dark
18. Spinning Back The Clocks
19. Soaring Over Dead Rooms
20. The Enemy Is The Earth
21. Recall
22. All Exits Blocked
23. The Memory Is Weak
24. Struck at Random – Outermost Fear
25. Sparks Of Childhood Coming Back
26. Old People’s Voodoo Séance
27. Mary-Lee Goes Crazy
28. Something Has Arrived
29. Possession Of The Voodoo Party
30. Not Of Flesh, Not Of Blood
31. Intact With A Human Psyche
32. Keeping Faith
33. Someone Knows What Scares You
34. A Bad Case Of Nerves
35. The Inverted Dream – No Sleep In Peace
36. Information
37. Setting The Course
38. Ghost Inhabitants
39. Fleeing From Town
40. Overlooked Parts
41. A New Spark – Victory Theme (Part I)
42. Hope – Victory Theme (Part II)
43. Family Portraits – Victory Theme (Part III)
44. Smokes Starts To Churn
45. Hesitant Behaviour
46. A Hurricane Of Rotten Air
47. Mastering The Clock
48. They Come, You Go
49. Haarad El Chamon
50. The Egyptian Resort
51. The Pyramid
52. Frenzy Moods And Other Odditites
53. Still Part Of The Design – The Hunt (Part III)
54. Definite Departure
55. Returning To Haarad El Chamon
56. Life Eater
57. The Pulze
58. The Defiled Feeds
59. The River In Space
60. A Soulflight Back To Life
61. Instant Rebirth – Alternate Ending