I'm finally getting the Edge Of Sanity back catalog in stock here at C-Blast, after being almost impossible to obtain for years without paying insane import prices. The Black Mark titles from this pioneering progressive death metal band are all essential for fans of both Swedish death metal and prog-death, with some albums (Crimson, The Spectral Sorrows, Unorthodox) ranking as some of my own favorite progressive extreme metal albums of all time. This was, of course, the most well-known band from Swedish metal polyglot Dan Swano, formed after his run with Pan-Thy-Monium as a crushing entry in the evolving Swedish death metal underground. After a relatively straightforward 1991 debut, Edge Of Sanity quickly began to experiment with a combination of prog rock, hard rock and gothic influences being infused into the band's monstrous death metal, and in the process produced some of the most adventurous extreme metal to come out of the Swedish underground.

Edge Of Sanity's first entry in their planned concept series, 1996's Crimson is both a portent of the sort of epic melodic death metal that would dominate Sweden's heavy exports at the end of the 1990s, and one of the most ambitious albums to emerge from this scene. Centered around a distant-future apocalyptic storyline that almost feels like something that could have sprung from the pen of Frank Herbert, and featuring a single forty minute song made up of numerous distinct "movements" (each one sequenced as a distinct track, but flowing together seamlessly as one piece) Crimson captures Dan Swano at his most imaginative as he guides the band through a constantly shifting array of crushing death metal, melancholy passages of acoustic guitar and doleful piano, sudden ascents into sweeping kosmische synth ambience, even slipping into these killer metallic goth rock parts that sounds like a heavier, thrash-tinged Sisters Of Mercy (something that Swano had shown us previously with the song "Sacrificed" on 1993's The Spectral Sorrows ). The song (a kind of mini prog-metal symphony, really) veers from monstrous breakdowns laced with strange Middle Eastern guitar melodies and blastbeat-driven intensity into brief passages of grungey melodic rock, moments of spine-crushing doom metal heaviosity, soaring instrumental sections, and forays into an almost Goblin-esque dark prog rock sound. The album is filled with these abrupt breakneck shifts from the mellower progressive rock sections into pure death metal, and when the band is at its heaviest, the crushing riffage is as brutal as anything the band ever produced. And for any of you Opeth fans, Crimson also features a guest appearance from Mikael �kerfeldt, who lends his growling voice and guitar leads to parts of the album. Both this and its follow-up are masterworks of old-school progressive death metal, and are essential listening for Swano fans.