Miasma

Changes (1992)

Immediately obvious from the outset is that Changes is both monstrous and relentlessly violent. Miasma turned the moral-filter off and turned the inner sociopath up to ten. This is just hellish. Structurally there is a lot of alternation between blindingly fast twisted tremolo runs or palm-muted speed metal riffing with bizarre chromatic note selection and slower, crushing sections that feel like the last howls of an innocent sacrifice victim. The major strength of this music is that it oozes with a sense of morbid atmosphere.

There is a kind of dryness to both the production and the music, especially in the ghastly tinny drum sound and the wobbly quaking sound of the bass guitar, that gives these songs a feeling of dangerous instability, as if all the pummelling is forming vast structural cracks. Fittingly the progression of the songs remind me of a descent that keeps getting deeper and deeper. This feeling is inescapable due to the schizophrenic chromatic note order found in the riffs, the awkward spiralling leads that make Slayer's solos sound melodic and the ghoulish, deep gurgles and terrifying screams emanating from the vocalist. There is no coming back from this descent. Whether it is a one way ticket to hell, death or insanity probably does not matter.

Miasma take the best parts of the American and Swedish scenes (ie. the percussive rhythmic intensity and a deep existential crisis respectively) and forge them together with occult Germanic chaos. This is ripping Death Metal that is a testament to the depth of quality to be found in the golden early years of the 1990s.