{"id":547383,"date":"2026-07-13T12:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/547383\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T12:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:35:12","slug":"the-most-ambitious-song-in-death-metal-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/547383\/","title":{"rendered":"The most ambitious song in death metal history"},"content":{"rendered":"

It all started with one riff. In a recent interview, former Edge Of Sanity mainman Dan Swan\u00f6 said that the sessions for his band\u2019s fifth album, Crimson, began with him wanting to get more out of a blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-it guitar part he\u2019d used in his goth rock<\/a> project Nightingale. From those humble origins came a masterpiece: a 40-minute, one-song labyrinth that remains a benchmark for progressive death metal \u2013 even if it never quite found the mass adulation it deserved.<\/p>\n

For those who don\u2019t know, Edge Of Sanity were formed in 1989 by singer, guitarist and future multi-instrumentalist Swan\u00f6, plus co-guitarist Andreas Axelsson. The two would remain the outfit\u2019s key tandem for much of the time between their founding and their 2003 disbanding, but that stability belies the musical experimenting they did. After kicking off as a straight-ahead death metal act, they pulled influence from the developing prog metal<\/a>, black metal and melodeath<\/a> movements: sounds Swan\u00f6 engaged with by producing Katatonia<\/a>, Dark Funeral and more in the early-to-mid 90s.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When it first came out in April 1996, Crimson marked the apex of Edge Of Sanity\u2019s ambition. Swan\u00f6 had the year prior produced Orchid, the debut album from Swedish prog-death icons Opeth<\/a>, and was wowed by their canon of Rime Of The Ancient Mariner-scale epics.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so blown away that I barely knew my own name,\u201d he later remembered, \u201cand I wanted to do something that was quite similar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing for Crimson also consisted of improvised jams with all five Edge Of Sanity members present \u2013 a stark change from their usual modus operandi of Swan\u00f6 composing in isolation. As a result, from the one riff Swan\u00f6 had in his back-pocket, Crimson naturally grew and grew. The band leader at one point toyed with going down a full, unfettered and \u201cvibey\u201d prog metal direction, before Axelsson pulled him back to reason. \u201cWhen are we going to stop with this Pink Floyd<\/a> stuff and start playing some death metal?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That push-and-pull is audible throughout Crimson. The winding odyssey\u2019s opening minutes establish the extremes, darting from bullheaded oomph, spearheaded by Swan\u00f6\u2019s screams, to ominous, proggy arpeggios. From there, the album is the sound of a band unchained.<\/p>\n

As Swan\u00f6 says: \u201cWe were all so thankful that we didn\u2019t have to write 10 choruses, 10 cool intros and 10 cool verses and find 10 cool titles. We just had that one piece, and anything goes! You could go from a blast beat part with black metal vocals and straight into a doom part with the deepest vocals ever and just be extremely adventurous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Yet, Edge Of Sanity also had the restraint to include melodies and motifs that stopped them from veering off the deep end. Amid Crimson\u2019s gallop of genre-splicing pieces, they revisited pivotal riffs, while Swan\u00f6\u2019s spotless production and the band\u2019s already ambitious back-catalogue made even the boldest tangents still feel somewhat logical. The sense of grandeur was hoisted even higher by Opeth singer\/screamer Mikael \u00c5kerfeldt, who leant every shade of his voice to the album, as well as some lead guitar licks.<\/p>\n

Upon release, Crimson was hailed by many fans as Edge Of Sanity\u2019s defining achievement, but its status as a one-song opus offered little in the way of broader appeal. Also, the band imploded within months of it coming out: Swan\u00f6 left Edge Of Sanity in 1997, then they broke up, then they came back to make Crimson II before once more disappearing just as quickly. As a result, where the similarly avant-garde likes of Opeth won their audiences through decades of craft, these forward-thinkers sadly fell by the wayside, despite how intensely they\u2019ve been clung to by their cult audience.<\/p>\n

In a just world, Crimson would be one of the first things that comes to mind when your average metalhead thinks \u201cdeath metal masterpiece\u201d \u2013 up there with the likes of Blackwater Park<\/a>, Altars Of Madness<\/a> and Heartwork<\/a>. But we do not live in a just world. Until we do, those who know get to treasure a defining, essential statement that makes 40 minutes feel like less than half the time.<\/p>\n

A remix of Crimson came out on June 6 via Century Media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It all started with one riff. In a recent interview, former Edge Of Sanity mainman Dan Swan\u00f6 said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-547383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}