format: LP
year: 1990
country: Sweden
label: Fata Morgana Music
#: JOMES BAND 007
info: Innersleeve w/ lyrics and picture. Ltd to 537 copies.
style: Power Metal
Side A:
Side B:
One of Sweden's more famous 90's Metal exports, though it wasn't until their mid-90's Black Mark-era trio of "The Secret Doctrine", "Sanctified" and "Maleficium" that their career really took off. The style of the band could be considered rather typical of the narrow "Traditional Metal of the 90's" genre. They cherry-pick the most familiar and accessible moves from their 80's heroes, be it the mid pace thrash-light of Metallica or Megadeth, add some classic US Power Metal riffing and top it off with a pinch of Candlemass'y Swedishness for flavour. It ain't bad, but it does sound very 2nd gen to a die-hard 80's fan like yours truly. Ironically this puts this their rare private 1990 debut in a rather unique position, stuck smack in the middle between dated and ahead-of-the-curve, while everyone around them were screaming bloody gore and praising the spawn of Shub-Niggurath.
Historical overanalyzing aside, "Symphony Of The Damned" is still a bloody great Heavy Metal record.
The whole of side A is practically flawless, with the opening "The Whore Of Babylon" and following title track standing with one foot steadily in Epic Metal soil and the other in the realm of finer powerthrash like Metal Church and golden era Metallica. The latter sound is more present in the catchy "Fatal Illusions", while the C-mass comparison mentioned above shine through the most in the dark semi-ballad "Last Rites", carrying an evil "At The Gallows End"-baby in its tummy.
The B-side is ever so slightly more hit'n'miss. While "Lullaby" includes some excellent doomy tricks and surprises, the instrumental "The Secret Doctrine" doesn't really shine until the last 2 minutes or so, and the tounge-in-cheek party-tune "Tequila" is just straight-up boring. Both "Catacombs" and "War Without End" are a decent return to form, but also the most Bay Area / Testament / Exodus-thrashy of the featured tracks, so whether this is an up- or downhill type of album is mostly up to whether the listener is a Thrash-guy or a Power/Epic-guy.
Now here comes the scoop and the controversy all in one punch: This album was re-recorded and released anew in 1999 ...and it's actually an improvement(!) Shock! Horror! The Corroseum sells out to the 90's!?!? Um, no. Both version were actually recorded in this very same dark decade and it's a rather simple equation really: This brand of Steel is particularly suited for a "Good" and "Heavy" production, as well as a really tight performance. Add to that the notable maturing of Rytkönen's voice and you've got yourselves a classic Hell-demos v/s Hell LPs situation right there. NOTVD even released the new version on vinyl in 2021, so now you've got 2 rare records to add to your want list instead of one = win-win!