DISMEMBER - MASSIVE KILLING CAPACITY (1995)

Here on a 1st print vinyl released on Nuclear Blast in 1995. See my massive poster (approx 120 cm x 85 cm) included their 3-song MCD Casket Garden from 1995 for size comparison up in the right corner see picture further down the post. Really wished I had enough wall space to fit it somewhere in my apartment that's already have a bunch of Marduk and Funeral Mist posters among others.

The hard 3rd album is a thing in the Swedish Death Metal scene, according to me at least, or every record after Wolverine Blues (1993) by Entombed. 1995 was a weird year in the Death Metal scene the Black Metal scene however was still going steady upwards but in my book the Death scene wasn't the same after 1995. But we'll get to that.

The first time I heard anything from Massive Killing Capacity was when Headbanger's Ball did a great segment on the Dismember, Amorphis, Hypocrisy, Meshuggah & Benediction on the Nuclear Blast Tour in Stuttgart, Germany from the 10th of January in 1995. Of course I had it recorded on a VHS-cassette and watched it MANY times. Dismember performs the song Casket Garden and it sounded great so did Hypocrisy and Amorphis (a must see clip further down in the post). 

Dismember had released a 3-song MCD called Casket Garden in March of 1995 also made a video for the title track. It sounded VERY different from what they had done on their previous ones like on Like An Everflowing Stream (1991); the Pieces EP (1992) and Indecent And Obscene (1993).

Really liked the song and if I remember correctly Casket Garden was on some collection CD that came with a Swedish metal magazine that I was subscribed to at the time (still am).

It had a certain "grow" to it is the best way I can describe it and Matti Kärki's vocals had a different approach to the song then the growls of the earlier albums. Have always hated when people didn't hear the difference between the Dismember and Entombed sound it's like comparing Slayer with Metallica in my ears. But on the song Casket Garden I could hear that Dismember had been a somewhat inspired by the Wolverine Blues album.

Actually didn't buy the Casket Garden EP back in the day, got it now, but back then I thought EP's were to expensive. I rather just wait for the full album of course I made exceptions especially if they had many exclusive songs or if it was by a favorite band like Dissection, Marduk, Emperor etc.

I would like to mention before we get into Massive Killing Capacity that in 1995 when I was 15 years old I was still listening to everything from Marduk, Emperor, Slayer, Kreator, Unleashed, Ozzy, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest etc. It wasn't until late 1995/early 1996 that everything had to be just Black Metal. What teenager do...

Anyway remember blind buying Massive Killing Capacity on release day and I FUCKING HATED IT... After the first song I Saw Them Die I thought well this can only get better, but then the next song Massive Killing Capacity sure it had some of those classic Dismember riffs but back then I thought it was worse then the opener.

On Frozen Fields I liked imminently, Crime Divine was a disaster and To The Bone was so fucking average about halfway into the album that I probably skipped over to the next one.

Wardead I actually liked even if this didn't sound like Dismember in my ears. Hallucigenia and Collection Of Blood both started alright but then I probably just skipped over them after a minute into the songs I wanted to hear Casket Garden to cleanse my ears with a good song.

The instrumental Nenia I thought had great parts in it sounded very much like the Metallica song Orion to me. But then the ending song... Life - Another Shape of Sorrow, yeah the title was kind of how I felt with this album. I was left feeling so cheated out of a great album, Dismember were after all one of my favorite bands at the time.

Remember being so disappointed on the whole album and cursed myself for not listening to the album at one of my local record stores before buying the damn thing. However being 15 years one had limited funds, I'll admit that I was spoiled enough to afford 3-5 CD's a month. But this must have been a month when I couldn't afford any more albums. So I "had" to listen to it because at least it was a new record that I spent money on it. 

So I skipped through all the "bad songs" that were many I thought back then. I had it on in the background while reading a magazine or doing whatever and didn't skip any songs. Actually the album started to grow on me I started to like more and more of the songs. It was still my least favorite Dismember album but at least I got my moneys worth in the end. Finally I really liked it and eventually thought it was an amazing album.

1995 was a weird year for many Death Metal bands. The North American ones like Death, Morbid Angel, Deicide etc. released brilliant classic records. While Swedish and other European bands released weak ones there's exceptions of course for instance At The Gates with their brilliant Slaughter Of The Soul album. 

In my opinion I don't think the Death Metal scene ever got the same after 1995 sure there were great "new" bands like Angelcorpse, Nile etc. but most of the timeless classic albums in the genre was released during or before 1995.

But back to Massive Killing Capacity I could understand if someone doesn't like this album because it's so different from their other 90's records. Give it another chance and give it time and you might just find the greatness that it really offers in the end. I would never have it on vinyl if I didn't think it was worth it.

Again sorry for the poor quality of my pictures I'll upgrade my iPhone 6S soon to something better.