THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN ASKING FOR! // Edge of Sanity - Crimson // Composer Reaction & Analysis 

You could make a "Is there Dan Swanö?" drinking game. Set up a playlist of 90s to 2000s Swedish proggy, death, doom and gothic metal bands. Play a song. Check the credits for Dan Swanö. You'll get drunk pretty fast.

Oh, my God. It's happening.

Monsieur Dan Swano, the mastermind behind Edge of Sanity, is a Death Metal legend. Besides being a multi-instrumentalist he is the producer of this album and many other swedish metal gems. He started as a prog and pop musician and then he moved to metal, this is why he writes so many catchy and melodic riffs. He's a complete musician. Great reaction.

7:26 that Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth growling btw😉

Yeah, Dan Swanö is amazing and he was long overdue in your channel. He's a very integral part to understanding the sort of recolution metal underwent in the 90s. He is an immensely talented multinstrumentalist, able to growl, sing, play guitars, keyboards and drums pretty proficiently, and was involved in about 20-25 albums just in the 1990 to 2000 period, ranging from death metal, to black metal, to prog, to hard rock, to prog, and to goth rock, even. Aside from the music he made, there's also the music he helped discover, such as Dissection and Opeth (Michael Akerfeldt provides the more shrieking black metal vocals on this, btw. And Swano played in the Bloodbath song you listened to this week). Out of his immense discography, you'll probably like Moontowers the most, I'd say, it's very tuneful death metal spiced with some very trippy 70s keyboards. And also Pan Thy Monium, which were... weeeeeird. Especially for their time. But it's also fitting for this week's theme. Edge of Sanity were among the first swedish death metal bands, after all.

Brian finally reacting to Crimson!? Let's! F**king! Go! Seriously, though. You can hear almost everything great about prog metal, and a great example of how you can build a full album from four basic riffs without making it tiring, and show a masterclass in storytelling and pacing. I live for these 30+ minute reactions. I saw the full Devil Doll reaction (and I'm sure he didn't get half of the references to The Prisoner) and just the thumbnail tells me, Crimson is going to "Instant Classic" for him

@18:30 No the crossfade is definitely not on the recording, or definitely not on the CD.. But it could be something that the streaming service has done, or even worse, something the label or publisher has done to the recording. It's worth noting that on the CD, it's a single track. It's possible that when the album was chopped up for digital streaming, whoever did it didn't understand the assignment.

Originally Crimson was one 40 minute long song. The CD I bought way back when had one song: Crimson 40 minutes. The label made him break it up into 8 parts. Crimson II. Has like 30 some songs ranging from 40 seconds or so to one minute 40 some seconds. Crimson tells a unified story if you read the lyrics. Its supposed to be 1 song.

I always find Edge of Sanity (or Dan Swano) doesn't get recognized as being on the forefront of the progressive metal style that Opeth made popular. I believe it's the song "Enigma" on the 1992 album that featured Dan singing in both harsh growls and clean vocals which may have been the first time that was really done in metal to that extent. Swano has been in so many projects ranging from death metal, progressive metal/rock, goth rock, and even Powermetal. Check out a Steel which is fun 3 song project with Swano and Akerfeldt where Swano sings in a ridiculous falsetto which is great but also hilarious. Mikael Akerfeldt's featured vocal sections are at 7:15 , 22:42 and a couple other parts.

Gothic rock was a massive influence on Dan Swanö, the songwriter/vocalist/guitarist/producer here. The song 'Sacrificed' featured on a previous album of theirs is basically a Sisters of Mercy tribute. That's probably where the gothic style deep vocals come from.

Legendary album, definitely a milestone in prog death genre. But now you are obliged to react Crimson II, which is even more prog with a clean production. Also has nods to the previous Crimson, since it is the continuation of the story. There are multiple instances of the same riffs with variationa being used.

Wow! I've really been missing out on them! ... I can't blame it on not being aware of Dan Swanö - THE man behind this band (that apparently has been ending up as his one man project). I do know that Dan Swanö is something of a phenomenon in Swedish heavy prog and was also one of the founding members of Bloodbath (to get some straight forward death metal outlet together with others who did more intricate stuff in their main bands, like e.g. Mikael Åkerfeldt whom you mentioned - although he wasn't the singer at the "Eaten album" while Dan Swanö was still in the band) I also know that Dan is extremely talented and plays virtually all instruments in a metal setting (and have been changing duties in his bands) Great reaction and analysis again. I was glad to get to discover and enjoy this alongside you!

Oh yes, Crimson at last, which along with Crimson II is perhaps the most influential album to the past 8 years of my life.

I'm like a kid in a candy shop watching this, EOS is one of my favorite bands of all time and to see someone analyze and appreciate them on this level is an absolute treat. Thanks man, I enjoyed the hell out of this

It's about time you've done this masterpiece! Great analysis, as always. Some things to note regarding continuity: on the original album it is one seamless 40 min track, there are no individual songs or movements marked or labeled in any way in the liner notes. I believe they did this splitting when mp3s and music streaming took over. The same thing was done to Insomnium's "Winter's Gate" song/album. Do yourself a favor and lister to the proper version to avoid those distracting breaks and also hear the last 5 seconds of the song which are ethereal and help release the tension (they are cut off on the version you listened to). Coincidentally, "Crimson II" (the sequel to this album released 7 years later) was intentionally put into movements as individual tracks, though it was still composed as one long song. Obviously, you need to analyze Crimson II, Winter's Gate and Green Carnation's "Light of Day, Day of Darkness" now!

I can't believe this channel is soooo underrated, it's criminal. You're amazing Bryan, thanks for keeping at this!

One of my favorite death metal albums! I love how it stays true to ita death metal roots, but goes all kinds of places and is very ambitious. I mean the guitar work alone is some of the best in extreme metal for sure

Thanks to Sean for requesting this masterpiece, you the man !!! ( and to Bryan of course 😅 )

Crimson is one of the best albums in metal and in music in general.

I never thought the day would come when this masterpiece got a solid reaction video.

And then Crimson II :D

While talking about crazy fun metal. There is a black metal album, very comparable to this one (Dan Swano was one of the two main contributors for it also). It called Diabolical Masquerade - Death's Design

its a phenomenal piece of music but like genius indicated normally its not fragmented into parts its a single continuous one track album, that means that some of the part transitions in your version have fade in/outs when there shouldn't be any or a sharper stop than the actual cd version, still most of it is intact so its not a huge deal just would probably alleviate some of your criticisms, also wiki of this album has a pretty good summary of the narrative i think i did recommend it a long time ago but understanding that a 40 min album is a commitment, but it finally happened, glad you liked it, there is also crimson II, another single track behemoth of an album, if this one is a 10, the second is easily a 9, slightly weaker but still another masterpiece and also continues the story

Never thought I'd see it! Thank you so much for doing Crimson!

Great reaction! Really enjoyed this.

Holy shit! good job choosing this! one of my absolute fav, great song with great variation and story

Pan.Thy.Monium - The Battle of Geeheeb, I beg you!

Oh my god, if I could travel back in time and listen to it the first time. AND know that Crimson II is still waiting for you man :D

Oh I am very surprised that you react to this. He, Dan Swanö, has an awesome solo album called Moontower and I hope you will pick up this one somewhen in the future.

Seeing all the Dan Swano loves in the comments warms the heart. Also check out Moontower. Dan Swano's Solo prog death metal project.

I always listen to the entire album gapless. Truly astonishing 40 minute story they tell. It was meant as a one piece I believe. I get no dips, fades pauses or skips in gapless. Never seen them live but wiuld be crazy to play the whole album live like that lol.

Crimson II is also really good, might wanna check that out as well.

This is my first time listening. I really enjoyed it. Something to add to my catalog and listen to again.

Love this album (and Crimson 2). I can throw them on in the background any old time and its perfect to play as a single long song👏💀

What a masterpiece!!!!❤❤❤❤

You should try Pan-Thy-Monium 'Dawn of dreams'. It was the band Dan Swano (Edge of Sanity) played with his brother and it was unlike anything else in this genre.

1:11:11 there's no "tracks" or "parts", this is the single song!

All right who's gonna suggest Insomnium - Winter's Gate as the next special selection?

Dan Swano is essentially the man in Death Metal (and Black Metal considering he produced both Dissection albums)

An addition to my previous comment, in an interview Dan Swanö described this album as being an "Opeth rip-off" that was inspired by Orchid, Opeth's debut album which Dan produced.

btw since we're talking Dan Swano, check out his album Moontower. It's amazing

There's stuff missing between part 7 and part 8. Part 7 ends at 31:52 and part 8 begins at 32:40 (both in the original track). Weird that they'd not only chop the track up (with the weird crossfades), but also remove material. The original track is exactly 40:00 long FWIW, so that's probably not the only thing missing. Also, there is actually some silence in the part that was removed there.

Regarding the story: The child is not a boy, it's the princess. Women giving birth to only boys means humanity can breed again, but not really because only men are being born (civil war foreshadowing). The dialogue happens between the princess (queen regnant now) and her master (we don't know who he is), and he tells her to wipe out the humanity. Not a happy ending BTW "They had found a new leader to worship. / A king with her clear-blue eyes."

Hell yeah! More people need to hear about EoS! I'm more a fan of the second Crimson, but this album is just so clever and inventive. Thx for the reaction.

Yes! Crimson and Crimson II are top notch. Dan Swano as others have said is probably the biggest towering titan of Swedish metal. This is one album you'll find in every death metal fan in my age group. Has a very movie soundtrack/stage musical feel with the over-arching structure. It's different songs with the same spinal cord and recurring motifs. Like the same car driving down a few different highways with but always coming back to the same garage. Diabolical Masquerade is another band that taps into this pretty hard.

now it would be natural to go for crimson 2, please let this thought come true

Probably my favorite album of all time, in the top 3 anyway. Simply great. I get goose bumps even after having heard it a hundred times already.

loving your reaction

You should try Diabolical Masquerade's Death's Design. It's like this but more in your ballpark, and produced by Edge of Sanity's Dan Swäno.

Theres definitely something missing at the end of part 7 just before part 8 where the angelic voices start....

dude, you are literally reviewing the soundtrack of my teen years, before you start, i kow you will be impressed.. thius is such a jewel of an album...

If you want the classic prog rock side of Dan Swanö, check out his band Nightingale. He can't do wrong IMO

EoS riffs and melodies are just pure f'n gold. edt. regarding the gothic metal vibes... check out the song "Black Tears". Soo tasty '80 goth rock vibe. pt4, is so reminiscent of old Amorphis, I mean like Karelian Isthmus and Tales.

HELL YEAH BROTHER

23:42 reminds me of raining blood by slayer

Holy grail..... somehow! Not perfect but near and M A of Opeth in it.... I love it soooo much!

HOLYYY SHITE

Legendary DM album. Opeth get all the credit for mixing extreme metal and prog, but this album was a watershed (npi) for that sub-genre. It made Dan Swano a household name among metal fans and he's been a prolific force in metal ever since. It's awesome stuff with tremendous replay value. This reaction reminds me it's been a while since I heard it myself!

Thumbs up just for the selection alone. Not a lot of people doing Crimson.

I find it funny how during the CD period we could spit out songs the length of the width of the medium and actually some bands did. Now we can make songs even longer but very few even dare to make a 15 minute song.

I learnt never to sleep on Scandinavian metal when I heard this shit in the 90's

Whoa, I didn't expect this one! Crimson is for sure one of the greatest albums out there, though personally I find Crimson II more palatable. Chances are you'll like that one just as much as this one, or even better. The song I've been recommending, The Kaleidoscopic God by Scar Symmetry, sound overall quite similar to the sound of Edge of Sanity, but I think that song has better written transitions.

You need to watch bloodbath live at wacken dvd,ps he plays guitar upside down backwards

Yeah, it's definitely gothy. Great video!

You need Crimson II, it's good!! Btw, when you are doing black metal week? I think that I could drop some good stuff on occasion for further musical exploration ;)

dan swano is just too good

I think some people already mentioend it, but on the 1 track CD back in the 90ies there were no fades of course (being one track). Because it is that famous "40 minute one song" release. I think some technicalities etc after that has had to chop up the song into several parts at some points.

Crimson II is light-years ahead of this. Hope you check it out next

The original album has just one track, it's not hacked up like this. One coherent song. I really dislike how they cut it up for streaming media. So unnecessary. Ruins the experience so much if you ask me, especially with those unnecessary fades added to it. Regarding Goth vibes, Dan really liked to mix in some goth influences into his soundscapes. There are a few EoS tunes that should be considered pure goth rock or goth metal, like Sacrificed and Black Tears, and the whole first album of his Nightingale project is definitely 100% gothic, intentionally. Too long since I went into the lyrics of the song, but yes, it's definitely one of those songs you need to read the lyrics with the song to make sense of it. If you ever do another EoS reaction in the far future, do something from the Purgatory Afterglow album, such as Twilight, Blood-Colored or Elegy. Recommend it.

You should definitely react to Crimson 2 next.

The fading is the streaming service’s doing unfortunately. The album is just one track. And yeah, the goth metal vocals are pretty goofy on this one lol.

there is more like 5-10 seconds after the sudden silence of the last part. Cause I dont recall the ending that abrupt.

I should add 2 more single-track albums with motif usage through them that you MUST checkout! Well, one actually has 64-tracks but should be treated as 1, and guess who's involved with it, Dan Swanö; Death's Design by Diabolical Masquerade - A one man piece band and the album is the OST to a never-release Swedish horror movie! The second is Light of Day, Day of Darkness by Green Carnation; a 1-track 1hr album about the experience of a dad losing their kid to cancer and going through the emotions, which actually happened to one of the band members.Oh and a third bonus nominee for cross-album use of motif! Nightingale's first 4 albums (The Breathing Shadow, The Closing Chronicles, I, and Alive Again), which of course are by Dan Swanö.

Wish you will make a reaction to Nightingale-Nightfall overture .Another masterpiece by Dan Swano !

Dan Swanö, bit off on lyrical tale, but close. You are right about reading lyrics with music, definitely coherent theme... battles during faster parts, mourning in slow parts... Also, not a happy ending... "the one with the clear blue eyes", a lyrical throwback, showing the story as possibly being part of a pattern. There is also Crimson II, but I don't know it as well

As for the track, as a single listen, it can kinda drag, but it's still a great example of the penchant of metal bands during this moment for just doing whatever they put their minds into. But even if at times the creativity does not quite match the execution, there's an earnestness in the willingness to move into what were at the time completely uncharted waters that to my ears hasn't been fully matched since. ANd it's that sheer enthusiasm, almost naivety that makes it pretty timeless. Also, the mesh of influences, especially drumming wise comes from the fact that these are the guys writing the blueprint. They didn't so much take influence from death metal as they created the blueprint for death metal. ANd especially the swedish death metal scene of the 90s was fairly punk inspired. Funny then, that things come full circle and so much of the harsher crust punk of today literally steals old swedish death metal's guitar sound.

Crimson 1 and 2 are one song. In the 90s the disc was released 1 track

Very good, note the similarities to the bloodbath track you did

Great track, and a monster one to do a commentary to. I'll say you nailed it pretty good. They definitely butchered this single track with the parts though. The ending was missing and that slow droning vocal part fades in from silence, rather than abruptly appearing like it did. I think your thumbnail is a totally different band though. Cheers for the doing this song to the Great Edge of Sanity

u may want to react to Hypocrisy 'chemical whore' & Morbid Angel 'Lion's den', it's real death metal but still melodic

You did it!!!! Check out one of Dan's other bands Nightingale. Gothic/rock but great nonetheless.

If you’re interested in Dan Swano’s even more experimental side, check out Pan.thy.Monium, which has everything from bluesy jams to groovy death metal with skronky saxophone solos and wacky soundscapes

Yeah. The brick wall transition. A classic death metal maneuver. Real break your neck shit. Opeth has done it. So has cradle of filth. I wait for these parts. When you can see the brick wall it builds anticipation. Anyway, it's kinda like how punk has that pause thing where everyone jumps and does a split or something (though obituary did make use of that a bunch on the end complete). It is...endemic? Innate? Characteristic of? Something or somesuch. Well, iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii love it.

Fuck yeah!!!!!!!

Edge of Sanity was one of my first loves in death metal. It´s really hard to look back without HEAVY rose-tinted nostalgia goggles :D

This album is actually supposed to be one 40 minute song. I have it on CD and it does not have any of the fade in/out crap. That actually got added as a DRM measure and I fucking hate it

The coincidence! .... Death metal week - this as a special selection - with a main man who co-founded Bloodbath... Sure you didn't set this up?...

This is like if Amorphis had a Godfather 😁

If you want this topped: listen to Renaissance - The death of art, which is a 40 minuten progressive death metal masterpiece.

Casually requests Crimson 2 to further abuse the request policy.... jk it isn't one big song the second time around

This needs song needs to be a movie. Or graphic novel.

You do not dig Opeth but at least you dig M. Akerfeldt growling here!!! Smashing!!! P.S. and very present, again, Swedish guitar buzzsaw!

super masterpiece! (unfortunately u messed up a bit with the transitions of the player)

Finspång uber alles

That's not Edge of Sanity in the photo...

Great album! personally like Crimson II more. Better riffs and no goth vox like this album.

Swanö.

At 14:37 it skips WTF

awesome except Dan isn’t even in the thumbnail :( edge is one of the greatest bands ever at least the projects with Dan in them

I certainly love this album, but Crimson II is objectively much better. Nobody agrees, but that's just because they're ignoring the superior songwriting, riffs, diversity of passages, cohesion, production, and pretty much everything about it.