by Matt Smith
On a dreary, rainy day in 1987, I purchased an album (yes, it was vinyl, with a big sleeve so you could see the cover in detail, the way it was meant to be seen) and brought it home and played it that night before laying my head down to sleep. The record was a concept album and the story was about a stillborn child that had come back to haunt descendants of her mother, who, on July 7, 1777, had been murdered by her husband, Count DeLafey, for her adulterous ways. As I sat on my bed with my headphones on, reading along with the lyric sheet and listening to the haunting metal music, all written and superbly executed by talented musicians assembled by one man, King Diamond...
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SPRING 2008
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by Matt Smith
Back in 1991 when I was just starting to sink my teeth into Death Metal, there were a few bands out of Sweden that helped define what Death Metal was all about. One of those bands was Dismember. After being turned on to their debut, Like an Ever Flowing Stream by fellow Fitchburg State College classmates and old school GASPers Mike Baronas and Mark Fields I knew that there was something in that Swedish sound that had more to it than many of the American Death metal bands. The guitar sound that only bands like Entombed, Carnage, and Dismember had and they all had a common thread, David Blomqvist, one of the founding members of Dismember. I had an opportunity this past winter to speak with him from his hometown of Stockholm, Sweden and talk about the their newest masterpiece, the aptly titled Dismember, an album that, in my opinion absolutely defines what the band is all about...
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