Review by JD on February 8, 2009.

This amazing artistic yet almost sadistically heavy Greek band has named what it does as 'non-tempo music'. Their term is more than a little deceiving in every way, to the point that they were not accurate. What Universe217 actually are as a group is an artistic Ambient Doom Metal played to the very extreme edge of what that sort of term means.

What this all means for Universe217 is that if you took the members of Novembers Doom, Candlemass, and St. Vitus and fed them all huge doses of downers and made sure every band member was suicidally depressed while they collaborated on music... is exactly what Universe217 sounds like. It is both amazing to hear with its ambient yet crushingly heavy sounds, but the despondency that it is written with will send as shadow over one's heart and cascade them into the band's own hell.

Brooding melodies offset dark and rather ethereal vocals that sets the tone. Heavy guitars thunder through the near dirge like trance that Universe217 use to convey a sens of utter hopelessness and complete barrenness of ones soul. The lyrical picture is made up of sheer desolation, a dank dirty world that is made almost primordial as it seethes with a great sense of near evil melancholy .... as if pain, death and despair live so deep in the murk that no light of day can ever reaches through the gloom.

This album is a thing to behold and to listen to, as long as you are not prone to slipping into some dark and deep depressions states. Even if you are you could still listen to the album. Simply, fill your prescription at your shrink's office, make sure you have nothing sharp in the room, lock away your guns and make sure you don't have a coil of rope around... and then put this album in.

I usually do not listen to this type of Doom Metal personally... but I found myself drawn to it once I did. It the most scary thing I have ever heard to the point that I think it could traumatize Stephen King into ending up writing scripts for Barney the big purple dinosaur on PBS if he listened to this CD. It is brilliant, and people need to hear it at least once.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 9
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 9.5
Originality:9.5

Overall: 9 out of 10

Review by JD on February 8, 2009.

This amazing artistic yet almost sadistically heavy Greek band has named what it does as 'non-tempo music'. Their term is more than a little deceiving in every way, to the point that they were not accurate. What Universe217 actually are as a group is an artistic Ambient Doom Metal played to the very extreme edge of what that sort of term means.

What this all means for Universe217 is that if you took the members of Novembers Doom, Candlemass, and St. Vitus and fed them all huge doses of downers and made sure every band member was suicidally depressed while they collaborated on music... is exactly what Universe217 sounds like. It is both amazing to hear with its ambient yet crushingly heavy sounds, but the despondency that it is written with will send as shadow over one's heart and cascade them into the band's own hell.

Brooding melodies offset dark and rather ethereal vocals that sets the tone. Heavy guitars thunder through the near dirge like trance that Universe217 use to convey a sens of utter hopelessness and complete barrenness of ones soul. The lyrical picture is made up of sheer desolation, a dank dirty world that is made almost primordial as it seethes with a great sense of near evil melancholy .... as if pain, death and despair live so deep in the murk that no light of day can ever reaches through the gloom.

This album is a thing to behold and to listen to, as long as you are not prone to slipping into some dark and deep depressions states. Even if you are you could still listen to the album. Simply, fill your prescription at your shrink's office, make sure you have nothing sharp in the room, lock away your guns and make sure you don't have a coil of rope around... and then put this album in.

I usually do not listen to this type of Doom Metal personally... but I found myself drawn to it once I did. It the most scary thing I have ever heard to the point that I think it could traumatize Stephen King into ending up writing scripts for Barney the big purple dinosaur on PBS if he listened to this CD. It is brilliant, and people need to hear it at least once.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 9
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 9.5
Originality:9.5

Overall: 9 out of 10

Review by Felix on November 11, 2021.

My heroic quartet of Swedish death metal pioneers consists of Entombed, Dismember, Grave and Unleashed and if I had to select the most likeable, my choice would be clear. Unleashed has always been the most authentic formation. The vast majority of their albums blow the shit out of the microscopic place called my brain. But Warrior practices the opposite. It delivers a portion of shit in order to fill the hollow spaces of my head with the muddy excrements of the Swedes.

Already the predecessor of Warrior had some unexpectedly weak songs, yet the here reviewed work is much worse still. One-tone riffs, mostly offered at a snail's pace, do not deliver any idea in order to form interesting songs. Uninspired, lame and insubstantial are the words that come to mind when listening to this crummy stuff. For example, the opener 'Warmachine' sucks completely. With a length of less than two minutes and a variety of less than two tones, it gives rise to many questions. Who said that this song is finished? Why was it recorded? Who was the outsider that chose exactly this pale piece for the opener? Mankind will never know the answers.

Overly primitive structures are not a crucial disadvantage, but they need to go hand in hand with a furious, rapid and vehement approach. But songs like 'Hero Of The Land' are bloodless, without energy and belligerence. Their melodic fragments are not enough to lend them an individual face. This is all just bullshit in its more or less purest form. Ironically, exactly the keyboard-based intro of 'Löngt Nid' pricks up the listener's ear, but everything falls flat as the guitar sets in. A boring instrumental is the miserable outcome. By the way, Unleashed was never a group that scored with technical skills. Therefore, I cannot understand the decision to integrate a (comparatively long) instrumental, because it shows the weak side of the band in relentless openness.

From time to time, the obviously confused band gets back on its feet and intensifies the tempo ('Mediawhore', 'Born Deranged', the title track). Too bad that the lack of substance remains regardless of the chosen pace. Of course, 'Born Deranged' is more acceptable than anti-songs like 'I Have Returned' with its baggy guitars or 'Ragnarök' which seems to be recorded in slow motion. But especially 'Mediawhore' has nothing to offer but a predictable, one-dimensional structure and mediocre leads. Is this really the death squadron that gave us precious metals like 'Before The Creation Of Time', 'Onward Into Countless Battles' or 'To Asgaard We Fly'?

With regard to the egregiously meaningless song material, I am not willing to talk about the production. One can record this kind of tunes with the latest technology and one can equip them with the scent of strawberries - the result will always suck. Yet if somebody points a gun at me in order to hear my opinion about the mix of Warrior, then I can frankly say that it sucks as well. Unleashed present a comatose death metal sound without any lively details. I still wonder that the band survived this disastrous publication.

Rating: 1.6 out of 10

Review by Felix on November 11, 2021.

My heroic quartet of Swedish death metal pioneers consists of Entombed, Dismember, Grave and Unleashed and if I had to select the most likeable, my choice would be clear. Unleashed has always been the most authentic formation. The vast majority of their albums blow the shit out of the microscopic place called my brain. But Warrior practices the opposite. It delivers a portion of shit in order to fill the hollow spaces of my head with the muddy excrements of the Swedes.

Already the predecessor of Warrior had some unexpectedly weak songs, yet the here reviewed work is much worse still. One-tone riffs, mostly offered at a snail's pace, do not deliver any idea in order to form interesting songs. Uninspired, lame and insubstantial are the words that come to mind when listening to this crummy stuff. For example, the opener 'Warmachine' sucks completely. With a length of less than two minutes and a variety of less than two tones, it gives rise to many questions. Who said that this song is finished? Why was it recorded? Who was the outsider that chose exactly this pale piece for the opener? Mankind will never know the answers.

Overly primitive structures are not a crucial disadvantage, but they need to go hand in hand with a furious, rapid and vehement approach. But songs like 'Hero Of The Land' are bloodless, without energy and belligerence. Their melodic fragments are not enough to lend them an individual face. This is all just bullshit in its more or less purest form. Ironically, exactly the keyboard-based intro of 'Löngt Nid' pricks up the listener's ear, but everything falls flat as the guitar sets in. A boring instrumental is the miserable outcome. By the way, Unleashed was never a group that scored with technical skills. Therefore, I cannot understand the decision to integrate a (comparatively long) instrumental, because it shows the weak side of the band in relentless openness.

From time to time, the obviously confused band gets back on its feet and intensifies the tempo ('Mediawhore', 'Born Deranged', the title track). Too bad that the lack of substance remains regardless of the chosen pace. Of course, 'Born Deranged' is more acceptable than anti-songs like 'I Have Returned' with its baggy guitars or 'Ragnarök' which seems to be recorded in slow motion. But especially 'Mediawhore' has nothing to offer but a predictable, one-dimensional structure and mediocre leads. Is this really the death squadron that gave us precious metals like 'Before The Creation Of Time', 'Onward Into Countless Battles' or 'To Asgaard We Fly'?

With regard to the egregiously meaningless song material, I am not willing to talk about the production. One can record this kind of tunes with the latest technology and one can equip them with the scent of strawberries - the result will always suck. Yet if somebody points a gun at me in order to hear my opinion about the mix of Warrior, then I can frankly say that it sucks as well. Unleashed present a comatose death metal sound without any lively details. I still wonder that the band survived this disastrous publication.

Rating: 1.6 out of 10