Mirrorworlds

Now best remembered for housing drummer Daniel Erlandsson before and after his short stint with In Flames, and prior to his extended gig with Michael Amott's Arch Enemy, Sweden's Eucharist got lost in the crowd of melodic death metal bands that got issued willy-nilly out of the Scandinavian nation during the mid-'90s. Their second effort, 1997's Mirrorworlds was recorded as a trio (rounded out by vocalist/guitarist Markus Johnsson and bassist Martin Karlsson) and featured something of "compromising" style: more aggressive than In Flames, more subdued than At the Gates. Likewise, well-crafted cuts such as "With the Sun," "Demons," and the title track are reliably proficient, but rarely outstanding. And of the album's eight tracks (totaling just under 40 minutes), two are instrumentals. First among these, the six-minute "The Eucharist" (mislabeled in the CD jacket as song number three, it's actually the fourth) is a fine but routine example of the group's densely harmonic death metal; the second, named "In Nakedness," is quite a departure, consisting of a delicately picked acoustic guitar, accompanied by a softly wailing saxophone. Still, taken as a whole, Mirrorworlds' sum result is that of an interesting but unspectacular melodic death metal record, ideal for rabid fans of the style only.