Dimension Zero - 'He Who Shall Not Bleed'

Swedish death metallers seldom let off the gas with blazing melody on their fourth album.

It’s hard to be a Swedish metal band and not draw comparisons to At the Gates and In Flames. Each band has set their own precedent for the genre and each has altered metal to a point where many followers have taken cue from both bands’ knack for powerful aggression and tuneful capacities.

Dimension Zero has been lurking about since the mid nineties with albums such as This Is Hell and Silent Night Fever and seldom get any proper recognition, despite the fact that In Flames’ Jesper Stromblad has held residence here (along with former In Flames associate Glenn Ljungstrom), as well as former Marduk vocalist Jocke Gothberg. By all means can this band trade punches with the heaviest in today’s scene as their largely brutal current album He Who Shall Not Bleed (originally released in Japan in 2007) exemplifies.

The tag-team of Stromblad and new-addition Daniel Antonsson of Soilwork give Dimension Zero plenty of shred-loving personality on an album that moves at largely the same bolting speed as someone inhumanly dodging a spray of bullets. Check out their ripping solos on “Way to Shin…”

Jocke Gothberg delivers his lines with the same semi-automatic propulsion, particularly on Dimension Zero’s hilarious thrash cover of the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive.” Trust me, you will never listen to the original the same way again after hearing Gothberg scorch the Gibb brothers’ lyrics to smolders.

Other songs such as “Red Dead Heat,” “Hell is Within” and “The Was” bounce with sweltering hot feet but never forget to inject melodious streams in the way everyone from In Flames to Shadows Fall utilize. The thing is, Dimension Zero is far heavier and dirtier. Dimension Zero panders to no one, even as the subliminal harmonious elements check and enhance the album’s sheer viciousness.