BRUTAL RECALL: Like An Everflowing Stream – Dismember

‘Classic album’ is a phrase thrown about a little bit too freely, these days – but even the most conservative definition of the term could be used for Like An Everflowing Stream.  The debut album from Swedish death metal powerhouse DISMEMBER was instantly a game changer – not just for the five kids from Stockholm, but for the very essence of death metal as a whole. With the essential death metal release celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Distorted Sound Magazine hooked up with drummer, manager and creative driving force Fred Estby to reflect on Like An Everflowing Stream, and the early days of the band that would become one of the cornerstones of Swedish death metal for decades to come. 

“I’m very proud of Like An Everflowing Stream as a full effort, the album itself, the photos, the artwork. Everything we wanted to do with our debut, we accomplished.” Estby reflects from his New York home, taking a very honest look back at the early days of his career. “I mean, it is a little bit dated when it comes to the sound – not the music itself necessarily, but as a musician I think maybe I wouldn’t have played things the same way now, 30 years on I’d maybe do things a little more tasteful. But then again, the energy that’s there is hard to replicate when you’re 30 years older. Sure, you’ll play it tighter, play it better and it’ll be more coherent, but you can’t compare the energy of a 50 year old to that of a 20 year old.” 

That’s a very levelheaded way to view an album widely seen as one of the most essential records of the entire genre. But that’s the maturity that comes with age – and while the wider death metal scene may see Like An Everflowing Stream as a stone-cold classic, Esbty created seven albums with DISMEMBER, each wonderful in their own way and each essential listening for any new death metal fan, and no artist worth their salt will reduce the sum of their career to one record – especially their first. But conversations on the rest of DISMEMBER’s stellar discography will come later, for now the focus lies entirely on Like An Everflowing Stream – so how was it for the band, for five kids from Stockholm, to take their first foray into the big, bad music industry? 

“I think we did pretty well, the recording only took 12 days, including mixing, which is pretty quick, and we just had a great time in the studio. We worked long days, 14, 16 hour days for 12 days straight, not a single day off. From there, we built a really good relationship with Tomas Skogsberg [Sunlight Studios].” Estby reflects. “We took that classic photo at the Stockholm City Hall, covered in pig’s blood. We rode the subway home still dripping blood and stinking! [laughs] It was just fun, I still feel all those emotions now when we’re talking about the album. It was a good time, and we put a pretty damn good package together for our debut.” 

When it comes to records with the longevity that comes with the ‘classic album’ tag, you can’t help but wonder how the band were feeling at the time of recording. No artist is going to release an album they ultimately think is guff, obviously, but there’s always a bit of wonder – did they know they had something special? Did DISMEMBER have any idea, 30 years on, Like An Everflowing would be regarded as such a legendary release for the genre? 

“Not at all. What I did know was when we did the Reborn in Blasphemy demo I felt that we had something – we had evolved into a band that had the capacity to do something cool. Matti’s [Kärki, vocals] singing was better, the riffs were better, we were just playing better and thought ‘Let’s keep grinding it out.’” Estby reflects. “When Robert [Sennebäck, guitars] and Richard [Cabeza, bass] joined DISMEMBER, that’s when the pieces really fell into place and we really felt that we were a proper unit with some excellent songs, we were on a roll. Everything went very smoothly and very easily – you have those moments as musicians and as a band, some albums come together like that and those are the ones that are usually the best. The albums that are a struggle to write, usually they aren’t as good. Like An Everflowing Stream and Death Metal are my two favourite DISMEMBER albums because it was easy to write them, it was easy to rehearse them and it was easy to record them. The riffs and the lyrics just flowed.” 

Speaking of lyrics, Like An Everflowing Stream is an interesting insight into the early days of DISMEMBER’s lyricism. While they would evolve into tackling a far wider range of subjects on later releases, here the Swedes worship at the throne of gore. “Early on, we were influenced by DEATH and AUTOPSY, we were into the gory lyrics. We were reading books about serial killers and stuff like that.” Estby talks, musing on his and Kärki’s early approach to lyricism. “Back in the late 80s, early 90s it was pretty shocking, gruesome stuff was coming out in more detail, the shocking side of the media was really starting to ramp up around then. Before then if something bad happened it didn’t really mention the gory details, but in the late 80s there was more media about serial killers and the monsters of this world. It was easier to get a hold of the nasty stuff, and of course, as teenagers, we were pretty fascinated by it.”

There’s arguably no better example of DISMEMBER’s gore-obsessed lyricism than controversy-laden track Skin Her Alive, though. “Skin Her Alive was actually based on a true story – it was a neighbour of Matti’s, actually, who skinned his wife alive in a bathtub. It was pretty scary, especially when you’re what, 16, 17 years old? This guy who lived in Matti’s building killed his wife, and he didn’t just kill her, he skinned her alive – of course he wrote a lyric about that! It did cause a bit of controversy with the English customs, though.” 

‘A bit of controversy’ is putting it mildly. The affair led to a court case costing thousands upon thousands of pounds in a Tipper Gore style attack of the extremity of death metal lyrics. “The English customs sued us, the record label and our UK distributor in a three part trial – the trial was a joke. They barely asked us any questions, they played the whole album in court on a hi-fi system from start to finish – it’s not like they just played five minutes then wanted to turn it off. There aren’t that many court cases in music history when it comes to spreading obscene lyrics – our lawyer told us at that time only NWA and CAT STEVENS had been prosecuted over their lyrics.” Estby explains bitterly on the nonsense of the debacle. “I would have understood it better if it was a women’s rights organisation who misunderstood and misinterpreted the lyrics, if they were appalled by the fact we had a song called Skin Her Alive and thought we were calling people to abuse women. I’d have far more understanding of that than the English customs suing us over something they find indecent and obscene. That’s not their place – they should be looking for drugs being smuggled over the border. They didn’t find drugs, they found death metal instead.”

The story of Like An Everflowing Stream has it all – it’s a coming of age tale, five friends from the Stockholm suburbs creating magic that would maintain its legend for decades to come. It has controversy, it has gore, it has pride and it is ultimately a perfect snapshot of a moment in time. We’ve barely scratched the surface of DISMEMBER‘s classic debut album today, but for all the background one thing remains irrevocably true – Like An Everflowing Stream is a stone-cold classic, an example of early death metal nearing perfection.

From dream to dream we have always been like an everflowing stream.

Like An Everflowing Stream was originally released on 28 May 1991 via Nuclear Blast Records.

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