### Dissection: Live legacy

#### 12/09/11 || Smalley

During their first period of activity, Sweden’s Dissection crafted a classier, more melodic brand of black metal than their generally rawer Norwegian counterparts (no offense, Norway), and while I am saddened that the first, good era of the band only lasted two studio albums, at least we can still admire the too-short legacy of their early days with releases like “Live legacy”, before Nödtveidt came back from jail and made a weak Gothenburg-wannabe, then offed himself because he had supposedly accomplished “everything” he was supposed to.

Anyway, I guess Nuclear Blast wanted to get everyone hyped up for Jon’s release in ’04, and subsequent “triumphant” return to music (lol) by releasing this snapshot of Dissection from ’97, which means it contains nothing but satisfying tunes, with absolutely no “Reinkaos” shenanigans to be found. Consequently, Nödtveidt recorded this while he was still a murderer walking around free, which does cast a bit of a stigma over the whole affair, but fuck it, if I can still enjoy Roman Polanski movies, I should be able to dig some awesome black metal recorded by a homicidal douche, right?

Correct, and fortunately for me, “Live legacy” goes heavier on the “Storm of the light’s bane” tracks than it does the material off “The somberlain”; while I do enjoy “somberlain”, and recognize it was important in setting the stage for the band’s masterpiece, I don’t really love it, due to the somewhat-muted production, and some songwriting fat that could’ve been cut (sorry, unnamed staffer who wrote a Class6 for it!). But at any rate, “legacy” starts off logically with “At the fathomless depths”, which was the intro of their (at the time) latest album, and it sounds extremely close to how it did on “Storm”, though with the expected crowd noise, and echo-ier overall sound.

Of course, just being an atmosphere-setting intro track, you can’t get much of a sense of the band’s energy live from it; instead, it’s on the next cut, the blistering “Retribution – Storm Of The Light’s Bane”, where you can really hear the band’s hunger, during that brief time when they were riding high on top of the black metal world. Their drummer on this show, Tobias Kellgren, especially kills with his high-energy fills, more-so than Ole Öhman did on his two full-lengths; it’s a shame that Jon never got to make an album with Tobias on the skins, but oh well, no use crying over split blood now.

After that, the record keeps the track flow unpredictable by doubling back to a crushing rendition of “Unhallowed”, then a great performance of that eternal black metal classic “Where dead angels lie”, before we finally get a taste of “The somberlain” with “Frozen”, one of the better songs off that record. After that, the record caps off with “Thorns of crimson death” & “The somberlain”, closing out as 40 straight minutes of live, classic black metal, with zero filler to be heard.

Sound-wise, unlike certain live recordings, Nödtveidt’s vocals don’t fall incredibly short of his performance back in the studio; it isn’t quite a perfect match, but that’s to be expected, and he still definitely sounds close enough to please. Besides that, the production here is surprisingly clear and heavy, and also sounds different enough from the albums to be fresh, and worth checking out even if you’ve already listened to the studio versions a million times. I do wish you could hear the crowd more, as it would’ve added to the already-formidable energy level here (as long as they didn’t start drowning out the band), and a little crowd/band interaction in-between songs could’ve been entertaining (key word “could’ve”), but besides that, I have no complaints for “Live legacy”.

Before I end this review, I’d just like to take the opportunity to drag Nödtveidt’s rotting soul out of Hell a moment, and order him to record the proper, third black metal album that he should have taken care of a long time ago. Maybe if you hadn’t been stupid and started murdering people, maybe you could’ve stuck around your old band members and they could’ve kept you from fucking up, but I don’t care if you have to take control of a Miley Cirus fan and record it using her voice, just do it! As for everyone else, go have some fun with “Live legacy” in the meantime.

- Information
- Released: 2003
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Website: www.dissection.se
- Band
- Jon Nödtveidt: vocals, guitar
- Johan Norman: guitars
- Emil Nödtveidt: bass
- Tobias Kellgren: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. At The Fathomless Depths
- 02. Retribution – Storm Of The Light’s Bane
- 03. Unhallowed
- 04. Where Dead Angels Lie
- 05. Frozen
- 06. Thorns Of Crimson Death
- 07. The Somberlain