I have 2 Unleashed Albums.
The first I got at the time of its release back in the dark days of early death metal. "Across the Open Sea". Then I got into other bands who were that bit more extreme and technically gifted, and no more Unleashed albums entered my collection.
Now I've got this "Midvinterblot", and it takes me back to the early days.
Unleashed don't really seem to have progressed a great deal since those early 90's days of "One Insane" and "The General". This is, however, not such a bad thing, as Unleashed do the whole "groove" thing really well. They have some great memorable riffs, and the vocals are gruff yet clear enough to understand.
To call this pure "death metal" is a bit of a false description. Its very hard extreme metal with death metal roots, but not exactly death metal. Kind of like Vader, but no way as heavy or as fast. Don't expect blast beats, every two seconds, or deep, gutteral growling, as you will be highly dissapointed.
Stand out tracks for me include "Psycho Killer" and "New Dawn rising."
The one thing Unleashed have going in their favour is the ability to play that fuzzy swedish guitar sound, coupled with the very chucky riffing they seem to effortlessly conceive.
In conclusion a pretty decent slab of extreme metal, but not really any thing new.
If you don't believe me, get "Across the Open Sea", and play it back to back with this new album. Production values aside, is it really any different. Be honest now.....