Style: progressive death metal
Thoughts: I remember reading an old interview with Dan about how Crimson came to be. The band was in a bit of a rut and needed something for the new album. Dan had always been a fan of progressive rock and had suggested to the rest of the band to create a single track album ala Yes or Genesis. The band agreed, and Crimson was born.
Little did the band know at that point that they were going to create one of the finest death metal albums ever created. These forty minutes are not only the finest that Edge of Sanity recorded, the album is on my short list of top death metal albums ever... possibly best metal albums ever. Let me explain.
Crimson is song that revolves around several musical and lyrical themes. It tells the story of humanity and their inability to bear children anymore. The king and queen of the world are able to have a child and the princess becomes the focus of the entire civilization. The question that the album poses as its central thesis though is about this princess: is she human or is she a demon?
As the story progresses so does the instrumentation. The riffs vary between hyper blast driven mania to melodic interludes to straight up progressive rock played in a death metal style. The melodies and riffs have a way of coming back and being revisited by the band over and over again with slight variations. These moments are what brings the 40 minute song together, to actually sound like a singular song rather than a bunch of riffs and sections thrown together.
There are several stand out moments on the album but none more so than the second acoustic break down around 30 minutes into the song. One of the major plot points has just taken place and the band is in a state of mourning with Dan's clean vocals expressing this to the utmost. When the metal finally does come back Mike from Opeth comes in with a growl so menacing that it still gives me goosebumps to this very day. I've listened to this album at least a hundred times and it still gets me, incredible.
Crimson is easily the highlight of Edge of Sanity's discography. There is no other album that they have that is any where near as ambitious, nor as potent as this. They created a masterpiece; an album that has no equal. Listen to this album, if it does not strike a chord with you at least on some level, metal is not the genre for you.
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