Edge of Sanity was a Swedish death metal band fronted by musical genius Dan Swanö, who is renowned among the metal underground for all the numerous musical projects he has fronted and also for his work as a producer. The band is commonly regarded alongside Opeth as being the first to combine extreme metal styles like Death and Black Metal with genuine Progressive Rock, which eventually culminated in the release of the album Crimson, a single forty-minute conceptual song dealing with a post-apocalyptic future in which mankind has lost the ability to breed.
The band split up in 1999 and was briefly revived by Dan Swanö in 2003 as a solo project, releasing Crimson II, a direct sequel to Crimson, but after that the project was dissolved and has remained quiet ever since.
Main discography:
- 1991 - Nothing But Death Remains
- 1992 - Unorthodox
- 1993 - The Spectral Sorrows
- 1994 - Purgatory Afterglow
- 1996 - Crimson
- 1997 - Infernal
- 1997 - Cryptic
- 2003 - Crimson II
Edge of Sanity provide examples of:
- The Band Minus the Face: Cryptic, which does not feature Swanö.
- Book Ends: Crimson and Crimson II both reprise the opening riffs at the very ends of their respective runs.
- Concept Album: Crimson and Crimson II, obviously.
- Epic Rocking: Crimson and its sequel are forty and forty-three minutes long, respectively. Each album consists of a single song (although Crimson II is divided into many separate tracks to annoy people who wanted to pirate the record).
- Genre Shift: Started off as a pretty straightforward Swedish Death Metal band in the vein of Entombed, Dismember, Grave or Unleashed, but later gradually added increasing Progressive Rock influences into the mix, culminating in Crimson.
- I Am the Band: Dan Swanö on Crimson II. Apart from a couple of guest spots, he performed every single instrument and all the vocals. Justified as the band had broken up by that point.
- Lyrical Cold Open: Crimson actually opens with Dan Swanö's Metal Scream.
- Subdued Section: There are many of these in Crimson and Crimson II, mainly to serve the narrative.
