Centinex

by Ed Rivadavia   Although less expressive than Scandinavian scene giants like At the Gates or In Flames (maybe they too should have adopted a preposition), Centinex are among the oldest death metal bands to issue from Sweden, having formed as early as 1990 but not really attaining significant career momentum until many years later. Starting with 1991's The End of Life demo, Centinex's semi-original line-up of vocalist Mattias Lamppu, guitarists Andreas Evaldsson and Kenneth Wiklund, bassist Martin Schulman and drummer Joakim Gustavsson recorded a number of independent sessions which were strangely only released in cassette form. These included ‘92's Subconscious Lobotomy L.P., ‘93's Under The Blackened Sky E.P., ‘94's Transcend the Dark Chaos E.P. and, after a few years of inactivity, ‘96's Malleus Maleficarum, which capped this turbulent coming of age by compiling rare and unreleased tracks. Centinex entered a new phase of their career with 1997's Reflections and its immediate successor Reborn through Flames of a year later, both of which, despite requiring the use of a drum machine (oddly credited on both albums as Kalimaa), saw a far more confident and mature band finally coming to grips with their position in the local scene -- that being a typically aggressive, but still melodic Scandinavian death metal sound in the At the Gates vein. A major personnel re-shuffling began taking place over the course of 1999's Bloodhunt E.P. and 2000's Hellbrigade album, so that by the time they released 2002's Diabolical Desolation vocalist Jonas Jansson, guitarists Jonas Kjellgren and Jonas Ahlberg and drummer Kennet Englund had joined the ever-present Martin Schulman in the Centinex quintet.