Turn Loose the Swano: The Diligent Architect of the Swedish Death Metal Movement

The quaint, welcoming town of Orebro, Sweden is known for its castle ruins, warmth, and lovely atmosphere, with few noting its hidden role as the birthplace of European progressive death metal. Producer and songwriter Dan Swano is one of these few witnesses.

Swano, now living in Germany, spends his time working tirelessly, mixing entire albums for both up-and-coming and veteran metal groups alike at his Unisound Mastering suite. Over the years, he has worked with a seemingly endless number of bands from across the continent, overseeing the rise of Sweden’s widely celebrated death metal scene and Norway’s controversial black metal scene. As a result, he has learned multiple tricks of his trade, especially regarding the ingredients that make a strong album.

“Some of the things I have learned, that is very important to make a good album, both musically and sound-wise, is to not over-produce it and keep adding big chunks of overdubs and stuff, just because you can,” says Swano. “I still believe that the best sounding albums have a ‘live line-up’ playing.”

Yet, Swano is more than a mere witness to the scene which has engulfed his musical career, which began in the late 1980’s, when he formed his band Edge of Sanity during his teen years. Edge of Sanity was as influential as it was underground, inspiring modern metal titans like Opeth and Insomnium, while occasionally escaping from the local boundaries of legend and seeping into the popular Headbanger’s Ball specials on MTV, slowly garnering a global audience through their unusual blend of brutal, abrasive death metal and melodic, folky progressive rock inclinations.

Edge of Sanity was the first of Sweden’s death metal community to incorporate “clean” singing and harmonious, eloquent songwriting into death metal, pushing sonic boundaries in a musical community that had just barely begun to manifest itself as a newfound genre of hard rock and heavy metal.

This ushered in a new, progressive strain of death metal built on the foundations of inventive songwriting and atmospheres inspired by classic 70’s bands like Rush, Yes and Genesis. This pursuit of creative production and songwriting has always been a large part of Swano’s personal philosophy.

“For my own music it’s quite simple actually — Goosebumps as often as possible.

If that euphoric feeling isn’t there when I listen back to my stuff, even in the simplest demo form… it’s not ready, or never gonna work,”says Swano. “For the sound stuff — it’s when the client is 101% happy. Knowing they are completely happy with my work is the best payment I can get.”

Edge of Sanity’s approach to music was often emotionally charged, vibrant, ferocious, and often epic in nature, allowing the band to stand apart from their contemporaries. Swano’s involvement with the band began to deteriorate after the band began to fall apart following the release of their masterpiece record; a single 40-minute track called “Crimson.” In the aftermath of the band’s dissolution, Swano was musically frustrated and stuck, until an old friend from Stockholm arrived at his new studio in Orebro.

“I was completely lost and it wasn’t until I invited Mikael Åkerfeldt to Örebro to hang out and maybe record some stuff in what I believe to be late ’97 or something…” said Swano. “while putting towels on the Yamaha Recording kit from the band Moondog (that I shared the space with) the idea to ‘make a death metal album in 1972’ grew on me and I started experimenting…”

The result of those sessions was “Moontower,” Swano’s only solo album, which sounded exactly that, a death metal album if it were made in 1972. His solo album was his final release of new music for several years, until an old batch of unreleased songs were revived for his current musical project, the melodic metal band Witherscape.

Other than his involvement in Witherscape and his other band Nightingale, which he co-founded with his brother, Dag Swano, Dan has stepped away from touring and performing live, instead opting to focus on his work as a mixing and mastering engineer for bands around the world, which has given him a unique perspective on how different cultures bring forth their own unique ideas to the table.

“There’s always this “folk music” thing somewhere far back in the musical DNA of composers. During the Death Metal thing you could clearly hear if a band was Finnish or Swedish or American, even British,” says Swano. “These days, I think you can spot some “landification” of the music, but since a lot of bands are simply stealing and cloning other bands, it’s harder.”

Having been present during and prior to the advent of the internet and the modern digital age, Swano has seen newer technology and software reshape and change the way he approaches his production work, especially contrasted with modern songwriting and stylistic trends in the music industry’s current state.

“I was an early fan of digital consoles and digital recording/DAW mixing etc. and these days there are so many incredible tools that helps me to get where I want with great transparency.

Stuff that just didn’t exist back in the day,” Swano recalls. “The various magical dynamic equalizers that evens out the sonic inconsistencies to make it easy to work with more extreme sounds and also help with the restoration of old stuff. Almost like a Photoshop for audio.”

As he looks toward the future of musical innovation and creative, fresh releases from rising rock and metal projects, Swano, while skeptical of progressive music’s limits, eagerly awaits the new and inviting, looking forward to working with the next generation of international metal musicians.

Swano remarks, “Now it’s all about writing the best possible song using those ideas that have all been out there.”