This Ending

by Mark Deming Combining the unrelenting assault of death metal with a melodic edge and technical precision that only sharpen their impact, Sweden's This Ending released their first album in 2007, but the band's membership had been working together for over 15 years by that point. Percussionist Fredrik Andersson, singer Marten Hansen, and guitarist Linus Nirbrant joined forces to assemble an uncompromising metal band in 1991, and with the later addition of Jesper Lofgren on bass and Leo Pignon on guitar, the group adopted the name A Canorous Quintet. In 1994, A Canorous Quintet released their first record, an EP called As Tears, and later they dropped two full-length albums, 1996's Silence of the World Beyond and 1998's The Only Pure Hate. Although they won a devoted following in Sweden and Germany, their commercial success was not quite as impressive, and after their second album A Canorous Quintet's members began to pursue other projects -- Hansen worked with Sins of Omission and October Tide, Pignon played guitar for Niden div. 187, and Nirbrant, Lofgren, and Andersson joined Guidance of Sin (with Andersson leaving after a year to sign on as Amon Amarth's drummer). In 2004, Andersson began working up songs for a new project called Curriculum Mortis, and after recording a five-song demo, began forming a band to play the new material. By early 2005, Andersson had persuaded Hansen, Lofgren, Nirbrant, and Pignon to rejoin him for the new project, known as the Plague. After recording a demo that was released on the Internet as Let the World Burn, the Plague were signed to Metal Blade Records. After learning another group was already using the handle the Plague, the group adopted the name This Ending, and recorded its debut album, Inside the Machine, at Stockholm's Offbeat Studio in September 2006.