We’re just a few weeks away from Swedish death metal legends Dismember headlining the opening night of Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest: Philly with an exclusive performance of their 1991 landmark album, Like an Ever Flowing Stream (plus other choice cuts), so what better way to celebrate than with a full track-by-track breakdown of the record courtesy of all five fiends who wrote and recorded it? A truncated version of this breakdown appears in our April 2025 Dismember cover story but you can experience it in its, uh, extended glory below and then, of course, in the flesh on April 4 at the Fillmore in Philadelphia, PA.
Decibel: “Override of the Overture” is a classic track. The eerie intro, main riff, the heaviness, and David’s fantastic solo were transformative in 1991.
Estby: I think the most triumphant and fun part was getting the guitar sound. When I heard the second Nihilist demo [Only Shreds Remain] the first time when they put the HM-2 to the test at Sunlight Studio, I thought, “OK, this is the heaviest guitar sound I ever heard.” I thought the sound we got on Carnage and Entombed’s albums was great, but the epitome of the HM-2 “sound” and not to toot my own horn is Like an Ever Flowing Stream. That beat everything before. And sometimes, I have to say, after too. I can remember it now. David was playing and I was sitting in front of the speakers. He was only playing to the drums I had recorded. No bass yet—just guitar and drums. When he overdubbed the guitar, I said to him, “This is perfect!” Matti’s vocal performance was also a step up. It was so brutal and attacking.
Blomqvist: The intro riff has become Dismember’s “Smoke on the Water.” [Laughs] Two of my riffs are in “Override,” which is cool ’cause I didn’t write much of Like an Ever Flowing Stream. Good song, but if we had recorded it today, it’d be two minutes shorter.
Kärki: I’m very self-critical [of my vocals]. If I’m not happy with it, I’ll do it again and again. Listening back on Like an Ever Flowing Stream, I forgot about all the details I wasn’t happy with back then. Now, they’re fine. [Laughs] The entire studio sessions were rushed.
Cabeza: We were going to a show somewhere in Sweden. On the five-six hour train ride, Fred was fucking around with his guitar and came up with that riff. This must’ve been late 1990/early 1991. It was a very complex song for us at the time. There’s a ton of different parts—slow, fast, and melodic. It stands the test of time. I really like playing it live. It’s so intense and aggressive. I fucking bang my head to death.
Sennebäck: We wrote this track very late in the writing process—right up to when we were scheduled to go into the studio. It’s an important track. If there’s one riff the audience wants to hear, it’s “Override.” It’s a very intense song.
Decibel: “Soon to Be Dead” is relentless. The bleed-in, no-break from “Override of the Overture” and the spoken word part are classic Slayer.
Estby: The best metal album in how it’s laid out is Reign in Blood. There’s almost no pause between songs. It’s fucking awesome! Just when you think you’re gonna recover from the last bashing, you’re getting another punch to the face. And that’s kind of what I wanted. I also like how it’s short. You don’t expect the follow-up to “Override of the Overture” to hit like that. That bleed-in was intentional.
Blomqvist: During the filming the video for this song, I had this huge cross and it got stuck in my hair while we were headbanging. I panicked, and I think one of the girls doing the special effects makeup told me to relax while she used a needle to get it out. I thought I was going to end up with Bruce Dickinson bangs. [Laughs]
Kärki: This song is quite hard to sing. The end of the song has a lot of lyrics, and then I go up [in pitch]. I’m screaming my head off. It’s so hard to do live. There’s such a small space [in the song] to build up the power to make the ‘Hell awaits me’ sound like total anguish and pain.
Cabeza: I love the lyrics. It’s probably the most intense and aggressive song we have written—it’s so fast. When we play it live, it’s almost a little bit too fast because my fingers are fucking getting gnawed up in bundle because it’s so fast, intense, and aggressive. It gave me goosebumps every night I played back then, and it still does today. Pretty sure we chose this for the video because it’s short and brutal.
Sennebäck: Our “hit” song. Short, fast, and even faster live. Guess that’s why it became the video track.
Decibel: “Bleed for Me” is the sleeper hit. There’s another nod to Slayer with the spoken word part.
Estby: Matti did the main riff and vocal idea for this song. I put this song where it is on the album—the third song—to bring the tempo down a little bit; to get a more groove. This song had to have the songs before to set it up. I like it when albums are set up properly. It’s about a serial killer. I like to think of it’s our “Dead Skin Mask.” We laugh about the spoken word part, which is me. It sounds so nasal. Back then, when I did pilot vocals, my pitch sounded like Tom Araya. I could’ve easily have done a Slayer cover band when I was younger. So, it felt natural to do the spoken word part, I think. I’ve always loved when Slayer went off the beaten path.
Blomqvist: I love “Bleed for Me” ‘till the first break comes. Then it’s so, so many, too many riffs happening. Matti’s riffs in the verse, chorus, and bridge are great, though!
Cabeza: Maybe not the most fun song to play live, but it’s got the classic Stockholm groove. I’d say there’s quite bit of Master or Deathstrike in this song. I like listening to it more than playing it. I think we’ve played this song at every show since we wrote.
Sennebäck: I guess this is our slow song. It’s almost D-beat. It’s a pause from the intensity of the other tracks. It’s fun to play live. Maybe Decibel will get to hear the “special version” of this song. Train your ears!
Decibel: “And So Is Life” begins with Nicke’s solo, but just punishes after. I’ve always felt like this song is setting up “Dismembered.” The keyboard part followed by the tremolo/gallop combo and the mid-tempo groove in the middle hit hard.
Estby: When you’re very inspired and you’re in the zone, so to speak, you get new ideas, like the keyboard part. Where do they come from? No idea. I remember David saying, “I fucking hate keyboards! We shouldn’t have keyboards in this band.” It’s a short passage. Sure, we can’t do the keyboards live—or at least we shouldn’t [Laughs]—but does it sound good and does it fit the production? Yeah, the keyboards do. The song itself was inspired by Twisted Sister’s “Burn in Hell.” The whole verse and everything is actually kind of inspired by that. The galloping start of it was inspired by R.A.V.A.G.E. (or Atheist).
Blomqvist: I enjoy it more now than I did on the album when we recorded it. The lyrics are great. I’m into melancholic lyrics. I’m not a gore guy. That’s why I only wrote the lyrics for one song, “Life – Another Shape of Sorrow,” off Massive Killing Capacity.
Cabeza: It’s got a great groove. There’s a D-beat to this song that I really like. Not every song has to be fucking Slayer on meth. [Laughs] By the time Indecent and Obscene was out that song was gone from our set list. We’ve started playing it again now that we’ve been together.
Sennebäck: There are melodies in this song that are different. It’s my first contribution to Dismember after I left Unleashed. The opening riff is mine. It’s tricky to play though, even if the audience doesn’t hear it. That’s the reason why we didn’t play this song live too much in the past.
Decibel: The intro to “Dismembered” and the utter chaos after it is brilliant. Back then, the gossip was “Dismembered” was your answer to Entombed’s “Left Hand Path” but instead of an outro Dismember had an intro.
Estby: It’s fun to think of it like that, but no, it’s not a response. The intro was actually written a friend of Matti’s, who, like Matti, was a Finland-Swede. We didn’t hang out much with him. He was very Nordic in personality—very much a loner. But he wrote that part on his keyboard at home. He said to Matti, “You guys do melodic stuff sometimes. Maybe this part will work.” We first heard the part in our rehearsal space during Reborn in Blasphemy phase. It was so catchy we thought, “Maybe we play this part on the guitar.” He never really got credited for it. Back then, we didn’t know you had to register who wrote what part. You have to put yourself in the system as a songwriter. We owe him credit for sure. His name is Marko.
Blomqvist: This one is still one of my favorite Dismember tunes. The verse riff and the chorus—pure death metal. Also, it’s one of the rare times we had a blast beat. The other time was “Defective Decay,” which is from ’88.
Cabeza: It’s got a great intro, almost Iron Maiden-ish. I catch my breath during the intro until it’s time to fucking go nuts again. I’m fucking aggressive on stage. I’m fucking pissed off on stage. The break makes me want to get into a fight. You wanna go, let’s go, man! I’ll go maniac on your ass. I’m here to kill! [Laughs]
Sennebäck: That song was written when I was still in Unleashed. Unleashed had a totally different sound. I remember when heard the demo [Reborn in Blasphemy]. It was so professional and massive [sounding]. I had never heard guitars like that before—astounding!
Decibel: “Skin Her Alive” is indecent and obscene. Apart from the trial in Norfolk, England, where the Great Yarmouth magistrates declared Dismember weren’t depraved maniacs. This was also a picture disc single, with “Defective Decay” as the B-side.
Estby: [Laughs] I wanted a Slayer-esque punch to the face. Another short track to break up the middle of the album. Matti had the lyrics about a person who actual skinned his girlfriend or wife alive in an apartment below Matti’s. Matti came home from school and saw the police. It haunted him.
Blomqvist: A fan favorite. I wrote the first riff, which is based on the Psycho theme. The first riff on the guitar solo is the only thing Richard wrote for Like an Ever Flowing Stream. We call it the ‘5.50’ riff, ‘cause he’d only get 5.50 Swedish crowns in royalties. [Laughs] When we play this song sometimes we’ll say to each other on stage, ‘We’re playing the 5.50 riff,’ and smile. We always have a good time when we’re on stage.
Cabeza: What a classic! All of our songs from that era are just chaos, which, of course, like. Also, it’s the first song that I participated writing on, so it has a special place in my heart. Funny, when we play this song live, we get people in the audience screaming for it three-four songs later. I’m like, “Are you even listening to what we’re playing?” [Laughs] I guess that’s because it’s short, just two minutes. Or less when we really get going. If it’s 2:15 on the album, it’s 1:45 when we play it live. These songs are so aggressive. They light something in us when we play them live. Somewhere, in the back of our heads we were thinking of Reign in Blood when writing this album.
Sennebäck: It’s fun and exhausting to play when it’s in the wrong place in the setlist. [Laughs] There was a lot of controversy about this song back in the day. David, Richard, and I were playing around in London while they were suffering in the court room.
Decibel: “Sickening Art” doesn’t get a lot of attention, but it’s a heavy hitter. That opening riff with the bend, the main part is death metal personified.
Estby: I agree. This was the first song Matti, David, and I wrote after Carnage broke up. It was fun because we all contributed. It was groovy. We felt it was the start of something new.
Blomqvist: Quite fun to play. The opening of the song is quite catchy. I never really know what Matti’s singing on this song, though. I mis-hear the lyrics all the time. [Laughs]
Sennebäck: This track was made before I joined. It’s a bit slower. I’m a big fan of the songs from the third demo [Reborn in Blasphemy].
Decibel: “In Death’s Sleep” might be Dismember’s most accomplished track. The doom metal opening, spoken word part, which is now iconic, Nicke’s stand-out solo, and the whole Iron Maiden shuffle set Dismember apart. Plus, the outro complement is classy. The little nod to Death in the middle is nice, too.
Estby: This was at the end of the songwriting sessions. The whole band are big Iron Maiden fans, but David is the true diehard. Had we written this part six months earlier, we would’ve scrapped it because it’s too heavy metal sounding. That kind of thing was frowned upon in Swedish death metal at the time. Actually, a year or two before, and there was no way, we would’ve allowed this part to happen. The was a little pressure from peers not to sound too commercial or nice. Everything had to be real death metal. Though, I still think there was a balancing act going on and possibly over-thinking on our part with the intro. We weren’t quite sure what we were about to accomplish.
Blomqvist: My favorite track on the album. I love the doomy intro riffs that Fred wrote. The last riff is also very dark, like a Leif Edling riff from the first Candlemass album.
Cabeza: So Shakespeare of us. [Laughs] It’s a little bit different from anything else on that album. There’s heaviness and heavy metal in it. When I play this track live, I go bananas—100% out of body experience for me.
Sennebäck: I came up with the song title. Fred and I were at the movies watching Flatliners. The character, who is played by Kiefer Sutherland says, ‘Today is a good day to die.’ So, the song title inspired by Flatliners. I think Fred wrote the lyrics, which we lost somehow, so Matti had to re-write the lyrics. The song itself has really strange riffs in it. The verse is strange in composition. It’s not typical Dismember. There’s some psychedelic notes in it, too.
Decibel: “Deathevocation” and “Defective Decay” were the bonus tracks on the CD. Technically, they’re not part of the album, but for CD owners it’s hard to separate them. Also, is there a story behind the spelling differences in “Deathevocation”?
Estby: No, I think the change in spelling is a correction. It wasn’t a big deal to us, but this song and “Defective Decay” were recorded at the same time as the rest of Like an Ever Flowing Stream. Back then, record companies had to incentive people to buy the CD over the vinyl. Also, I think there was talk of bonus tracks for the Japan release because by that point, the Japanese were not buying vinyl at all. I remember we put a harmonizer on the vocals for “Defective Decay.” I don’t remember why, though. For us, these two songs had been over-recorded, and we really didn’t want to re-record them again, but Markus Staiger, who owned Nuclear Blast at the time, was a huge fan of “Defective Decay.” He put that song on everything.
Blomqvist: It was fun recording “Deathevokation” with Matti on vocals. This was one of the first tracks we had written. Our American bass player Erik [Gustafson; aka Tex] wrote some of the lyrics. He had this Texan accent, pronouncing Napalm Death like “Knee-palm” Death. We’d always laugh at that. I play solos on “Defective Decay.” They’re low budget. [Laughs] If you listen to the song on the first demo, Robert’s vocals sound like Darkthrone. That was in ’88.
Sennebäck: I’d say this song is more pre-Dismember even if it’s on the first demo. I had lot of reverb and delay on my vocals on the demo. It’s kind of complicated to play but it doesn’t sound like it. Not my favorite song to play, actually. If you listen closely to “Deathevocation,” it’s played differently on Like an Ever Flowing Stream. The demo of “Deathevokation” and the Carnage version are different from each other, too. So, There are three versions.
An extremely limited number (under 100) of two-day “Metal & Beer” tickets—a deluxe ticket that includes unlimited samples of all of the breweries all weekend—still remain for Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest: Philly. But they won’t be around much longer, so grab yours now! Full daily band and brewery lineups—and all ticket options—are below.
