Nihilist

A pioneering death metal band from Stockholm, Sweden, founded in 1987 by Nicke Andersson (drums), Leif Cuzner (bass), Alex Hellid (guitar) and Ulf Cederlund (guitar), who were soon joined by L-G Petrov (vocals).

Nihilist's debut demo "Premature Autopsy" (1988) is often considered to be the first real Swedish death metal demo release. The demo also has Mattias Böström listed as a vocalist, but it's uncertain if he ever was in the band for real. After the recording Cederlund left the band to concentrate on his other bands Morbid and Infuriation. Hence for the second demo "Only Shreds Remain" (1989) Cuzner had switched to guitar and Johnny Hedlund had joined the band as a bass player. After this Cuzner moved to Canada and Cederlund came back. Their third demo "Drowned" was recorded in August 1989, but at this point disagreements within the band (namely between Johnny Hedlund and the rest of the group) lead to Andersson splitting the band apart. Almost immediately after the split Andersson and Cederlund however reformed the group as Entombed, but without Hedlund, who then went to form his own band Unleashed.

Guitarist Leif Cuzner is often credited as the founder of the famous Stockholm death metal guitar tone, which uses the Boss HM-2 distortion pedal on "all knobs at max" setting. This particular guitar tone, or "Stockholm sound", also became a trademark of producer Tomas Skogsberg and his famous undefined.