Originally written by Ian Chainey
With the rise of Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and, if a band must, ReverbNation, one would think the demo would go the way of the dodo. I mean, why even bother sullying your hard work with a self-deprecating categorization? At least, that’s what a demo meant to me. It’s was a honest try ripened with the knowledge you and your mates weren’t quite ready for the big time. Even the greatest demo debuts were met with an understanding that better things were on the way. Unless you purchase corpse paint in bulk at Costco, it’s not something you hang a legacy on. A demo was always a, “Hey, check out what we can do!” and not, “WHERE THE SHIT IS THE CROWN?! I GOT A HAIRCUT.” Bands puffing out their chests and hollering the latter were in for a rude awakening. Plus, they usually committed the faux-pas of begging for denaro. Pay money for a demo? When I could hang around a show parking lot and, you know, just wait? So, that’s why ‘camps and ‘clouds should’ve killed the things off: An EP/LP, even in name only, scores more clout points. And, more importantly, you don’t feel guilty charging cash for it.
Of course, being the stodgy ol’ tune-o-saurs we are, we missed the asteroid memo hurled our way by the net gods. Surf around, there’s still a ton of trial runs getting stuck in the web. Maybe we’re hopelessly bound by nostalgia, reveling in our own history like bitter baseball fans. Or, we think the baptism-by-crappy-studios-step is intrinsically tied to the heavy metal narrative that plays out like a particularly grim game of Life. Whatever the case, groups still love to send along a dismal sounding three track audio card announcing their birth. It’s a grind! Check out those blastbeats. The kids are going to be stars when they grow up!
I guess it’s clear the demo will never die.
Good.
Really? Good? You, the dude who pushes for cutting edge advancements in marketing and distribution thinks working within the laughably ancient BAND NEED LABEL FIRE BAD model is “good”?
Sure do.
Look, read the first paragraph again. What’s different in that blurb that’s not something you’re used to seeing in a critical assessment of music? Give up? There’s an underlying sense of optimism present. A great demo does the same thing as a great draft pick or a great free agent signing; it gives the devoted followers hope. We instinctively know all of the potential energy will evaporate as soon as the player hits the court in our colors because reality is an eighteen-wheeler packed with tacks jack-knifing in front of you. But, before the stress and mess, we get a moment that’s pure speculation and, more often than not, we only consider the positive. We have different words and phrases for it — upside, best projection, holy shit this band could be the next _______. However, all of it returns to the same simple reaction: Hope.
We love to feel hopeful. It gives us a reason to keep on keeping on. We’ll look for it anywhere. Even a demo.
Now, down to business. Who better than us, the masters of the metal list, to provide you grab bags of “Ooo!”s? In this feature, I’ll run down five demos I’ve found during my travels and give you a scouting report of what you can expect. As a treat, I’ve brought along a label-connected, anonymous industry insider who will give you his unvarnished take on every outfit’s chance at hacking it in the game. I’ll thank Jeremy Witt here for, uh, no particular reason. Ready? Let’s roll!
MOLD – CREMATED ALIVE
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Style: OSDM/Caverncore
RIYL: Incantation, Ritual Necromancy
Strengths: What Mold lacks in talent, they make up for in perceived volume. Even at lower decibels, Cremated Alive sounds like it’s causing you irreparable hearing damage. The bad-ground guitars and scuzzy bass timbre is absolutely perfect for this kind of lurching death metal. Add in S.D’s blown-out snarl and you have a low-fi wall of noise that starts to present footholds the closer you step to it. It’s a neat sleight of sound, masking their mistakes underneath waves of distortion. Still, though the riffs are rote, the familiarity and pleasing simplicity ramps up its replay-ability. After all, the tone is just right. Listen to it like it’s ambient death metal and enjoy the sonic oppression of Stockholm syndrome.
Weaknesses: The chops aren’t there which makes sections sound aimless. While you could interpret the fumbles as “dangerous” — like Mold is just TOO BAD ASS to learn how to play like you, man — it does raise the possibility the virtues of Cremated Alive were created by happy accidents. Finally, even though it’s hard to ask death metal to be subtle, a dynamic contrast could go a long way. Sub-twenty minute tapes are one thing. Hearing this clatter across a forty minute LP might be tedious.
Insider: The nu-Incantation train has long left the station, but there’s bound to be a few late-comers running after it. Here’s another one, and not the worst I’ve heard, but there’s nothing here that (if you’ll pardon the pun) breaks the mold, nothing that steps outside that cavernous murky OSDM formula that’s been beaten into the ground by now. You know the drill: a few solid riffs, low and chesty vocals, a mix that’s more mud than music… Fun for a second, but nothing special, and a few years too late to catch a train that’s mostly derailed by now anyway.
DISINTERRED – DEMO MMXIII
Location: Genk, Belgium
Style: ’90s DM with hints of Impetigo-style riffing
RIYL: Entombed, Impetigo
Strengths: Disinterred doesn’t fuck around, gleefully gurgling within a classic framework better than a lot of vets. Fans of stripped down, no nonsense death metal would do well to stick them on a Google alert. At their best, the band stands at a crossroads between the catchy primitivism of Horror of the Zombies-era Impetigo and the professionalism of reswedection artists like Ribspreader and Bloodbath. It’s well-worn, but the ham-fistedness plaguing the O.G.s isn’t present. These dudes practiced the be-Dio out of these songs before pressing record. It’s an attention to craft that will pay dividends in the future.
Weaknesses: One has to ask how much impact the perfect production has on the final product. If Disinterred was forced to punch this into a crappy four-track set up in an attic, the results may not be so rosy. Also, while the clinical execution is appreciated, the lack of surprises leads to diminishing returns, almost if the horde worked so hard to be flawless, they forgot to write a killer riff to hang their hat on.
Insider: Demo BunchaRomannumerals opens and closes with a Monty Python sound byte, so that’s an automatic bonus. In the middle, with one brief foray into eerie doomy horror-death, there’s just a bunch of simplistic, straightforward Swede-tinted d-beat-laden death-punk. All in all, it’s nothing extraordinary in the slightest, but there’s a guy named Dwight in the band, so it’s hard not to picture Dwight Schrute ripping through these three tunes, which may well be the best part. There’s little variation between the tracks, and the death-ish vocals are monotonous and get old fast. Plus, even though there’s no score, a further quarter-point is deducted because I’m pretty sure the title of the first song is misspelled. (“Beckons,” “Reckons,” it’s all the same…)
DESPONDENT SOUL – CONSPIRACY OF TORTURE
Location: Sipoo, Finland
Style: Barbaric blackened death metal
RIYL: Teitanblood, Impetuous Ritual
Strengths: Despondent Soul certainly isn’t hurting for material, offering nearly fifty-two minutes of shifting death metal riffing, genuinely unnerving whammy-bar abuse, and absolutely unhinged growls. The one man outfit does well to wipe off the foam of rabid gnashing with speedy riffs reminding listeners of Morbid Angel. In fact, a fine touchstone might be a fantasy pairing of Nile streamlining the unrelenting batshittery of Portal. When everything comes together, it hits a spot with more force than anything on this list.
Weaknesses: Conspiracy of Torture‘s big issue is it’s the definition of a grower. That’s not a weakness per-say, but there’s an awful lot standing in the way for fickle metalheads to stick around. The ambient segues provide respites, but aren’t compositionally strong or particularly evocative. The obvious drum machine too often snips the strings suspending the belief this is a full ensemble. And, S.J.’s gutturals sound hollow in spots, like the bellowing equivalent of a donut. Multiple plays smooth out these downsides. Nonetheless, it might be a tough sell for more mainstream-aligning listeners. One thinks they won’t have the patience to hit repeat.
Note: Conspiracy of Torture is also listed as an LP. No word if there’s a significant difference between the versions.
Insider: Let’s see here: The bio says these Finns started recording this in 2011, only completing the vocals in 2013, so I guess this one is both new and old. Then the write-up further offers the tantalizing tidbit that future Despondent Soul material is “more in the vein of Immolation,” which cannot be a bad thing, even if it invites (nay, demands) direct comparison to a legend and cries of sheer copycat-ism. (Perhaps telling, my biggest concern when I read that is: How long will it take them to complete the new stuff if it took them two years to finish this?)
What’s here is solid death metal, with some somewhat technical guitar work, lots of tempo shifts, and a bit of that Immolation vibe they’re clearly chasing, though Conspiracy of Torture lacks Immo’s never-ending magic bag of twisted riffs. (They do follow that band’s lead on the anti-Christian sentiment, the vocals being the least interesting part of the equation, and the annoying tendency towards some less-than-good production. These drums sound like they’re being played two hundred yards behind the band, and the whole thing is muffled.) Still, no riffs fail, some work brilliantly, and the band strings together enough shifts and twists to keep things moving along. Quality blasting and trem-picked attacks are offset by the likes of the slowed down mid-section of the title track.
If this is just a demo, then it’s a damn involved one – Conspiracy of Torture is an hour long, with five of its eight songs stretching past the seven-minute mark. Clean up the production, and this Torture could find a home on one of the death-centric indies. I’ll be interested to check out the Immo-cloning future work in three or four years.
TEMPLE OF VOID – DEMO MMXIII
Location: Detroit, USA
Style: Sludgy death/doom with jammy solos
RIYL: The idea of recent Ramesses
Strengths: The challenge when crossing well-traveled seas is navigating around the many wrecked vessels that sank taking the same route. We’ve listened to a lot of br00ful stoom over the years. Some of it good. A lot of it bad. The bad tends to stick with you a lot longer. It’s an uphill battle for Temple of Void, then, since the opening riff harkens the kind of smack-shooting method acting bands have auditioned for in the (r)wake of Eyehategod. Four minutes into “Beyond the Ultimate,” the Void opens wide and we hear what the Temple is truly capable of bringing. The ensemble moves beyond the slow rolling LOG of their first half and nests in the keen melodic sense of Deadbird. Drill down and we see a complicated riff root system, utilizing black and blue bends to add some “realness” to what could be, in other hands, unforgivably hacky.
Weaknesses: Like Mold and Disinterred, the production fits likes a glove, so it’s unclear if the superlative knob twiddling is responsible for the ear initially finding the tunes so engaging. As is the case with songs averaging over five minutes in length, there’s some deadspots where the gents could work in more dynamic textures instead of leaning so heavily on droning prayers to their Marshalls. The dissonant riffs are a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t quite have the bite of Mike Scheidt’s ear-splitting, six-string spit balls.
Insider: “Temple of Void controls worlds. And then crushes them.”
Them’s big words to live up to, but Temple of Void actually kinda comes close. I mean, my world didn’t get literally crushed – thankfully, because I just had some work done on my house – but this three-song demo does bring forth some stout death/doom, and in the absence of actual world-squishing, that will certainly suffice. The production here is professional grade. The drums sound good, not distant or boxy, and the guitar tones are especially strong – the rhythms are punchy, and the leads are warm and thick. The vocalist has the usual array – death growl, hardcore scream – but he varies up the attack and keeps things interesting, if nothing outside the expected.
More important than any of that is this: Temple of Void has crafted a very solid set of tunes. These three exhibit the necessary variety and cohesion, the ebb and flow that ultimately makes a good listening experience. Offsetting the more melodic riffs and the almost sludgy ones in “Exanimate Gaze” with the trudging and clanging intro of the eleven-minute “Bargain In Death” keeps the listener engaged, and it helps make the impact hit that much more powerful when “Bargain” drops into that Bolt Thrower steamroller and things come back home, back to plain and simple world-crushing. (The simple fact that “Bargain” doesn’t overstay its welcome in eleven minutes is praise enough. Hell, even its outro-ductory guitar solo-fest doesn’t bore.)
Demo MMXIII is absolutely worth its $3 price tag. Temple of Void is one to watch.
CRYPT SERMON – DEMO MMXIII
Location: Philadelphia, USA
Style: Traditional epic doom
RIYL: Candlemass, Pallbearer
Strengths: First, shout out to forum member and all-around solid dude zé for dropping this off in our Now Playing thread. Scene talk: It’s encouraging to see a reinvigorated interest in the epic doom arts, especially after having to withstand the twinkling, scoliosis-sufferers that perpetrated post-metal’s worst snoozers. Crypt Sermon brings us back to the days when EDM was just a pup, twisting dueling Sabbathian strings into a sturdy trad knot. Typically, doom lives and dies by the amp, but the decision to pawn heft for a tart tone works pretty well, providing enough separation between the instruments to present a fork in the road where one could follow the lead or rhythm guitar down their respective rabbit holes. Some of this can be a bit faceless, not unlike when Magic Circle tries really hard to white-out their hardcore roots. Nevertheless, on the whole it’s a great start, achieving the goal of all demos.
Weaknesses: The vocalist needs to find his own voice since this sounds more like metal karaoke instead of the impassioned reads of a Magister Templi. It echoes one of the flaws of the songwriting: These dudes seem to be really hung up on making sure this checks off all of the trad boxes. Being a reactionary to modern innovations is fine; all bands need a source of friction. Be that as it may, it becomes far too easy to sit back as a reenactor. Sure, there’s comfort in playing chess after memorizing a few great opens. But, it sure sucks out the spontaneity. Here’s hoping Crypt Sermon stops cribbing lines from the greats and blazes their own trail in the future.
Insider: Damn, did I miss the memo about Western society’s complete reversion to Roman numerals?
Regardless, this is listed as some epic doom metal – not always my favorite style, but I can dig it when it’s well done. Problem is, this stuff seems just a hair too … well, it’s not happy, really, but yet, it’s not morose enough for me. Solitude Aeturnus’ brand of epic depression makes me want to hang myself from the light fixture, and this just makes me feel a bit Eeyorish and moody. Their fellow Pennsylvanians in Argus do a better job of mixing epic doom and epic trad metal, and overall, I feel like Crypt Sermon isn’t quite there yet. Perhaps they should turn up the epic in either side of that formula, either get sadder or get more trad-metal in there and go that route. Also, there are times that the vocalist reminds me quite a lot of Dee Snider, so take that however you will…
Not bad, but either not slow enough, not dour enough, or not epic enough.
And that’s a wrap! Got a demo you want to hock? Send me a raven: @flahfbl. See you again, maybe?
