Early Finnish Death Metal

[challenge_everything]

I don't really want to hear Privilege of Evil or The Karelian Isthmus songs rerecorded. The Elegy songs could be interesting though - Pasi Koskinen did his best to ruin that album with his shitty singing.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

I don't give a shit regardless.

 

[Onder]

Bumpity fuckbump.

After rediscovering pre-Isthmus Amorphis I realized I should explore/reexplore more early findeath demos, as I realized I preferred the Amorphis demo to anything else they've done. I gathered some more early (say 89-92) findeath demos and I started going through them. To freshen your memory and start the discussion I'm posting the selection.

Some of those are classics on their own, i.e. Demilich, but there's some more obscure choices.

Give me your thoughts on those you know, tell me which is your favorite, tell me of important ones that are missing, talk about the individual bands and whether the demos are better/worse than the later output.

 

[Onder]

Ok, cool! But that confirms that you probably like 5% of what they have released, if even that, the first 1,5 releases from the first 3 years from a massive back catalogue in a 27 year long career. Nothing wrong with that, but do you honestly expect them to release something like the demos ever again? If not, why even complain 25 years after the "suckage" began. Kind of pointless imo.
But lets not derail this thread more than we allready have. Cheers.

I don't want to derail that thread either so I'm moving this discussion here - this is a thread from 2010, there's a talk about Amorphis rerecordings of the early material on a (then) new release. Have you heard that / do you think I should check that out?

 

[Onder]

Checking out some forgotten bands with demos from that early era of 1989-1993 findeath.



This band is called Pleuritic. Both their demos come from 1992. It's quite thought-out death metal, there's even acoustic guitar intros and samples. The vocals are weird, but quite typical for finnish death metal of that era. The riffs on the first one can become a little repetitive. The second demo has more obscured production, the sound is completely different, actually, vocals are more growly.

Overall it's not something one would crave to return to, just a curiosity listen.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I love Nomicon's first demo. It's kinda the opposite of most Finndeath though, really trebly tech-y shit.

 

[EspaDa]

I have to check out this stuff. Are these demos listenable in terms of quality? I've never been a demo guy except for several exceptional releases.

 

[Dazed and Brutal]

dingy as fuck



crusty death'n'roll



Newer fin death faithful to the old gods

 

[Dazed and Brutal]

I have to check out this stuff. Are these demos listenable in terms of quality? I've never been a demo guy except for several exceptional releases.

A lot of them have kind of that 'squashed' demo quality, but they have better fidelity than some fully fledged releases from that time

 

[Sleestaks]

Man, Finndeath is its own kickass universe. Most of the above are at least somewhat familiar to me but it's always fun to go back and have a themed listening session.

One that I really like is Coprophilia's '91 demo. Definitely has the blend of churning death metal and folky melodies that would be all over, say, Tales from the Thousand Lakes a few years later. Uses some blasting too.


My knowledge of the bands themselves from this era is pretty thin so I have no clue what happened to this particular one. In the comments for another track from the demo, someone posted r.i.p. to two of the musicians, I think, so that could be the deal there.

 

[morguelord]

For some reason, I've never heard ANYONE discuss this '92 full length, and I personally think it's killer Finndeath.



Excrement is one I don't see mentioned in a lot of Finnish discussions, but worth hearing. Definitely not as raw as a lot of the early demos (i think this is in AP anyway) but still killer.











And I know this is all about early Finndeath, but I just had to share this new album I found last night. Ghastly from Finland really keep the old sound alive, I can definitely hear a lot of Depravity or Convulse in this track.

 

[Onder]

^ Cool digs. I listened to some Excrement, Pestigore, and Festerday in recent days. I have to say I've never even heard of Daster and Ghastly, so that's high on my to-do list.

My playlist of early finndeath demos has more than 50 items already, I intend to go through all of those and rate them and make listening notes, but it's taking more time than I expected.

Now playing:



EDIT: This band has evolved quite a lot, what do you guysthink of their later material?

 

[Onder]

I did a lot of listening lately and rated old finnish demos, I also made some listening notes. I still haven't rated all of them, but since I don't know when I will have the time to continue, I might just as well leave this here.

Abhorrence - Vulgar Necrolatry (1990) 4.5/5
- A classic.

Adramelech - Grip of Darkness (1992) 5/5
- This is made by creators of one of my favorite death metal albums, Psychostasia, I might be a little biased with the rating... But actually, I think I'm not.

Agonized - Gods... (1991)
- This sounds quite goregrindy, maybe because of the vocals. The guitars seem to be pretty obscured in that hairy ball of sound, you can hear the riffs and it sounds heavy. Pretty enjoyable. How is this the band's only release?? I could easily imagine them turning all goregrind and doing something like Lymphatic Phlegm.

Amorphis - Disment of Soul (1991) 5/5
- I consider this the best Amorphis release. It's heavy, the production is crushing, it's undeniably FINNISH DEATH. Perfect continuation of Abhorrence's demo.

Belial - The Gods of the Pit (1991) 3.5/5
- I'm not a big fan of anything Belial has done. I find some of their later material pretty boring. This is solid, darker death metal, but even this is nothing special for me.

Caricature - Emptiness (1991)
Caricature - Between Fells (1992)

Carnifex - Decadence (1991) 3/5
- Solid.

Cartilage - Encapsulated (1991) 4/5
Cartilage - In Godly Flesh (1991) 4.5/5
- Cartilage is highly regarded for their split with Altar, which is considered to be an obscure gem of underground death metal. In Godly Flesh is more developed than Encapsulated, definitely.

Convulse - Resuscitation of Evilness (1990) 5/5
- All songs later used in the debut.

Coprophilia - Demo '91 (1991)
- I like intrumental intros. Sound is a bit thin compared to other demos from the year.

Crematory - Confirmed Suffering (1989)

Demigod - Rehearsal Demo 1 (1990) 4/5
- Basically kick-ass thrash/death with pretty raw sound. It's the first demo and it's pretty rough.
Demigod - Unholy Domain (1991)

Demilich - The Four Instructive Tales ...of Decomposition (1991)
Demilich - The Echo (1992) 4.5/5
- It is Demilich, so it is awesome. The sound is not as clear as on their full-length though.

Depravity - Demo I (1991)
Depravity - Galvanizer (1991)
Depravity - Phantasmagoria (1993)

Disgrace - Inside the Labyrinth of Depression (1990) 4/5
- Apparently they later turned into a punk band. This here is full-on death metal though. Favorite song: Waves of Hypocrisy Seas. It has the most fucked up riffs and is the most dynamic.

Excrement - Flesh & Blood (1993)

Festerday - Demo I (1991)
Festerday - Demo II (1991) 3.5/5

Funcunt - Coldeäccol (1991)

Funebre - Cranial Torment (1990) 4/5
- The riffs in the eponymous song are quite simple, but it's just well executed.
Funebre - Demo '90 (1990) 4.5/5
- This is ridiculously good. Has these perverted riffs. Sometimes a squeeky solo comes.

Lubricant - Subscription of Hydatidocele (1989) 4/5
- Crazy music, mostly death metal / grindcore, but it's just fun. I like their EP. Still there's something magical about all the amateurism and lack of borders in this demo.
Lubricant - Surgical Centesis (1991) 4.5/5
- Ridiculous. So catchy.
Lubricant - Swallow the Symmetric Swab (1992) 5/5
- This finally has the sound quality it deserves. While the first two demos are fun, this is where it all comes together.

Messiah Paratroops - Lost Soul Domain (1991)
Messiah Paratroops - The Other Gods... (1992)

Monstrosity - Theatre of Operations (1991)
- It's not very convenient that this band shares the name with creators of Imperial Doom. However this demo is nothing short of good death metal. One of the instances where you see it was released in 1991 and wonder how that's possible.

Mordicus - Abominations of the Earth (1991) 4/5
- This is a shitty rip but from what you can hear it's atmospheric riffs with keyboards, mostly slow-paced death metal, but quite dynamic.
Mordicus - Grown Under Shade of Sorrow (1991) 4/5
- Sound is much clearer on this one. It's undeniably Finnish.
Mordicus - Wrathorn (1992)

Morpheus - The Unbearable Wretchedness of Existence (

Necropsy - Metal Disturbance (1989) 4.5/5
Necropsy - Curse (1990) 4/5
Necropsy - Indigestion (1990) 5/5
- And this is where it all comes together. Amazing production, pillaging riffs, good compositions. This has a little over 30 minutes and could easily be an album. It doesn't drag a minute though, it's thrashing all the way. There are some cool guitar solos too, the drums play an important part here too.
Necropsy - Promo (1991) 4.5/5
Necropsy - Another World (1991) 5/5
- Beautiful riffs at quick pace = typical for this band.
Necropsy - Go All The Way of Flesh (1992) 4.5/5
- Very good.

Nephritis - Excrement (1990) 1/5
- Unfortunately I can barely hear anything. Hard to enjoy.
Nephritis - Obeisance to Death (1990) 3.5/5
- You need to get used to a shittier production on this one. Sounds very heavy though. I would probably enjoy this more cleared up or remastered.

Paraxism - Demo I (1992)

Pestigore - Within The Dark Mist (1991)
Pestigore - Twisted Perversions... Unbearable Delight (1992)

Pleuritic - Chaos Delirium (1992) 3/5
Pleuritic - Temple of Satan (1992) 3/5
- It's quite thought-out death metal, there's even acoustic guitar intros and samples. The vocals are weird, but quite typical for finnish death metal of that era. The riffs on the first one can become a little repetitive. The second demo has more obscured production, the sound is completely different, actually, vocals are more growly. Overall it's not something one would crave to return to, just a curiosity listen.

Purtenance - Crown Waits The Immortal (1991) 4.5/5
Purtenance Avulsion - Demo 1 '91 (1991) 4.5/5
- Pre-Purtenance. Filthy.

Putrid - Exhumation (1991)
- This is ok.

Rippikoulu - Mutaation Aiheuttama Sisäinen Mätäneminen (1991) 4/5
- Rippikoulu might be the heaviest of the bunch. They changes tempos from the slowest doomy riffs to rapid blastbeats. The first demo is lacking cleaner sound though.
Rippikoulu - Musta Seremonia (1993) 4.5/5

Sentenced - When Death Join Us (1990) 4/5
Sentenced - Rotting Ways To Misery (1991) 4/5
Sentenced - Journey to Pohjola (1992) 4/5
- Journey is more complex and epic than the first two I think.

Vomiturition - Expecto Resurrectionem Morduorum (1991) 3/5
- The sound is a little obscured on this one, the full-lenth seems to be a way to go here.

Note 1: Sometimes I talk about the sound quality which can't be fair as these are usually tape rips, but for example the Necropsy demos were all studio remasters.

Note 2: This is obviously not all demos that fit the criteria, but I think it's a pretty nice sample.

Note 3: Should do EPs now.

 

[CF87]

Never really cared much for demo's, some good general stuffs.

Nerlich -Defabricated Process.
Necropsy -Psychopath Next Door.
Torture Killer -For Maggots to Devour.
Necronomicon -Pharaoh of Gods.
Burial Invocation -Rituals of the Grotesque.
Slugathor -Unleashing the Slugathron
Adramelech -Pure Blood Doom,Terror of Thousand Faces.
Ascended -Temple of Dark Offerings.
Mortem -Filicide.
Brutus -Slachtbeest.

 

[Dak]

Man, a bumpitybump from the golden years.

 

[morguelord]

Mortem -Filicide.
Brutus -Slachtbeest.

Neither of these are Finnish, Mortem is from Russia, and Brutus is from Holland.

EDIT: also, Necronomicon is Canadian and Burial Invocation is Turkish.