the metal demos thread

[Cythraul]

So have we ever had a thread to talk about demos? I think the topic is worthy of its own thread. I don't think demos get enough discussion, because they're usually less well-known than professional releases and are harder to come by, but a lot of them are really good and deserve recognition. I find that demos often have a certain charm that professional releases lack. They are usually made in a band's formative stages and so they often contain a lot of raw creativity, atmosphere, and a sense of spontaneity (probably due to not having much time or resources to spend on a given recording). Those qualities are sometimes lost in the higher production values, self-consciousness, and professionalism that come with being a signed act.

Everybody knows about stuff like the Emperor, Cynic and Nihilist demos, but what about demos by bands that have been forgotten or never even were signed at all? There is some interesting stuff out there. Two of my favorites are Darkseid - The Three Mothers (a very idiosyncratic death metal release whose theme is based on some Dario Argento films) and Immortal Visions - Aquaritia (cool atmospheric death/doom from Poland).

So what are your favorite metal demos?

ps - this can also be a thread to discuss good unsigned acts in general.

 

[JontRevolting]

Misery's Omen's S/T album,is their demo material and I can honestly say that it's gotta be my favourite atm anyway,there's gotta be more but I'm listening to this S/T and it's always a fucking unbelievable listen and for this to be demo stuff is fucking staggering.

 

[VelociBrad]

Necrovore - Divus De Mortuus (http://metal-archives.com/release.php?id=20468)

One of the best death metal demos to never amount to anything. A god damn shame.

Sarcasm (Swe) - A Touch of the Burning Red Sunset (http://metal-archives.com/release.php?id=24194)

One of the best Swedish death metal demos. Totally overlooked because of Nihilist, Necrophobic, etc. but damn it's a fucking good one.

Necrophobic - Slow Asphyxiation (http://metal-archives.com/release.php?id=20381)

Quite possibly my favorite Swedish DM demo. The demo version of Slow Asphyxiation is fucking fantastic. Highly highly suggest grabbing their demo compilation CD called Satanic Blasphemies.

Eructation - Demo 1992 (http://metal-archives.com/release.php?id=77587)

Another stellar Swedish DM demo. This one doesn't sound like typical Swedish death metal though. It's more along the lines of Florida DM with a heavy bass presence. Great demo, by a band that's completely forgotten by most.

 

[Slayed Necros]

One I really love is Sadus' D.T.P. demo. Some of the harshest, most vicious metal ever conceived. Classic shit. I'd love to know why they didn't include 'Kill Team' on their debut full-length.

Also Crypt of Kerberos and Darkified's demos and Dismember - Dismembered.

 

[Vilden]

Speaking of Swedish DM demos, how about Nocturnal Rites first demo?

 

[VelociBrad]

Some more great Swedish death demos that need to be brought to light!

Belsebub - Lord of Lucast (http://metal-archives.com/release.php?id=74924)

Killer Swedish death/thrash. The first or one of the first death metal bands to use alternating vocalists on their songs.

Nirvana 2002 - Disembodied Spirits (http://metal-archives.com/release.php?id=24493)

Everybody knows this one now, thanks to the awesome demo compilation released recently.

Seance - Levitised Spirit (http://metal-archives.com/release.php?id=21221)

Might as well have been from Florida. Sounds like Deicide almost.

 

[Personified Hatred]

Forgotten good demos? Hum...

Suicidal Hold - Suicide (very good Melodic Thrash/Groove Metal by a Milanese band that is NOT on Metal Archives and released only this 4 track MCD professionally printed I own a copy of) - 1998

Deathector - Nativity (very good Death/Thrash from Como; it IS on Metal Archives; this band released only this demotape I own and a MCD I don't) - 1997

Giastemma - O Riso Cò A Natta (very good Folk/Black Metal with lyrics in Genoese from Genoa; it's NOT on Metal Archives; this band released only this demotape I own and another one I don't) - 1998

In Fieri - Promo '99 (excellent mix of Doom, Black and Gothic Metal from Italy; this band released only this promo first on tape, after reissued on MCD by Tipharet Records; it IS on Metal Archives)

 

[SkeletonWitch]

Nachtreich's demos. Amazing stuff.

 

[Rumpole]

Atheist's demos are truly off the wall. No Truth in particular has one the coolest guitar sounds you'll ever hear, way heavier than the debut.

Sacrilege's early demos are killer too, the first two are much more punky than the third demo or Behind the Realms of Madness.

Fatal Violence's first demo is ultra cool power/speed/thrash with ridiculously good vocals. Unfortunately the second demo is just pretty generic thrash.

Militia's Regiments of Death is even crazier speed than Fatal Violence. I would highly recommend the Released compilation to anyone who likes real 80s heavy/speed/power/thrash/whatever.

Also Deceased, Repulsion, Pestilence, Kreator, Slaughter, Voivod, Messiah, Overkill, Slaughter Lord, Deathrow, Massacre etc all have killer demos.

There are heaps of contemporary bands with amazing demos out. Some of my favourites are Demons Gate, Pallbearer, Doomed Beast, Christian Mistress, Arkham Witch, Sacriphyx, Nightbitch and Age of Taurus. I'm currently waiting on Satan's Satyrs tape in the mail which sounds pretty cool based on the samples I've heard.

 

[fps]

Alice in Chains' demo album sounded amazing, prefer the guitar tones and performances to some of the album stuff

 

[Rumpole]

Forgot to mention Permanent Brain Damage by Blood Farmers. Truly monumental and twisted doom.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Hardware - Souls Vortex
Absolutely awesome, avant-garde Mexican death metal. You should probably all download it
http://sempiternal-esoterica.blogspot.com/2010/06/hardware-souls-vortex.html

Their first demo is also on that blog somewhere.

 

[Lateralus14]

Best demos off the top of my head:
Mournful Congregation - Weeping
Nokturnal Mortum - Lunar Poetry

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Time to think of more...

In the way of Japanese slam, there's been Abort Mastication (lulzy name), whose demo fucking kicked ass but whose album was noted for a major stylistic shift into the realm of weird grind/whatever. Woundeep, who have yet to really do anything other than 3 demos with like 5 songs total over all of them (various re-recordings over the course of the 3 demos), were really goddamned awesome but I'm assuming they'll never put out anything further. I hope they prove me wrong soon.

Also Japanese, Intestine Baalism's "The Energumenus" demo is fucking excellent, and has a song called 'Sadism of Hallucinogenic Addiction' to boot; has a couple early versions of songs that would appear on their (also awesome) full-length, An Anatomy of the Beast which everyone should probably own or download because it's just great Japanese death metal with really brutal vocals and melancholic melody, combined with probably some of the most evil lyrics ever penned.

Hm, what else. Arckanum's Trulen demo (aside from being done around the time of the completely ludicrous/incredible 'Gava Fran Trulen' video!) is pretty good from what I remember, but I haven't listened to it in a while. The songs (aside from the intros) were put onto the first two albums in a slightly more refined form.

The Lord Diabolus (aka Beherit) demo is pretty fun, especially because of the song 'Six Days with Sadistic Slayer'. This demo was released at the time of DDTM but it's quite a bit "rawer", somewhat likened to the sound on The Oath of Black Blood a few years earlier.

Disgorge's (US one, from Cali) "Cognitive Lust of Mutilation" demo predates a lot of brutal death metal, especially stuff on the West Coast, and sounds completely ahead of its time in terms of overbearing brutality, and it even has pretty damn good sound quality to boot.

Carnage's demos, which were featured on the re-release of Dark Recollections sound like fucking hell. I haven't heard them in a long-ass time, but from what I recall, they kind of sound like Beherit; dark, raw, fucked-up vocals. Not sure if this is entirely accurate since I used to have a downloaded copy of the re-release, then bought the original press and (foolishly) deleted the copy I had, including the demos.

If I think of more I'll post 'em. I'm sure there are plenty.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

Fullmoon - United Aryan Evil

Rob Darken's influence on the album is so prevalent. The main riff on The Pagan Mountain is one of best in black metal.

 

[Addo_Of_Nex]

Great stuff being mentioned so far. I agree that there's something about the demo format that has an inherently unique feel that's almost always a good thing when the material is worthy.

Rippikoulu- Musta Seramonia
-Takes everything uniquely Finnish about that amazing regional movement, embodies it, slows things down (even moreso than their contemporaries), and crushes the fuck out of you. Perhaps my favorite thing about this is how alien it sounds with unconventional epic structures and sinister synths from Hell (the title track= GODDAMN). I love this fucking demo.

Timeghoul- Tumultuous Travelings/Panoramic Twilight
-These extraterrestrials probably shared jam space with Demilich in Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The former demo is more conventional (I use the term loosely) in its approach with thrash elements making their way into the forward thinking death metal archetype. Riffs are very jagged, all over the place, etc. The latter demo consists of two colossal tracks that really don't sound like anything else I've ever heard. Choral chants, captain's logs, and ambient interludes are used effectively to put you on a space ship with this shit blaring overhead. The lyrics are interesting in theme and the relatively advanced imagery of passages in "Boiling in the Hourglass" only adds to the experience.

Speaking of Timeghoul lyrics, does anyone know about the background of the band members during Tumultuous Travelings and their respective political/religious affiliations? I thought I remembered reading something about a member going on to make Christian death metal, and "Infinity Coda" seems sort of ideologically ambiguous yet suspect to me.

 

[Mountains_of_Mars]

I fully agree with Master_Yoda420 and Addo_of_Nex

One of my other favorite demos is Aeternus - Walk My Path

 

[WCannibal]

Nokturnal Mortum - Lunar Poetry

This, and also At the Gates' Gardens of Grief demo.

 

[skeptik]

One of my other favorite demos is Aeternus - Walk My Path

lolz i actually own this/how2kvlt

I'm pleasantly alarmed at the amount of demos mentioned that don't actually necessitate downloading. I've been lucky enough to obtain a few old original demo tapes here and there, which I find interesting. If I stumble upon them for sane amounts of money, I can't pass them up. The Aeternus tape is definitely one of the cooler ones I've been lucky enough to find. Hopefully with more and more interest in exploring the early works of some well-known bands and the curiosity of discovering some of their contemporaries who weren't as fortunate, more and more of these demo compilations from bands like Nihilist, Dismember, Nirvana 2002, Interment, and Crematory will continue to see the light of day. With that said, I also really enjoy following the newer bands who are putting out demo tapes today. Admittedly a part of that is sort of living the olden days vicariously through newer bands, but I also think that many of the young bands today are putting out quality material. I'll probably saying something more later, but these are some of my favorites, both new and old, as determined by glancing at my tape collection (which excludes all the demos I have on CD reissues because that shit is too hard to sift through since I have way more CDs than cassettes):

older:

Aeternus - Walk My Path
Chemical Warfare - Demolition Tape
Gods Tower - The Eerie
Morgion - Rabid Decay
Necrophobic - Unholy Prophecies
Perdition Hearse - Mala Fide
Swordmaster - Studio Rehearsal

newer:

Alioth - Channeling Unclean Spirits
Anatomia - Human Lust
Anetdiluvian - Under Wing of Asael
Ascension - With Burning Tongues
Bastard Priest - Merciless Insane Death
Church Bizarre - Church Bizarre
Communion - Demo I
Corrupt - Born of Greed
Cruciamentum - Convocation of Crawling Chaos
Degial - Awakening from Darkness
Disma - The Vault of Membros
Doombringer - Primeval Sorcery (I need to listen to the new tape more)
Graveless - Condemned to a Nameless Death
Infinitum Obscure - Seeding Darkness
Innsmouth - The Departure of Shub-Niggurath
Miasmal - Miasmal
Panphage - Ætt Loka
Procession - Burn
Stench of Decay - Where Death and Decay Reign
Tales of Medusa - An Achaean Invocation
Tales of Medusa - Storms Over Hellespont
Tribulation - The Ascending Dead
War Master - Chapel of the Apocalypse

EDIT: But seriously, the Hellhammer demos are some of the most important recordings in the history of the genre.

 

[waif]

I too love Tales Of Medusa. It's good that Nuclear Blast has released all their stuff on that compilation CD. It's so easy to get a hold of now. Everyone I know is listening to it.