Monday, August 1, 2011

Review: Eructation - Demo '92

During the late 80's early 90's, there was an explosive emergence of Death Metal bands in Sweden. Among the 700-800 bands that spawned, was Eructation. The musicians behind the band, like many others, went on with their life after recording and independently releasing one demo in 1992. They were long forgotten until certain tape-trading blokes from the glory days decided that the internet is a good place to give those guys the exposure they deserved but never got. The response Eructation received from the still-underground community of Old School Death Metal worshipers was surprising to the band members themselves (as they expressed on a fellow Eructation fan's blog).


Now, on to the music. Eructation play a thrashy and catchy form of Death Metal, and unlike Nihilist, Carnage and most Swedish Death Metal, their sound is distinctly different from the usual chainsaw guitars and howled vocals. Their sound has more resemblance to Dutch Death Metal like Burial, yet more inclined to Death Metal than Thrash. The demo consists of 3 songs, totaling to 15 minutes of play time, which is short for such an amazing demo. The highlight of the demo are the addictive, memorable and insanely catchy riffs, rivaling even the most complex and intricate Thrash Metal guitarists at times. The bass guitar is clearly audible and goes hand-in-hand with the main guitar riffs, yet draws a line between complexity and comprehensibility. The music is as simple as any Thrash or Death Metal is, yet it is as intricate as a Progressive Metal musician would make it. Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely no stupid guitar wankery. No sweeps, no unnecessary shred solos. In fact, there are no solos. It is just that the guitar lines aren't restricted to a few notes per riff. The drumming is nothing new or inventive, but something a metal musician would usually play, yet has neatly arranged beats with properly fitting snare and catchy double bass patterns. That adds to the addictive nature of the music. Vocals are low growls that remind slightly of David Vincent during his Altars of Madness days (only less evil), and suit the band's rather fast and restless sound.



The production job is amazing for a demo dating back to 1992. It sounds old school, but compared to demos of bands like Carcharoht, Pestigore or Cemetery Earth or hundred other bands whose demos aren't even audible unless you turn the volume to max and risk cracking and tearing of sound, it is loud and audible enough to be enjoyable even to people who don't particularly dig demos. Though, listening to this demo means you're risking a brain implosion due to overload of riffs. Once you're done, you won't know what hit you, but you know it hit you hard! In the end, a review is basically an opinion presented in a manner that it looks less opinionated, but if you doubt me, listen to this for yourself:

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