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I’m backdating this as a Metal Monday posting but it’s really like Thursday here…

I found a nice bunch of death metal demos here. A couple of serious classic status.  I just finished recording a death metal record for my friend and so I’ve been really brutally oriented lately. Anyway here’s a list of the good shit; alphabetically:

• Crematory “Wrath From The Unknown” cs (1991):
  • Crematory were a lesser band in the Swedish cannon, managing one mlp and a few demo tapes over a couple years, Wrath From the Unknown being the 3rd of 4 demos. They never quite distinguished themselves from some of the bigger bands, but they played the Swedish style of DM quite well and some of them went on to be in lineups of Regurgitate, Afflicted, and Nasum.  I generally feel like this is their best release, outclassing the Denial mlp a bit and being the best of their demos as well.
• Dismember “Reborn in Blasphemy” cs (1990):
  • Ah Dismember, my favorite of the Swedes. Their simple brutality colored with dark melodies is fully-formed for the first time on this tape which basically serves as a teaser for their debut lp “Like An Ever-Flowing Stream”. Their two previous demos, though good, don’t really show the Dismember sound as many of those songs sort of became shared songs with Carnage. So when this demo kicks off with the band’s theme song Dismembered, it must have shocked a few people. It’s a beautiful and sinister melody that plays over the detuned chords. An instant classic.
• Morpheus - “Accelerated Decrepitude” cs 1991:
  • The only non-Swedes on the list here, Morpheus (later becoming Morpheus Descends) were a brutal New York based band, that still haven’t quite got their due (IMO). This is their first demo, which was also issued as a double 7″ on Seraphic Decay under a different title (”Adipocere”). I’ve heard these dudes were serious about their drug consumption, and took to smoking dust in graveyards while listening to Soulside Journey on a boombox. That should give you an idea what to expect from this musically.
• Nihilist - “Only Shreds Remain” cs (1989):
  • As you might know, Nihilist is the band that eventually became Entombed, and about half the songs on Entombed’s debut lp “Left Hand Path” come from Nihilist’s demo recordings. Only Shreds remain contains two songs later to be re-recorded for this album (”Abnormally Deceased” and “Revel In Flesh), as well as the exclusive “True Face Of Evil”. Similar to Reborn In Blasphemy, this is the first Nihilist tape to really have the full formed Nihilist/Entombed sound. Their previous tape almost sounded like a more detuned Kreator, but here is the first appearance of LG Petrov’s signature death growl.