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Demo(n)s
Malevolent Creation: Demo 1989
22/12/10 || Habakuk
Just look at the multitude of other reviews I’ve produced about this band, and you’ll find I really, really like them, especially their older stuff. This is the first thing they ever put out, so what would be more logical than me enjoying it immensely? Nothing, and that’s basically how it is.
First of all, the production is ridiculously low, but whatever, I just crank the shit out of my speakers to get to hear this raw diamond of a demo with a bit more white noise. The reason is that behind the silence barrier are some of the meanest sounding instruments and violent songs I’ve ever heard. The drums have a tribal, thunderous sound to them, the bass rumbles and snarls, providing a thick low-end that is to die for, the guitars cut a few trees down within the 10 minutes playing time and Brett Hoffmann howls his soul out, although with a thrashier voice than on the studio albums. And all that at about 20 decibels. Man, I love the volume knob. And when the classic Malevolent groove sets in (e.g. “Violent offspring”, 2:33, “Injected sufferage”, 2:53), I go through the fucken roof.
This is death metal without any compromise. It doesn’t show a mere hint of marketability or studio polishing, just pure, unadulterated audio violence. Clearly thrash-influenced, raw, downtuned, fast, and combined with absolutely insane half-time slammers. Consequently, only the first song made it onto their studio debut – they probably kicked the other two out because they found the songwriting wasn’t elaborate enough due to a couple of rough breaks, which I personally don’t mind at all. To me, they add a lot to the overall baseball bat feel of the songs. Anyway, further down the road, the band (leader) obviously caught on to what kind of primal masterpieces they put out here. “Epileptic seizure” made it onto “Envenomed” as a re-recorded bonus track on some versions, and “Violent offspring” was redone by Fasciana and his folks in HatePlow as “Incarcerated” – just not half as good.
When all is said and done, this is a blunt, low-fi, and more brutal version of Malevolent Creation’s first album. If you, like me, adore that shit, then give this demo a chance. It’s easy to find and probably even legal to download. Seriously, this shit is insane. The essence of what I love about death metal. Especially considering that this is the very first stuff ever to surface from this band, I can’t help it but rate this with something that I very, very rarely hand out:
- Information
- Released: 1989
- Label: None
- Website: Malevolent Creation MySpace
- Band
- Brett Hoffmann: vocals
- Phil Fasciana: guitars
- John Rubin: guitars
- Mark van Erp: bass
- Mark Simpson: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Injected sufferage
- 02. Epileptic seizure
- 03. Violent offspring
