Dave’s Demo Roundup Vol. III

MOBILE PREVIEW

By Dave Schalek.

Here we go with the third edition of Dave’s Demo Roundup! This time around, we take a look at a variety of different bands in various subgenres.


Rome’s Deceptionist, play technical death metal on The Beginning, a four-song promotional CD given a digital release on Bandcamp. Consisting of very tight riffing and a range of tempos, Deceptionist firmly toe the line between technical and semi-progressive death metal with this well done assault. Most of the songs concentrate on the technical riffing backed up by gruff vocals, but a few moments of melody creep in with some well placed guitar soloing and a nice jazzy bass line or two. Although Deceptionist are not particularly original, they certainly know their way around their genre of choice.




Here’s an EP from Finland’s Ghastly, released by Demonhood Productions. Playing old school death metal with a doom laden vibe, Ghastly display a great deal of potential. Although this two-song affair is a low quality recording with hollow drums, Ghastly play with tight musicianship and showcase some songwriting chops. Backed up by a powerful production, I've no doubt that Ghastly could sound like a freight train, but that ideal has not been reached on this recording. Regardless, this taster will leave you hungry for more.




Florida’s Tetragrammaton play very powerful, doom laden black metal with a huge, dense production on this demo from 2013. A plodding, crushing pace and a gigantic sound to the guitars anchor the band’s approach with vocals somewhere in between a scream and a rasp. Two songs appear on this demo with the second track showing considerable variation with haunting, clean vocals, and a blastbeat or two making appearances. A subsequent EP on Dying Gods Records has since been released by Tetragrammaton.