Maelstrom - This Battle to Make History, Yet History Never Comes (1991)

I've been a big fan of Jon Modell's work (including Spooge and Carbomb), and have found his work consistently innovative. So when I learned a few years ago that he and Joe Lodes (also later in Spooge) were involved in this demo, I was really eager to hear it. While I'm a little disappointed, I think it lives up to any reasonable expectations I should have had.

The best comparison I can give for this demo is Watchtower's Energetic Disassembly, though Maelstrom are less technical overall. But that's not to say that this is bland -- in fact, far from it. The music is basically chaotic tech thrash with a diverse set of tempos and melodic styles. The vocals are a weak point to me, as they don't really mesh that well with the music -- again similar to ED. But overall I'm glad I tracked this down. Time has reduced its impact to some degree, but it's still an interesting listen.

The band have recently reformed, and put out a 3 song EP which is available from their MySpace page. The new songs are similar in style (in fact, they've re-recorded "A Futile Crusade" from this demo) and well worth checking out.