Brutality - Sadistic (1992)

The year before Florida's Brutality released their classic debut, Screams of Anguish, they released this 7". Not surprisingly, it's much in the same style of technical death metal, but the melodic leads aren't as well done. The production could also use some work -- it's a little distorted and not as tight as it could be. The second track here, "Spawned Illusion" is the better track -- but it ended up being re-recorded on SoA, while the title track did not (it was included in the 2008 re-release though). Still, this is a good slab of classic Florida death metal, but as with Metamorphosis, it's mostly a curiosity now.

Their MySpace page has the title track from this 7".

Purulence / Amaymon - split (1993)

Amaymon is pretty generic death metal. Competent but uninteresting. The production is pretty bad, but it doesn't seem that there's much going on in the music, so we're not missing much.

Purulence is moderately technical, and their music is much more varied and interesting. There are plenty of tempo and style changes, but the songs strike a good balance between variety and cohesive songwriting. However, the excessive pinch harmonics kind of annoy me. Also notable is the closing number, "Sinking Into Transparency", which is similar to Gorguts' "Condemned to Obscurity" in that it foreshadows Gorguts' groundbreaking Obscura five years later. I'm kind of surprised that Purulence never went anywhere after this split CD. Of course, Steeve Hurdle went on to play in Gorguts, but it seems Purulence could've really gone somewhere.

Two of Purulence's songs from this split ("Sinking Into Transparency" and "Inhaling the Souls") are available on their MySpace page.

Eternal Torment - Demo (1992)

Boring as shit generic death metal from Buffalo, NY. No redeeming qualities whatsoever, except perhaps that it's only 14 minutes long.

Three of the four songs from this demo are available on their MySpace page. See for yourself if you don't believe me.

Rosebourg - Deathly Silence (2002)

I figured this Bulgarian band would be bad when I saw the following description on their webpage: "The boys are creative and how wonderful - full of fantasy!". And I was right. This is cheesy "progressive"/power metal, mid-tempo with melodic vocals and weak guitars. It reminds me of a slower version of the mid-90's Italian bands (Labyrinth, e.g.). The focus is more on hooks and vocals than on instrumental prowess. As such, the playing is very restrained. It's solid but even the guitar solos are conservative. And neither the vocals nor the songs are really strong enough, so this just comes off as watered-down. I'll call it "power metal without the power".

This demo is freely available from the band's website.

Mordab - Darker Than Grave (2008)

This demo starts out promising, with some nice acoustic guitars that get layered with some distorted guitars and drums. Then it sort of degrades into generic melodic death metal -- competently played and reasonably good, but it doesn't really make an impression, aside from two exceptions. The first is the terrible "Psychotic Depression". This is a pop song, with acoustic guitars and melodic vocals. It's even worse than a hair metal "power ballad". Bad, bad, bad. The second is the closer, "Ascenssion" (sic) which is a melodic doom number, akin to Swallow the Sun, and my favorite track here. They do a good job of creating and maintaining an atmosphere. I do have to give them some credit though -- they're from Iran. I hope they can continue to release music, as there is some potential here.

This release and their previous demo are available from their website.

Innersight - Blue Shadow (1998) and I Have Seen the Future (1999)

Innersight is a strange band from Hungary whose sound has changed dramatically over the years. These are their first two demos, which are described as "post-rock". I'm not really sure what that's supposed to be, but to me they sound like Joe Satriani's "Midnight" (from SwtA) and "Day at the Beach" (from FiaBD): solo clean guitar (though clearly not acoustic) with heavy reverb and lots of delays. The guitarist uses a variety of strumming and picking techniques to provide a little variety, but it's not enough. There are no other instruments here: no drums, no bass, no keys, no singing. Now, I actually like the two Satriani songs, but they're only 2 minutes each. These two demos clock in at 71 minutes between the two of them. That's an awful long time for the same shtick. About the only bright spot after the first few minutes was the cover of "My Friend of Misery". It took me a while to figure out what song it was, since I haven't listened to the Black album in probably 18 years. Anyway, Innersight's next couple of releases are supposed to be progressive death metal. I'll review them in the near future.

This release and all of their releases are freely available from their website.

Hell-Born - Cursed Infernal Steel (2006)

This is the follow up to Hell-Born's 2003 offering Legacy of the Nephilim. I was expecting it would have improved on that pile of garbage. I was wrong. This is possibly the worst death metal album I've ever heard. Utterly and completely boring, horribly over-distorted production, generic dead-simple riffs repeated over and over, generic vocals, juvenile lyrics, and no hint of originality. This is the kind of music that gives death metal a bad name.