Demons
Death Awakens
3.9
The first album from Demons leaves me w/ a few comments. Number 1, this is actually good sound for a “demo” if you want to call it that. It’s a rather raw sound but it’s quite balanced and clear except for a few times when the kick goes double and sounds like it’s coming from the basement or the college house next door. Secondly, this reeks of old school Cannibal Corpse w/ the basic driving riffs of old school Metallica. The songs are solid and pretty basic. Vocals are good’n’throaty similar to “Failures for Gods”-era Immolation rasps. And thirdly, and I know it’s just one song on the album, but you guys MUST know that you flat out stole the riff from Suffocation on song #5 “Final Path”. That riff is directly from Suffocation’s “Leige of Inveracity” from Effigy of the Forgotten and I am guessing Demons knows this because it’s not even modified or halfway disguised to make it seem somewhat original. It’s a sweet pit riff, but when someone plain-as-day copies it to their own music it’s not going to get as much of an energetic response as the original creators of the riff. Plus that riff makes up about half of their song so I recommend dropping the “riff theft” going on and coming up w/ something that trained ears have not heard for future material. The opener, “Guitarmageddon”, also has a very familiar guitar line going on but I can’t seem to put my finger on it quite yet. Lyrics to the songs are anything but captivating. “Then Fall Caesar” is a bit off the beaten path of the norm of lyrics weakly trying to inspire fear, and probably is the most interesting song on the album as a whole. Basically the songs lack overall power in their delivery not because of production but basically in lack of creative songwriting skills. This is an older groove-type sound which is actually cool because you don’t hear it too much nowadays, but it’s hardly a monument of creativity or musical skill. It’s decent for beer-drinking background music for there are a few metal-grimace inducers here and there, but I think a time comes when you have to master your influences and then build your own sound on top of that, otherwise you’re just going to come across as copycats. I hear potential for Demons but I think it won’t really surface until a lot more brainpower is applied.
