Triumph Through Spears of Sacrilege

It's regrettable that this demo is the only recording Damaar ever released in a short life-span because the opening track alone is something to behold: it's a recording of the beheading of an alleged Egyptian spy, Mohammad Mutawalli, by al Qa'ida in Iraq in 2004, overlaid by a squalling noise drone, a background drone of warplanes flying overhead and chanting in Arabic, all to be ended by a sudden explosion. Thus we are dropped into the crazed surreal world of Damaar war metal, all frantic runaway-train blast-beat drumming, guitars shredding faster than birds can fly into jet engines and highly distorted screeching vocals in the style of Canada's Revenge.

The noisy intro over, "Preaching for Mass Suicide" plunges your head full-on into a semi-trailer collision course of metal savagery. While the music rockets along at near supersonic speed and voices scream far beyond, the guitars tend to take a back seat but once things calm down a little in parts, the full brutal force of the strings (especially of the bass) smashes its way into your consciousness. Once the trio get whatever demons bother them in the general chaos of the song, they lapse into a chorus of "Do you wish to die?" before they fall off the edge of whatever order still exists in their part of the universe and charge off into realms of blitzkrieg guitar frenzy.

Subsequent songs follow similar chaotic and crazed patterns of hypersonic speed, occasional moments of relaxation (relatively speaking - even medium-slow for Damaar is equivalent to hyperactive for everyone else) and highly distorted vocals banging on about war and destruction. Yes it all does sound very messy but that is the intent behind these songs: war does bring chaos and insanity at all levels, the psychological and spiritual as well as the physical. The songs are actually very tight and fluid, and the stop-start choppy nature of their rhythms, the flip-flopping between fast and slow, and the cohesion within the chaos speak well for the musicians' technical ability. Between tracks are soft, nearly inaudible field recordings and deranged organ melodies.

The music is highly derivative of war metal bands like Revenge and Conqueror and if Damaar had continued, they'd have been well advised to amp up the distortion and noisier aspects of their music especially in the vocals and some of the guitar riffs which can be really crunchy or crumbly in songs like "Desecration" (itself a Blasphemy cover). The guys go out in a shit-hot fiery and demented blaze with "Ode to Blasphemy (Onward to the Gates of Mekka)" which I guess shows Damaar's anti-Islamic stance.

Little touches like a clear production, unusual effects like the background keyboards and the field recordings lift this demo above being just another war metal release and suggest there might be more to Damaar than just all-out blackened death metal roar and thunder.