A végzet utolér

Angel Reaper's second demo is a much longer, more matured, and more complete effort than their first, which is tacked on to the end of this one. Once again they open the release with a happy, upbeat melody - perhaps rooted in Hungarian folk music - but an odd choice for the vicious thrash that they pursue, starting with a bestial groan and dark, brooding riffing at the beginning of the next track. After the intro though, perhaps a national homage, though a mystery to me, they follow through on their intents, ripping through vicious thrash with more developed snarls and growls that sound like an Eastern European imitation of Venom and Sodom.

One of the more notable features of this demo is, while still playing relentless thrash, the incredibly rough production enhances the dual-guitar efforts, adding a haunting quality to unisons and harmonized fourths, as well as enabling the band to back some leads with some percussive hits from the rest of the band. At times, proud folk-like melodies ring out, as with a brief solo in "Fekete őrség" - in a way, sounding like high and mighty, triumphant national music, but in another sounding goofy and happy in an otherwise dark and minor blackened thrash attack. One moment, it feels like an even more grating tribute to early Bathory, an uncomfortably over-trebled sound akin to Morbid Saint, the next it's deliberately breaking that atmosphere for a nearly incomprehensible reason. "Kannibálok támadása" begins with screams and shouts like it is about to break into primal, bestial black metal, then it goes into a melodic section that's neither haunting nor particularly fitting.

The ideas found in Angel Reaper's music seem to have split into two separate things in more recent music - the first being metal based in Eastern European folk music, the latter being raw black/thrash metal - worshiping the more extreme side of the 80s. While these subsets of metal are not incompatible, it seems as if a combination must rely on a stronger control on atmosphere to channel the feeling the band intends, to capture the atmosphere and convey their intents. Instead, their vicious intents are apparent, but disrupted by these happy-sounding melodies that have a sweet guitar sound that simply doesn't fit the extremely abrasive sound of the rest of the production, from the sharp guitars to the snarling singer. They sound almost circus-like, something that would be in a "fun" wiffle thrash song from a jokester band like Scatterbrain or one of the countless recent pizzacore skater rethrash bands. Even if they're a somewhat minor feature in the songs, it completely changes the atmosphere and feeling of the evil Eastern Bloc onslaught here.

There is a lot of unrealized potential here, both captured and disrupted by the rawness. It is simply the unleashed fury of aggressive 80s thrash on one side, and the other side of the same coin is unrefined ideas that disrupt each other in not focusing the entire effort into a singular presentation of atmosphere and theme. That is simply a harsh reality of 80s demo tapes, where one hears what could have been with a little more control. However, the harsh reality of vicious thrash metal is also one of the upsides. This is a demo and band that intrigues me, but can't enthrall me as they always seem a step away from doing.