Demo I

The band that would become death/doom spewers Sorrow started as a pretty straight ahead thrash act, tackling things with mostly Testament/Slayer maneuvers, a general recipe being consumed quite easily at the time by many underground ears – nothing too epic, nothing too short and hardcorey, and thankfully nothing too turgid, but the saturation was starting to ooze into the soon-to-be glut. It’s actually a formula countless bands failed to put to good use, and while Apparition themselves don’t run away with the gold, they can at least hold your interest for awhile.

With this New York five-piece’s debut stab of hate, we get “Final Warning”, “Vicious Kill”, and “Misled Soul”. Yeah, short is also the playlist, but it’s good when a band knows when not to beat us to death to get a point across. Rhythmically, “Final Warning” and “Misled Soul” tend to be up n’ down scale exercises whittled here and there into varying shapes for some extra zing, but are really nothing uncommon or spectacular, much like the flat, one note percussion. Vocalist Rob Hernan dresses down with grimier clothes of little-frills attitude that are only semi-vicious and about as convincing, but then air-blasts high notes with a scarce Scott Ruth/Ripping Corpse fervor (most incensed and ultimately overused in “Vicious Kill”, one of those menacingly, mostly mid-paced middle tracks you’d find fourth or seventh on a ten song lp and is something a band like Blessed Death felt obliged to do on both their mediocre '80s albums). It’s also home to the sole tempo/speed change.

The production, despite being a tad thud-heavy in the bass drum department, is thick and chunky overall.

Again, by giving us only three tracks to eat, they probably saved us from tasting the really mediocre stuff they had in their sonic fridge. Expect some changes for next year’s more threatening Human Fear follow-up.