Demo I

I've probably given this first Black Beasts demo a lot more chances to impress me than I normally would for any other band, if only because the project's second demo is an absolute masterpiece. I've listened to this almost a dozen times now and I think I'm finally ready to admit that this is, while still recognizable as the Black Beasts that I know and love, a rather inchoate and inessential effort.

It's hard to talk about this without retroactively comparing it to its successor, simply because I'm human too and I get frustrated when trying to rationalize why something isn't totally genius when it's so closely associated with something that is. To be fair, I wouldn't say that it's completely generic - even though you could draw plenty of Bone Awl comparisons here, Black Beasts definitely aren't just another raw black metal/punk project at this stage. I mean, sure, you've got your typical raw guitar tone, noise interludes, catchy riffs with biting melodies (though not nearly as hateful or filthy as they would be on the second demo), and screechy raw vocals (though, again, definitively inferior to the second demo... not to mention rather poorly mixed here, and bleeding over everything else more than they should) - all the trademarks of a standard-issue Clone Awl band. But the music here has a rather distinctive stomp to it, possibly because the snare is always on the downbeat; you'll find no trace of the skank beats that you're probably used to hearing from blackened punk outfits. How intentional this was, I can't say, but an odd side effect is that it leaves the music feeling strangely... slow for this type of BM. It never feels particularly chaotic or ripping or urgent; every song simply exists for a period of time until it doesn't. There are some other pacing choices which sound rather awkward, like how "Qliphoth" and "Vacuous" both have riffs that alternate between speeding up and slowing down - normally this would be fine, but for music this simplistic and brutish it feels overly complicated rather than refreshing or dynamic.

I don't mind listening to this and I would never in a million years call it bad, but there's nothing especially good about Black Beasts's first demo. Were this any other band with any other background, I'd've completely shelved this release a long time ago, but the band's other demo is so insanely good that I wanted to hope that its predecessor would grow on me with time. It hasn't. Go buy a copy of the second demo and leave this one alone.