Deader than Life

dCorpsegrinder, The frontman of Cannibal Corpse's seemingly eponymous band before he joined the death metal powerhouse, never gained much traction, and to this day there is little content that you can find by the band. Their first effort, whilst mildly impressive, isn't ground-breaking or ahead of its time. Honestly, it sounds like Eaten Back To Life with better vocals. Corpsegrinder's vocals are by far the most enjoyable thing about this demo, as he's constantly letting out blood-curdling shrieks, and his gutturals are some of the best of the genre, he shows of his vocal ability especially in the opener, Grave Mistake, and False Prophet.

Fisher's vocal register is also higher on some of the tracks, so I guess that makes this demo sound unique, at least compared to his later work. It reminds me of the Cannibal Corpse demo (I know I'm referencing that band too much), in the sense that it sounds heavily influenced by punk differs a fair amount from their later material.

The riffs throughout the album are decent and very old-school, although there is barely any lead work to appreciate, with the exception of Last Judgement with its blazing solos, most of it is reminiscent of Massacre, Obituary, Possessed, and countless other death metal bands. Some of the guitar work actually harkens back to NWOBHM, with evil-sounding riffs that sound like Celtic Frost and Mercyful Fate worship, such as the main riff of Dreaming Your Own Murder. However, there isn't much riff variation in the songs, which is quite disappointing.

The drums are fairly bare bones, but Mark Gonce gets the job done, and he even plays some groovy, interesting beats on this demo. Most of the songs are fairly mid-tempo, and there is seldom use of blast beats, which I guess was intentional to adapt to the foggy sound of the demo. Speaking of which, the production is what you'd expect; very much like your typical early 90's demo, but it isn't terrible.

The production is sort of similar to another demo I reviewed, by the pre-Amon Amarth band Scum, except that demo was marginally more ambitious and melodic. Deader Than Life, on the other hand, is straightforward riffing and relentless growls. You will probably enjoy this demo if you're into classic OSDM, but musically, there is nothing special about Deader Than Life.