Cruel Rehearsals

So, I was writing a lot of articles on Wikipedia relating to Taake when I came upon this band Deathcult. I noticed that the demo was up for free listening at Misantrof and thought that I might as well listen to it.

I was surprised.

This is actually much better than I ever thought a bands first demo could be. The production may be muddy, and I kinda miss the old trademark black metal guitar buzz, but this demo makes up for that by containing some very nice, old-school riffs. It appears obvious that Deathcult has taken their time and actually crafted some music that is worth listening to instead of just going for the "blast-away-and-dont-worry" approach sadly used by so many black acts nowadays. Try listening to the start of "Cruel Celestial Spirits" - sounds very much like early Black Sabbath ("Electric Funeral" to be precise) only instead of Ozzy we've got some very nice black metal rasps that are, unfortunately, handicapped a bit by the production, but then again - this IS just a demo! Also, now that no are speaking of influences try checking out 4:04 of the song "Anti Human" - that part has got Burzums "War" written all over it, yet it's not an obvious rip-off, rather just some very nice riffing.

This is as old-school Norwegian as it gets, and if you're into 'A Blaze in the Northern Sky'-era Darkthrone then this may be worth your time. My personal favorite is the first track "Man Of Kutu", but everything here is special in its own way - from the slow-prodding "Cruel Celestial Spirits" to the early Gorgoroth'ish blast attack "Black Metal (The Sign of Pure Evil)".

Bottom line: This is better than a whole lot of the other black metal demos out there.