Hypothermia

Okay, while the band’s debut, Product of Society, wasn’t quite the metal mountain many of us were hoping to climb, the band truthfully wasn’t short on potential. They could write a decent string of riffs and sometimes knew what intensity was when they eventually tripped over it, and while they often over-Testamentized, they weren’t the thing of daymares. Sometimes a band is just as good as its best three or four songs while clunkers of lesser strength dilute the mixture’s overall potency, and I think that’s the deal with Defiance.

Separating Hypothermia from Defiance's earlier 1988 demo, Demolition, is the omission of “Deadly Intentions”, which leaves no-longer-abbreviated (see the 1987 demo) instrumental “Missing in Action” to play anchor, a track that'd get stuck in the bay area's cluttered seabed, never to gurgle again. "Product of Society" and "Hypothermia" sail heavily on the debut, more or less structurally unchanged and naturally blown by those same bay area winds that, by now, are known to be quite unstoppably popular, and compared to the debut the production is more an affair of muted fidelity, but you get used to it.

Admittedly, it's a sturdy, strapping demo that warranted label notice.