Endless Witchcraft

I caught Demonslaught 666 live in Hefei, China just a few weeks ago. Hefei is a city without almost any apparent metal scene, so I can’t tell you what brought the band here. However, the locals reliably delivered, with a rough estimate of 15 punters at the show, among which was a high school student who had painted his shoes with inverted crosses. I also moshed with a woman wearing an anorak, and I mean that we properly moshed because there was plenty of room to run around in, and I could also change sides of the stage when Paravoid’s bass become too much and I wanted to listen to Evilslaughter’s riffs. All the more credit to these guys, they still put on a wild performance and then took the time to talk to people after the show. Surprisingly, the 2 genuine band members (the drummer was just touring with them) both knew enough German to have a pretty good talk with my friend who doesn’t speak a lot of Chinese.

A review of that gig would trouble the 90s, and the album released a couple of months earlier was the main reason for that. Perhaps it’s easy to forget that the difference between black speed and black thrash is actually pretty large when you think about it, namely that speed metal focuses more on pace and attitude than technique, whereas in thrash you’re more likely to be able to remember the riffs and vary the song structures. Demonslaught 666 therefore, by marrying those 2 sources, end up with a bit more variety than you’d expect. From my encounter with them, it’s pretty clear that they draw from the German stable of bands, both in terms of older acts like Destruction (Paravoid has a nice habit of aping Schmier’s squealing highs) and newer bands like Vulture, whose t-shirt the guitarist was wearing at the gig. Then, on the other hand, they have formerly proven their influence from specifically black speed groups like Hellripper and Barbatos, the former of which is very much in evidence here, while the sloppy and punky techniques of the latter only come across in the rather boosted bass presence across the album.

You’ll notice the difference between basic black speed stuff and Demonslaught’s pretty quickly, particularly if you take ‘Phantom Witch’ as an example. The elaborate guitar motif that sets up the song possesses more melodic flair than a lot of groups I could name, while the verses opt for straight speeding intensity and then the chorus switches to a thrashier, marching tempo for contrast. The drumming also does its own thing at times, the frequent tom bursts providing that wonderful hollow echo that our friend TheBurningOfSodom has identified as Pleasure to Kill’s signature, while the vocals attack with more than necessary savagery. You could level the usual accusations at Endless Witchcraft, namely that these guys don’t know how to slow down and thus everything ends up sounding similar, which is indeed true though not to the extent that you might fear. As a result of the speed and thrash influences, I feel like the rhythms vary even if the tempo does not, while solos often provide a more significant melodic point. More importantly, the songs are developed beyond mere stabs at the listener, averaging well over 4 minutes.

Granted, if you only like funeral doom you still won’t be turned onto black/thrash/speed by Demonslaught 666, because the kind of onslaught presented here barely lets up for 37 minutes. The energy levels remain extremely high and the quality remains high too, with no specific letdowns. From time to time, more obviously blackened parts stand out of the mix, such as during longer closer ‘Eternity, Darkness & Damnation’, but I’m pretty thrilled with the consistency and remorseless fast riffing presented elsewhere. And still there’s more hope for the future, because that gig with 15 people attending was better than this CD.