Death Unfolds

This is the best Desultory demo. It is a noticeable change in direction from the Rhine-Ruhr/Bay Area thrash mashup of their first demo. These are the same four band members, so I can only assume that they practiced some more, then got more involved in the (significant) Stockholm death metal underground. The music on "Death Unfolds" is not far from what the band would eventually make on their debut album ("Into Eternity"). The differences between this demo and that album are incremental. This is where Desultory found their favoured sound.

You can hear the beginnings of the band's melodic Stockholm death metal approach. There are plenty of scale-based solos which sound like those used by melodic Bay Area thrash bands. The soloing is not particularly well developed here, but you can tell the direction the band were heading. The solos are less fluid than on the album, but the note choices are much the same. The riffs behind the solos are also derivative of Bay Area thrash. There are none of the chaotic German thrash elements from the previous demo. This just sounds like Forbidden or Testament with death metal vocals. Those vocals are good and throaty enough though, they sound both menacing and intelligible.

Desultory’s relationship with thrash is a strange one. They are completely indebted to it but manage to avoid sounding anything like a death/thrash band. The reason, I think, is because Desultory are a death metal band playing thrash (or a thrash band playing death metal, if you prefer). The primary influence here is the melodic end of thrash, rather than the more extreme stuff (Slayer, Sepultura, etc) that informs most death/thrash. It is an interesting mix and it gives Desultory their own sound. It may also have hurt them in the long run because metal would become more extreme, leaving them behind. This demo sounds regrettably lightweight in comparison to, say, "Into the Grave".

Of the three songs, "Passed Away" and "The Chill Within" would both appear on the debut album. The former is OK, if a little bland. The latter is a great song and comfortably the best on the demo. It is one of the band's heaviest songs, with a slower intro and some double-kick drumming that befits the Studio Sunlight production. The third and final song "Death Unfolds" is the main reason to hear this demo nowadays. This one was never chosen for the album and thus only appears here. It is on par with the lesser songs from "Into Eternity", it has another nice solo and there are some bell-chimes at the end (a clear sign that the local death metal scene was influencing them). The drumming is strangely chaotic and erratic in places. Normally I like chaotic drumming, but it sounds odd in the context of Desultory; 'chaos' does not suit the melodic thrash aesthetic.

This is the only Desultory demo worth listening to, and even then, I would only recommend it to Swedish death metal fanatics (of which there are many). There is nothing here that was not done better on "Into Eternity", so you should probably just listen to that instead.