Wet Dreams of the Insane

Every band has to start somewhere during their career. It is very common to see bands (especially metal bands) start their discographies off with a more generic sound before forming their own unique sound and reaching their full potential. Golgotha's 1991 demo called "Wet Dreams of the Insane" is a fine example of this. Golgotha's sound on this demo leans more towards the thrash metal side and is clearly inspired by bands such as Metallica, Slayer, etc. Anybody who is familiar with this band is well aware that it was the precursor to what later became the monumental sludge metal band known as Acid Bath. It is no secret that Wet Dreams of the Insane sounds significantly different and unpolished when compared to Acid Bath's 2 studio albums. Nonetheless, there is still merit to this demo.

There are various pros and cons to this album. A lot of people could argue that the cons outweigh the pros, and I don't necessarily disagree with that. For now, I'll stay on the positive side. There were some catchy riffs and lyrics throughout this demo that draw the listener in. The opening track called "Apartment 13" seems to not only be a fan favorite, but also a song that people wish Acid Bath recorded for their debut album. I completely understand why. That song has a catchy melody, both musically and vocally, that makes listening to the song fun. In order to get positive feedback on your music, it is best to make sure that at least some of your songs are catchy enough to entice the listener. A good amount of the songs on this demo are catchy at least one point in their duration. Another cool thing about this demo is seeing how some of the songs were later changed after the release of this demo and how some of the songs ended up not making the cut for any of Acid Bath's releases. In my opinion, songs that end up getting discarded by the band that wrote them have their own certain charm. Listening to those kinds of songs is almost like finding hidden treasure that only you know about and get to enjoy. That hidden treasure idea in this case applies to the Acid Bath fans who have heard the stuff on this demo when there are Acid Bath fans who are oblivious to this demo's existence.

And then of course are the cons. Some of the cons include but are not limited to the poor mixing job, repetitive/bland songwriting, lack of variety, and so forth. Starting off with the songwriting, the tracks "Fingerpaintings of the Insane" and "What Color Is Death?" are both best known for being Acid Bath songs. Those 2 songs on this demo definitely sound incomplete when compared to the When the Kite String Pops version of them. It's a different and also lackluster atmosphere without Sammy Duet's backing vocals, the muted guitar parts, and the outro during Finger Paintings of the Insane. Those 3 aspects perfectly tied up that song. Likewise for What Color Is Death, except in this case replace the muted guitar parts for the guitar solos. During What Color Is Death?, the guitar solos played by one guitarist were drowned in the mix, and the solos played by the other guitarist were the exact same set of notes with nothing else added to them the second time that solo was played. Back on the note of Fingerpaintings of the Insane, I can't help but notice how that song almost sounds goofy being played in a guitar tuning much higher than C standard. That song is best known as being a slowed down dark and creepy sludge anthem, not a sped up and high pitched joyride.

As for the rest of the songs on this demo, while same were catchy as I mentioned, there were some that certainly sounded amateur and unnecessarily repetitive. There were points where I was thinking to myself "When is the next riff going to come?" That right there is a trait that can negatively impact your music as a whole. The bridge riff during "Apocalyptic Sunshine" sounds like a straight up ripoff of The Four Horsemen by Metallica. I know that all great bands start off by ripping off their favorite bands, but come on. The band could've done a better job at making it so the riff wasn't obviously copied.

Pretty much every song on this demo was thrash metal. You could argue there's sludge metal judging by "Fingerpaintings of the Insane." I won't disagree with that, but I will say that the sludge element wasn't very refined on that version of the song. This demo as a whole lacks the genre variety that was prevalent in the stuff Acid Bath put out.

Dax's vocals sounded very underdeveloped on this demo. I will cut him slack as he was in his late teens when this demo was recorded, but it doesn't make him exempt from criticism. Dax was almost trying too hard to sound like his favorite heavy metal and thrash metal vocalists. His singing for the most part was him practically grunting the lyrics and when it came time for him to do clean vocals, there wasn't much soul put into it.

And now onto everybody's favorite aspect of this demo to criticize, the mixing & production. Before I go too far into this aspect, I would like to say that I think people are quick to unfairly criticize this demo and label it as "worthless," "unlistenable," or anything else like that due to the audio quality. The overwhelming majority of the people who have heard this demo heard it from a video uploaded to YouTube back in 2014. The audio in that video does not act as the best representation of what the demo actually sounded like as it's obvious the audio came from either a cassette tape that's taken a beaten over the years up until it was finally digitized or a dubbed cassette copy that came from a long line of other dubbed copies. Either way, the muffled audio as well as other audio imperfections point to the conclusion that the source was a cassette tape that did not sound too hot. Something that is important for me to note is that Jerry "Boon" Businelli was kind enough to answer some Golgotha related questions for me, and he basically told me that everything off of Wet Dreams of the Insane that's currently on the internet does not sound exactly like the actual finished product of the demo. Now he did also tell me that the members of Golgotha weren't happy with the final mix with this demo as the person engineering had never recorded metal. Bottom line is despite this demo sounding very raw and sometimes drowned as a result of the production & mixing, you got to cut the band some slack as this demo was their first release as well as the first thing they ever recorded in a studio.

That concludes my review of Golgotha's "Wet Dreams of the Insane" demo from 1991. This demo is surely a hidden gem in the world of sludge metal and also a staple of Acid Bath's earlier history. Boon Businelli told me that Keith Falgout has the Wet Dreams of the Insane master tapes and at one point was going to remix the demo. Hopefully in the soon future this demo will get the remixing and polishing that it deserves. Favorite songs: Apartment 13, Apocalyptic Sunshine, and Cradled in the Arms of Death.