Horrors in a Retarded Mind

Gorefest's second demo features the introduction of dynamics, a welcome contrast to the relentless aggression of their first. Prominent melodies make their way in at times, and there are dynamics and some breathing space, rather than a suffocating wall of distortion and howling. It's still dirty, downtuned death metal with guttural vocals, but it's the first few steps in the refinement that their professional career would showcase.

The album opens with a melancholic lullaby of a singing distorted guitar line, soon chorused by another guitar, setting the tone for the album to quickly explode into the death metal image painted by "Confessions of a Serial Killer". The majority of the music is still rough death metal with guttural vocals like the demo, but it is punctuated and presented with guitar melodies under the same wall of distortion, some doomy parts where the guitars are drawn out an breathing space is given, and a few guitar solos that lean towards both more and less extreme. All of this fits within the dark, dampened atmosphere, and the guitars are still heavily distorted throughout, but at times the grind of the guitars becomes less thick, and dynamics within the songs materialize as a result. The vocals have a bit more depth in this production, still gruff and guttural growls.

The sound has matured, but not strayed from the first demo. They maintain the same atmosphere, but they have evolved their performance to be slightly dynamic while maintaining the ferocity. This is great old school death metal, and all of death metal's favorite adjectives can apply to it.