A Circle of Silent Screams

Had almost completely forgotten about this act when I saw this demo re-released in 2015, also flagged around as an unreleased album. I revisited their first showing, the power/speed/thrash conglomerate “Hell House”, a competent if a bit dishevelled slab of diverse metal which sided with the works of Destructor and Hallows Eve that showed up at around the same time on the other side of the Atlantic.

As the material reviewed here was written in 1994, one can’t help but give the lads a few thumbs up for staying true to the retro metal canons. There isn’t even a sniff of faded numetal post-glory here; and not only but the band sound way more convincing with the impetuous galloper "Masquerade" bringing the sound in the vicinity of Attacker’s seminal “Second Coming” before some lofty musicianship rises out of the excellent shredding progressive odyssey "The Return". More highbrow diversity with the eventful speed/thrasher "Computer World", and especially with the compelling progressive power metal saga "Eastern Promise", the Eastern side of the title handsomely justified by a couple of bewitching Oriental motifs. The surprises don’t end here, mind you, with the mis(s)leadingly-titled "Little Miss" and "Once Upon a Nightmare" serving formidable heavy seismic rhythms that are that close to tumbling into something doomy; and with "Babylon's Burning" throwing a couple or merry crossover hooks for dessert in an uplifting unpretentious fashion.

Much better than the patchy debut, this effort did deserve to be released as a full-length opus back then; it also boasts pretty good production qualities and not bad composed semi-clean mid-ranged vocals. The more immediate character of the debut is reflected in a few short speedsters (“Maximum Security”, “Superstition”), but their direct stripped-down veneer only enhances the merits of the more seriously-performed material. Alas, their guitarist Jack Hammer was snatched by Sabbat, and the drummer Iain MacDonald by Acid Reign… I have the feeling these more prominent outfits had felt the bigger potential this team had, and had decided to eliminate the competition…

the good piece of news is that the original line-up are back together, this demo re-release wasn’t just an isolated occurrence; there will be more coming from this hellish camp, that’s for sure… the more silently the better.