Incubus

This Incubus, from Georgia, are easily confused with other Incubuses. I had this demo for years, copied onto an old tape, mistakenly thinking it was the same band who recorded "Serpent Temptation" and "Beyond the Unknown". Evidently, I wasn't paying attention because this Incubus was wilder, darker, uglier and more 'death metal' than that Incubus ever were. Of course, that Incubus changed their name to Opprobrium after the emergence of an even more successful Incubus. This all shows what can happen when you pick such an obvious band name.

All three members of this band were also involved in other, more famous formative death metal bands at around the same time. Bassist Sterling Scarborough and drummer Mike Browning were part of early Morbid Angel line-ups, the latter also formed Nocturnus with guitarist Gino Marino. This Incubus demo is best seen as part of the bigger death metal picture, complementary with contemporary Morbid Angel and Nocturnus releases. Comparisons across the three bands are easy to make. Some of the riffs on this demo remind me of Nocturnus and Morbid Angel riffs. The song "God Died on His Knees" has a chorus that reminds me of Morbid Angel's "Blasphemy", and a slow section that sounds like "Neolithic" from the second Nocturnus demo (released one year later). The story of Incubus is intertwined with the story of those two bands, and fans of the early material from those bands will be interested in Incubus.

This demo is known by various titles (sometimes "God Died on His Knees", sometimes "Engulfed in Unspeakable Horrors", sometimes just “Incubus”). It is a good demo, if not as essential as the likes of "Thy Kingdom Come" or "The Science of Horror". This demo emanates the stench of early American death metal. Incubus were faster, uglier and more chaotic than the precision of Nocturnus and Morbid Angel. There are lots of solos. Sometimes the solos seem disconnected from the riffing and structure, similar to Morbid Angel. This makes for almost free-form musical experience, in keeping with the pioneer spirit of early death metal. The vocals are in that old school death metal vein that is hard to describe these days. They sound like low growls, but are decipherable at times, with some thrashy shrieking. You would never confuse this with thrash otherwise (even the most extreme kind of thrash). The influences on this demo must have been Death, Possessed and Slayer (especially the latter). There are hardcore/crossover elements too; "Reanimator's Mutilations" is a shorter, warp-speed song which reminds me of D.R.I. or S.O.D. Incubus were among the first to take the extremity of these varied influences to a new level.

This demo is a missing piece of the early death metal puzzle. There were better American death metal demos from the 1986-1988 period; those by Morbid Angel and Nocturnus mentioned above, those by Necrovore and Autopsy. Still, anyone who likes the abrasive, chaotic sound of early death metal will like this one. I like it. This band called Incubus existed at an important time in the scene’s history, and their influence cannot be neglected.