The Executioner

Don’t you love rusty shards of metal chips laying all over the machine shop floor? Probably not, but when that’s the best thing you can compare to a demo, it seems far more appealing. And that’s exactly what the Portuguese death/thrashers, Vectis’ debut demo titled The Executioner is. Nothing beyond a painful, ear-chipping effort that doesn’t even touch the ten-minute mark.

In 2019, it’s far more common to come across demos whose quality seems almost too good to be a demo, and I can get behind that. But sometimes efforts like this are just the adrenaline you need. It’s lead with an intro track consisting of bells, voices, creaking doors, and footsteps before hitting “Executioner,” the first real track. Lo-fi thrash riffs backed by hard cymbal clashes make up the backbone, with disgusting death metal croaks pressed firmly into the surface.

Weirdly enough, the solos on this seem too clean for their own good. Despite everything being rawer than sunburnt skin, they’re super bright and jump way above the surface, which gives them most of the focus. “Bastard Son Of God” doesn’t do anything even remotely different from this, but the same can’t be said about closer “Warriors Of Hell.” This one has a much steadier rhythm section and opens right away with a nice clean lick.

If anybody expected any kind of depth here, then they’d be kidding themselves. But in reality, The Executioner doesn’t really serve a purpose beyond what I mentioned earlier; a fast blast of excruciating death/thrash that wasn’t designed to make a lasting impression. What it does do is establish an idea of something upcoming that’s a bit more touched up that heavy music seekers can look forward to.

Originally written for Indy Metal Vault