Reduced to Ashes

This is some solid stuff right here, but not as good as Excruciating Pain. Good music, put the production isn't all that great.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. "This is a demo, isn't that how it should be?" Well, yes, a demo should be how a demo should be, raw and unfiltered. But every song sounds buried underneath itself. The production here isn't great, and needs to be slightly fixed.

It isn't THAT big of an issue, but it's the first thing I noticed when I first listened to this demo, and you'll notice it too. This demo is a grower, you have listen to it over and over if you want to end up liking it.

The music itself and the playing ability isn't bad at all, just the production buries everything and it sounds more static-y and bass amplified. It just needs to be a little touched up, that's all.

All the songs are good, there's definitely some variety here. Great guitar playing, especially the solos. The drums are good, showing off the fills and double-kick drum consistency, bass is very present which is good, and the vocals are also good, raspy yet deep and meaty. Very good vocals.

The album starts of with the track "Vital Remains" with an intro from the movie the Omen, which creates a vibe for the music onforth. Then starts a blasting riff, then brutal double kicking with a heavy riff behind it to create such an evil feel. Great start for a demo. The rest of the tracks are musicaly relateable, the songs start off with either a riff or drum beat, then the rest of the instruments come in, each song starts with a structure that forms the songs as a whole to come in. The musical aspects of this album is great. Great, consistent guitar riffing, heavy, on-point, drums that kick away, the extremely present bass to accent the guitars and make even a more solid foundation to the music, and the vocals, which is a mix of black and death metal vocals, high and shrieky but also deep and growl.

This is the first release Vital Remains has ever put out, and it's pretty good! Their righteous evil beginnings before putting out a discography of blasphemous ruin.

Pros: Awesome cover art, good songwriting, instruments sound good, good vocals, atmospheric, etc.
Cons: Slightly weak production that needs to be fixed up.

Another solid demo right here, Reduced To Ashes is a pretty good release.