Four tracks of moderately paced death metal from Italy. The vocals are fairly well enunciated low growls/shouts with some higher screams, and the music ranges from old school styled death metal to slower and more groovy rhythms, or subtly melodic riffing that has a slight Scandinavian influence. I'm not really into the music at all because the songwriting is boring and only a handful of the riffs really hit me, but I will give them credit because the low vocals are fucking great. I can handle the sneers, but they serve no real purpose against the force of the lower growling. They tend to be better at the slower riffing with lead harmonies and such, which is generic, but they do it well on a few occasions. A couple of the faster passages that seem to employ a black metal influence are also nice, but none of the songs are good from start to finish. It's just not interesting or engaging music. The recording's not bad a for a demo. Everything's audible and they've got a decent set of tones going. The drums are somewhat rigid, but not enough to hurt, the bass is right behind the guitars, the vocals don't overpower the guitars, etc. It could use touching up, but I wouldn't really change all that much under the circumstances. The CD-R comes in a slim jewel case with a black and white booklet that has tolerable artwork on the front. For some reason they included thanks lists inside rather than lyrics, with the tracklist and such on the back cover. Go figure. I don't know much about this band, but regardless they need to practice a bit more and work on their writing techniques before putting out another demo.
[self-released]
Running time - 19:12, Tracks: 4
[Notable tracks: I can't say that any of them really stand out to me]
Stillbirth - http://www.stillbirth.it
