I didn't expect it to be black metal, but that's what this UK band has to offer. The misleading clean instrumental introduction track gives way to raw black metal with tons of speed and raspy vocal sneers. The material can be somewhat noisy and chaotic, with hints of melody mixed into the tremolo picking and chord progressions, but the band is definitely not as tight as they need to be, especially the guitar players, so there are a few obvious falters. The songwriting is okay, but somewhat bland. The drummer tends to be pretty good with adding in fills, and the tapping solo at the start of "Desecration", while basic, is a nice touch. But most of this stuff is very standard, just not as memorable as it could be. The slower melodic riffing in "Setting the Scene" is one of the highlights of the demo by far, until they throw the crazy reverb on the drums at the end. The title track is my favorite song, because it's totally different from the others, and the clean guitars and melodies making up the core of the composition honestly sound like indie rock to me!? I'm not really into the recording because the rawness isn't working in favor of the music. The vocals are too loud, the bass gets lost, the guitars are too messy and have a sloppy lack of definition happening, and the drums seem oddly clear compared to everything else. The production lacks atmosphere, and if it's not adding to the mood, there's no need to shoot for a recording of this nature. The CD-R comes in a slim jewel case with a onecard insert printed from a home computer, but honestly the print quality is quite nice, and for a demo the simplicity of the layout works just fine. The images aren't pixilated, the text is smooth and easily legible, there's artwork on the disc face, etc. Who knows what the lyrical content is like... I enjoy the fact that the artwork is not at all suggestive of black metal by any means. First and foremost this band needs to practice becoming a tighter unit and smoothing out the edges of their sound. Beyond that, should they explore the writing styles of "Prelude" and the title track they could really offer up something fairly unique. We'll see...
[self-released]
Running time - 15:26, Tracks: 4
[Notable tracks: Dreaming Darkness]
The Belonging - http://www.thebelonging.co.uk
