Demilitia: Demilitia

You gotta love an album that carries a "Parental Advisory" warning on the front that when you actually spin the disc inside has a vocalist who terrorizes your ears in such a way that you can barely make out one in ten words growled, screamed and snarled at you! The vocalist in question is Ralph Reyes who contains an absolute flame thrower of a voice inside that throat of his, if you ever experience this man singing in front of you I would suggest you check he hasn't singed your eyebrows off!!

You'll gather then that Ralph isn't being backed by a string quartet as he abuses your ears and it will come as no surprise that death metal is more Demilitia's line of work. This self titled six track disc is the band's recorded debut and is a tad short even for this style of music. The player reads just over 24 minutes when you place the disc in it (and of those 24 minutes the last five contains two minutes of silence before playing out with various noises of war and a certain well known world leader extolling some words of wisdom).

So what of the actual 19 minutes of music that remain? Well it's a pretty hard hitting, no compromises wall of guitar and bass that hammers into your head with some of the sharpest and to drummer Dr. Chris Thunder's credit, absorbing kit clattering that you are liable to hear anywhere. As his band mates Billy Blitzed and Big Gun Burley shred their guitars and Jayzon Bassman, (I don't need to tell you his instrument of choice do I?) crushes his (oh OK then) bass strings, Thunder punishes his kit with precise yet varied beats, fills and flurries. He is in short excellent.

So with two star performers on show it's a shame that not everything else quite lives up to their remarkably high standards. Musically Demilitia aren't bad at all, it's just that at times it all lacks a little focus, jumping from crazy runs or wah-wah like guitars to blistering riffs and straight ahead blasts of metal within a matter of seconds. Impressive it is, however it's not always as engaging as it could be. When the killer riff half way through "Acrimony" kicks in it's a piece of ten ton glory, however just as you begin to surrender your senses to it, it's gone and we are led off into a slower guitar breakdown as the track closes. None of the parts are bad, it's just that it would be a more involving listen if the different areas were given more room to breathe and develop.

"Brutalizer" is the most consistent track on offer as it slowly builds from a crushing crawl into a frantic climax before a gunshot brings the music on the disc to a close."Teleos" also contains some great bruising beats and battering riffs and if you wanted proof of Reyes's vocal power than it's here in all its agonising brutality. Some fine tuning and to be honest a bit more actual music would have been welcome from Demilitia, however the next time I feel like inflicting some self harm on myself, Demilitia may well be my weapon of choice.

Track list:
1. A Better Mousetrap
2. Teleos
3. Monstro
4. Acrimony
5. Abstract Fear
6. Brutalizer

Added: October 16th 2009
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Band MySpace Page
Hits: 2736
Language: english

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