We’re certainly open to taking requests around here; today we hope you take them, too. Just received a plea for Savage Death’s 1995 “Mass Genocide” demo from Filippo at Area Death Productions in China:

“We are looking for a good tape rip of the first demo “Mass Genocide” (the band doesn’t have the master tapes anymore, nor any dubbed tape). We have an excellent original copy of the second demo and a good sounding live, but our copy of the first demo isn’t too good. If you happen to have it, is it possible to have a copy?”

Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy on hand, so if you’re holding an original or a decent original dub of this demo, get in touch with ADP and discuss the huge rewards you will reap. And please comment here—I’ve never heard the band and would love to know how it sounds.

Thanks to unknown benefactors for coming forward!

Long time no demo! Bazillion Points Books has demanded a gargantuan share of my time for the past two years, but in truth the demo flow here has slacked due to interior forces—I admit I’ve been flicking out links and observations faster via Facebook and Twitter, and exterior forces—the proliferation of demo blogs since Bazillion Points began in a magnetic tape near-vacuum several years ago. Well, I had a fistfight with myself and I won, and I’m re-committed to regularly posting demos from the massive stash here. (Besides, did you really already download the 50 previous submissions, you lazy, selfish fuck?)

Let’s get back on track with Jester Beast, an Italian thrashcore foursome from Turin who identified themselves as “100% FREAK-CORE!!!” These characters actually debuted in a more traditional heavy metal configuration in the mid-1980s, but after their guitarist was killed accidentally, they regrouped in this dedicated high-speed thrash assault.

With nods to Voivod and Italian hardcore acts like Wretched, Negazione, and Raw Power, this demo has plenty of the rare nuclear-powered chaotic energy that is so difficult to capture. And though the band has a pretty weak chicken-bone logo, their mascot just rules—like Eddie from the cover of Killers after swallowing the early Legacy/Testament mascot. I appreciate bands like these guys and Assassin from Germany, who were way too far off in a blazing thrash direction to notice the grinding happenings up in Great Britain in 1988. It’s a far advanced form of thrash that doesn’t get enough play.

JESTER BEAST * “Destroy After Use” 5-song demo 1988 [26.7MB .rar]

As luck has it, Jester Beast is playing two shows in Italy in June 2010—that’s June 5 in Cremona with Concrete Sox and the great Children of Technology, and June 12 in Torino with ex-Voivod band E-Force—with a half-original lineup retaining screamer “Steo Zapp” and guitarist “C.C. Muz.”

And according to the Jester Beast MySpace, hell yes they are still 100% FREAK-CORE!!!

For all of you who freaked out over the Hell’s post a few weeks back, this is a special demo post dedicated to Annick Giroux, whose awesome Morbid Tales ‘zine has uncovered the mysteries of so many francophone metal acts of the 1980s, and who is about to enter metal history this Tuesday with the release of HELLBENT FOR COOKING: The Heavy Metal Cookbook on Bazillion Points Books.

Oxenkiller—or possibly Oxen Killer, to be perfectly honest—are as unknown, unsung, and as French as it gets. They tread an unreasonable line between gleeful and gloomy, and come across as the closest thing to Mercyful Fate I’ve ever heard apart from the real thing. There was an EP on King Klassic records a couple years after this demo that stupidly tried to float a giant electric airbrushed ox as a band mascot, but forget about that—it  sounds completely different from this slow, catchy and morbid piece of classic European heavy metal.

OXENKILLER * 3-song demo 1985 [36.9MB]

Watch this space, because as soon as I can salvage the band’s definitive coverage in Suck City from the fanzine heap of history, I will scan and post. Rudö Anvilmeister’s incredibly clever drawing of an oxen laying on its back with hoofs in air and knife in belly really says it all!

By popular demand (of a few dedicated misanthropes), here’s a follow-up to the Samhain [Denmark] demo posting of a couple years ago. Within a year of releasing that “The Courier” demo, it dawned on the young Danes that the Samhain name was taken, and they switched to the snappy moniker Desexult and began besieging the world in demo tapes in earnest. This classic tape sounds excellent, and the only reason it didn’t become a classic vinyl is that the band was too damn early!

The infamous “S.O.D.F.O.A.D” cassette was the original European death metal dismissal of American braggadocio, a slow, lethal, and enthusiastic arrival by a bunch of die-hard tape-trading scenesters from Denmark. They absorbed every high-grade particle of underground metal in the atmosphere, and created this cool and unique deathly thrash sound. (Make no mistake, though, these guys were originally all about the S.O.D.—they later claimed the title stood for “Should Our Demo Find Our Album Deal.” Ha!)

To be honest, I didn’t swoon over this band back in the day, for whatever reason. Probably the grinding mid-tempo didn’t pinch my adrenaline zones hard enough. But viewed through the prism of time; good god, this is what modern ultra-underground bands today are trying so hard to emulate! Not only did Darkthrone take their name from Desexult members’ legendary Blackthorn fanzine, they’ve spent the last ten years working on their own version of these ugly, droning and deceptively unsimple riffs.

DESEXULT – “SOD FOAD” 5-song demo #2 1986 [56.3MB .RAR]

The lead track “Evil Courier” again stirs up the rumor that these guys worked as bike messengers to bankroll their ‘zine and bands. But where the hell are Henk Leviathan, Hund, Max Due, and Esben Slot Sørensen now? And needless to say, Sweden and Norway had barely any bands this good playing proto-death metal in 1986—what the hell happened in Denmark?

Driving around North Jersey today in the swampy August heat, delivering Bazillion Points books to various importer-exporter shipping-receiving wholesale-resale warehouses, I got to see a lot of amazing landscapes—if your idea of amazing landscapes, like mine, involve gargantuan rotting 1800s iron factories swarmed over by trees and weeds and turkey vultures. Anyway, in the car I listened to The Accüsed’s brand new album for Southern Lord, The Curse of Martha Splatterhead, and I guess it transported me into a receptive place for late 1980s thrash metal.

So let’s talk about Murdercar…just not the name, because making sense of that could take forever.

Returning to the office today, I found a care package of demos waiting from an unnamed source at Roadrunner Records. Keeping in mind that the Bazillion Points blog was one of the very first of a small handful to offer demos for digital download, and that this enterprise has been in action for several years, believe me that a sizable demo donation is a very rare thing! Not that it’s really necessary, but it’s greatly appreciated. And here arrived this afternoon an impressive array of late ’80s thrash demos. So thanks anonymous Roadrunner donor.

Murdercar are the only band in the batch that I’d never heard of. Hailing from L.A., these dudes boast a running resumé that includes stints in Détente, Catalepsy, Machine Head, Sacred Reich, Juggernaut, SA Slayer, and Mercenary. We’re talking career thrashers here—not the ragged death-thrashers featured in most posts around here. The demo lasts ten minutes, runs through three songs, so download it if you care at all about slick late-80s thrashing of the kind that retro-thrash bands of today don’t have the skills to play or the money to produce.

Opener “Nation of Fools” rolls out the red carpet in the polished Powermad mold, but sounds much more powerful. I’d call this a non-starter in the forgettable vein of late Belladonna Anthrax or early Machine Head. But “Mirage of Blood”—surely you remember it from Metal Massacre 10, cough cough—kicks ass in an fast, fun way that slaps you around with the recollection that bands like this briefly had the hopes of appearing on Arsenio Hall in 1989. This song is thrash at its commercial pinnacle—before Metallica betrayed the hard-fought form with the Black album and bands like Helmet, Faith No More, and White Zombie scattered the fires of thrash in so many new directions.

The last song on this demo, “Glamour in the Pit,” is a homophobic bunch of anti-glam bravado blessed by the couplet: “Dressing up like Sixx / I bet you all suck dicks.” It rings so false, and outs the band as gay for success. First of all, Nuclear Assault destroyed Crüe with their bullseye gay bash “Buttfuck” years before this. Secondly, violent anti-poser thrash metal originated in SF, not LA, and drag queens were part of the backdrop. But most important of all, 1989 was not the year of glam, it was the year when thrash reared its upstart head and declared victory.

MURDERCAR * 3-song demo 1989 [19.8MB]

So then what happened? Murdercar went nowhere after some industry showcases (guess this tape came from the Roadrunner reject pile!), death metal took over the underground, and this band’s most talented member, former Détente guitarist Ross Robinson, in the 1990s became the nu metal producer of choice for Machine Head, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, and Sepultura’s Roots. Yes, you could have stopped all that by supporting Murdercar early. Now just support the theory that I’ve been floating all along—bouncy ’80s thrash metal like Anthrax, Mordred, Exodus’ “Low Rider,” and Murdercar begat nu metal. Now you know!

Sweet, sweet Napoli—home of pizza, Italian organized crime, and back in 1986 a devilish quintet of molten Italian metal mongers called Hell’s. Their sole symbol of existence is a well-done three song demo that would have made an excellent NWOBHM 7″. The whole shebang is charming, from the hand-drawn machine screws on the front cover to the entirely unnecessary copyright symbol to the way the chorus of “Revenge” sounds like ripping—a favorite pastime of all children of giallo films. They are Hell’s!

Musically, the band is rockin’ metal in the vein of demo-era Anthrax or Metallica. Think of a toned-down Fistful of Metal, or maybe Satan’s Court in the Act. They borrowed from Kill ‘Em All but ignored the faster thrash parts and just recycled some of the songwriting, if you can believe that. Hey, these guys are from Naples, Italy—way too All in all, here’s a nice clean blast of proficent heavy metal with some weird surprises.

HELL’S * “Breathless Midnite” 3-song demo 1986 [40.4MB .rar]

Here’s a link (through Google Translate) to a short RockItaly.com profile on Hell’s which claims they signed to King Klassic Records in Illinois, though nothing ever came of it.

I’ll admit it, the demo queue is very, very long around here—I’m always glad to knock one off the stack when a high-quality reissue comes along. Considering the abundance of metal bands named Enforcer these days (nine at last count), this high-quality mid-80s Chicago band is never more than one blink of mistaken identity away from my mind.

Turns out I’m not the only one, as Stormspell Records has dressed up the 1984 demo by Enforcer [IL] with a befitting new cover, a truck of rehearsal cuts, and a bonus DVD. That’s a great idea, considering how this well this classed-up warhorse of a band fits with newcomers like The Gates of Slumber and old favorites like Count Raven. They don’t make rolling drums, tremolo dives, and dramatic vocals like this anymore—though more and more seem willing to try.

Here’s the opening track, the mid-tempo “High Treason,” from my tape. And yes, that’s my 14-year old scribbling in the cassette cover scan. Lots of C+ grades in handwriting class, big whup.

ENFORCER * “High Treason” from 1984 demo [10.3MB MP3]

CLASSIC CHICAGO METAL CD/DVD info at Stormspell Records

Though local wags in Boston dubbed these zoned-out punk metal thrashers “Post Boredom,” this band deserves credit for digging its shallow trench for over ten years before calling it quits in the mid-1990s. At the start, they were just ugly misfits who evolved from punk to metal and played a lot of shows, both with name-brand metal and hardcore bands. By the time anybody noticed, Post Mortem had already developed a unique downer style, combining speedy Kreator-style riffing with My War-era Black Flag dirges.

This demo is called “Turkey on Your Nose,” I don’t want that fact to ever leave you. In a way, it is a six-minute concept demo, mediating the realms of the afterlife with three gristly thrash song poems; first “Ready to Die,” then “Waiting for the Funeral,” and ultimately “Armies of the Dead.” If the band seemed single-minded, well.. they were. And this quick dose of deathly thrash comes across like a slow, basement version of Bazillion Points Blog favorites like At War and Whiplash.

POST MORTEM * “Turkey on Your Nose” 3-song demo 1986 [14.2MB rar]

This old Maxell cassette was really rotting — for some reason, the sound quality gets noticeably better with the second song. In theory, you can pull a better version of “Ready to Die” directly from the band, since Metal Archives claims they released a rarities CD in 2007. The Post Mortem MySpace and PostMortemBand.com don’t mention such a thing, and it’s possible that a slew of promised re-releases like the Coroner’s Office LP 0n New Renaissance along with several other archival chunks won’t be surfacing for a while.

Regrettably, John McCarthy, the misanthropic jester that fronted Post Mortem, passed away in January 2009 at age 40. Apparently, the band had reformed as a five-piece, and were recording new material. The best eulogy for his weird and tragic tale comes from About.com, of all places, who in February posted this long-as-hell look back at the creation of Post Mortem’s 1986 debut Coroner’s Office.

And a second R.I.P. to Michelle Meldrum of Wargod and Phantom Blue, who passed through Post Mortem long enough to contribute to the stupefyingly weird and thus great The Missing Link EP.

When I was 14 I had it all — a weekly metal radio show on a college radio station that reached Rochester, Syracuse, and Ithaca (don’t discount Ithaca, S.O.D. were recording there!); an excellent wheelchair weed connection; a Colecovision; every Venom and Exciter album; a hard-rehearsing band that played Van Halen, Sabbath, and Dio covers; a New York State Regents diploma in view; and a grocery store within walking distance where we could surreptitiously watch Eric Adams from Manowar slice bologna behind the meat counter. Life was very good, all things considered. And then my Mom moved our family to Indiana—suck city. Let’s just say I soon grew numb surviving a storm of alienation, pain, aggravation, and frustration.

Three years later, after escaping at age 16 to live near metal mecca Montreal for a while, I was back in Indiana. Same forecast. But I started hearing about a bunch of skate punks who hung out in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis begging for spare change. Apparently they had a metalcore band, and had recorded a demo. That alone was notable — the few punk or harder edged rock bands in Indiana were oblivious to the trading scene. But Transgression were hip.

Befitting a city whose outcasts were mostly brutalized loners, Transgression combined hardcore punk, skinhead, and thrash metal style and music, and they now deserve a higher profile for their originality. In 1987-88, the era of knockoff thrash and death metal wannabes, Transgression concocted an unthinkably tuneful mixture of the hooks of SNFU and the blur of Cryptic Slaughter.Their great Cold World album on Manic Ears, the label that paved the way for Earache, is an overlooked gem, but this demo with one different guitarist is also pretty good. Like the record it features artwork by tattoo legend Guy Aitchison, and was produced by Paul Mahern of the Zero Boys — the Indy pioneer who also captured Italian hardcore act Raw Power’s classic releases.

TRANSGRESSION * “Better Days” 6-song demo [34.2MB rar]

Transgression has regrouped once or twice in recent years minus singer Paul Linhart, who was kind of an innocent 17-year old version of Mike D. Williams from Eyehategod. And a good lyricist! The guitarists Dino and John Zeps are at least still active in Indianapolis bands, and there’s a lot of visual evidence on the posthumous MySpace of Transgression trying out fancy big city hairstyles, sharing bills with Holy Terror and D.R.I., and palling around with Seth Putnam in 1988.

Transgression MySpace

Here’s a rip from the Sirius live stream of my slickly-produced July 19, 2008 interview with singer Tomas Lindberg and guitarist Martin Larsson of AT THE GATES. This has been floating around the black market for a while, so I might as well give it a legit home. Plus it’s a good blast from the recent past while my Bloody Roots radio show graciously steps aside for the surprise “Mandatory Metallica” month on Sirius XM.

Needless to say, this was produced for a nation of 9 million subscribers driving around in cars, so there’s a big difference in tone compared to the highly personal demo posts around here, but I hope you get a kick out of it. Regardless, At the Gates set a super-tall standard for reunion tours — I’ve pretty much since sworn off oldies acts.

From the Blabbermouth description: Vocalist Tomas Lindberg and guitarist Martin Larsson of the reactivated Swedish metallers AT THE GATES will appear on this week’s “Bloody Roots” show on Sirius Satellite Hard Attack channel, discussing their 12-year hiatus, the decision to reunite for a number of summer 2008 shows, the rise of the fabled “Gothenburg” melodic death metal sound, and the upcoming U.S. release of Daniel Ekeroth’s Swedish Death Metal book.

Highlights from the interview:

* Lindberg on the band’s 1996 break-up: “We had a couple years of hard touring, and getting sick of each other on tour. Basically, if we would have been the age we are now, we could have just taken a break and chilled for a while. We were just so immature and totally at our own throats.”

* Lindberg on the “Gothenburg sound”: “There’s a huge difference between AT THE GATES and IN FLAMES, as I hope everybody notices. We have a focus on the brutality. We’re not only melody, we’re a death metal band. The Gothenburg sound is to me like a non-existent entity. AT THE GATES, IN FLAMES, and DARK TRANQUILLITY, it’s like three different worlds.”

The interview includes music by AT THE GATES as well as Lindberg’s DISFEAR and GROTESQUE and Larsson’s THIS QUIET EARTH. “Bloody Roots” is a “heavy metal history lesson” airing four times weekly on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Hard Attack, hosted by Ian Christe (Bazillion Points Books, Bazillion Points demoblog, author of “Sound Of The Beast”).

AT THE GATES: Bloody Roots Interview on Sirius XM 07/19/08 [60 mins., 81.6MB MP3]

Playlist:

AT THE GATES – “Slaughter of the Soul” from SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL

AT THE GATES – “Terminal Spirit Disease” from TERMINAL SPIRIT DISEASE

AT THE GATES – “The Swarm” from TERMINAL SPIRIT DISEASE

GROTESQUE – “Blood Flows From the Altar” from IN THE EMBRACE OF EVIL

LIERS IN WAIT – “Liers in Wait” from SPIRITUALLY UNCONTROLLED ART
DISFEAR – “Get it Off” from LIVE THE STORM

THIS QUIET EARTH – “Wizball” from 2008 DEMO

THE HAUNTED – “DOA” from ONE KILL WONDER

AT THE GATES – “Blinded by Fear” from SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL

TYRANT – “Hell Has Broken Loose” from RECLAIM THE FLAME