This is the second album made by Saint-Petersburg's leading doomsters ORA PRO NOBIS. "Dreams Of The Eternal" includes 7 well-structured songs in 55 minutes with russian lyrics again. The album has a more professional sound with lots of acoustic inclusions and folk motives. For example the song "Oy Moroz Moroz" is actually a russian traditional folk song, in recording of which participated a lot of musicians from Saint-Petersburg's metal bands. If you like slowly thoughtful Doom Metal then order it now! It's a straight and quite original release!

Be on friendly terms with Dalibor, I received another demo of PARASOPHISMA, the predecessor of "Sole Light...". Musically, it differs in some ways, of course. I suppose it's due to the participation of other musicians in the band. The main line of "One Of Neverending..." has the same basis as we get accustomed to the early MY DYING BRIDE stuffs. There are 5 long songs filled up with a good mix of sad violin-parts and mid-paced Doom/Death riffs of guitars. To cut it short, if you're into slowly yet mournful Doom/Death Metal spiced with ultra deep growls and philosophical themes, buy a copy of this 29 minutes long funereal anthem.

Wow, just take a look at the title of the demo and then on the bandname. Not too usual things for a band playing Doom/Death Metal, isn't it? However, their 7-song material is not only about these two styles, 'coz they like to mix jazz, rock, grind and other styles along with quite thoughtful philosophical lyrics. They are really an original all-sided band having such a great connection within their musical and ideological conception. Let's go into details... They are four: Monika Hrubá - flute/vocals, Radim Darda - guitars, Martin Krul - bass and Dalibor Figura - vocals/drums. The first thing I must note is the good use of flute through the entire stuff. The second point is the technical skilled work of the drummer, who mostly amazed me with his rather confused solutions, but that's O.K. The next point is to mention the well-constructed guitar riffs and melodic solos which get on well together with the remarkable bass tunes and artful bass solos. To all this you can add the enchanting female vocals and the wide-ranging of growls. Every inch of their stuff has something special, indescribably mysterious and at the same time radiates from the atmospherical feeling. Believe me, PARASOPHISMA is the pure essence of unique Metal Art!

SANATORIUM is a four-men Death Metal band hailing from Slovakia. On this release their line-up was the following: Alky - drums, Warmo - guitar, Oneque -guitar and Angel - vocals/bass. "Necrologue" represents six melodic Death Metal tunes which were strongly influenced by Thrash, Heavy and yet Black Metal parts as well. The first two songs "Necrologue Written In Forest" and "Bloody Wounds" are composed in the typical Death Metal way with ultra-deep growling vocals, memorable guitar riffs and technical drum parts. The third one "Desolated Areas Of The Forgotten Pain" is a more melodic piece and here comes the so-called Heavy Metal influences in guitarists' work. The fourth song "Cemetery Of Memories" has a very catchy song-structure which mostly based on slow guitar rhythms and melodies. Actually, this song has the best motives of "Necrologue" material. The next song "Rivers Of The Black Sun" taken from their "Subculture" demo'95. It's a great song full of acoustic inclusions and thrashy guitar parts. The last song called "È.È.K.È.È.", which is a very short piece with lyrics in Slovak language. The MC comes with colour cover, lyrics and quite long thanks list.

A friend of mine gave me this 4-song demo of Hungarian SANGRE CON FILTRO. Featuring Norbert Olasz on rhythm/lead/acoustic guitar, Csaba Éliás on rhythm/lead guitar, László Makara on drums and László Tóth on bass/vocals they've done an average Death/Grind stuff. The main line of S.C.F. composes of fast yet intense guitar riffs, not too complex drum-parts and quite deep growls. The first three tracks "I'm Myself", "Stroke Of Fate" and "Anticlerical" have lots of cool guitar parts, which sometimes seems to me a bit confused. As for the soloing of guitarist's, I would say there are some notably solos with tuneful themes and of course there are some hasty ones. Regarding the bass work I can't really say anything 'cause it's mostly under the pressure of the rest of instruments. The best track in my opinion is their fourth one "Change Of Front", which combines a lot of melodic parts along with the thoughtful structure of the song itself. This ends with an impressive medieval-like acoustic guitar theme. The demo comes with good sound quality, b/w cover, photos and lyrics.

"Expansion Of Light" is the debut 5-track demo of this Yalta-based Death/Thrash trio. The members of it are: Dima - drums, Alex - guitar/vocals and Yuriy - bass. The demo begins with a quite complex track, namely "Black Land". It's full of grinding drum beats and some splendid solos. However, sometimes the drumming is a bit confused there. Shortly after it turns into first notes of "Victim Of Progress" which is another technical piece with lots of catchy rhythm guitar parts. This follows "Old Soldier's Strory" with its SEPULTURA influenced song-structure and vocal-style as well. Also there are some BENEDICTION-type riffs too. The last two tracks "Interdeath" and "Look Out!" are my favourite ones which contains great old-school thrash motives as well as some modern things within its riffs. Also, you can add the profound sound of bass to all the tracks and as the mix you get a cool demo with not bad sound quality. If you like SLAYER, SEPULTURA or KREATOR influenced Death/Grind, than make a trial with SPARROW MUTANT's "Expansion Of Light".

TESSARACT was formed in the beginning of 1992. Nowadays the bandmembers are: Igor Evdokimov - vocals, Yurij Volkov - rhythm and clean guitars & bass, Konstantin Zmievskij - drums & backing vocals. This is their third demo containing tracks from the second demo "Extreme Neurotic Depression" and some rare unreleased stuff as well. To tell you the truth, I don't even expected such fantastic demo with such professional sound quality. So, what music they play? Well, it's pure swedish Death Metal at it's best form. There are 12 ass-kicking Death Metal tracks on the "End Of Depression" influenced by early GRAVE and DISMEMBER materials. If it's not enough for you, I can add, that they also recorded the famous "Bleed For Me" song from DISMEMBER's "Like An Everflowing Stream" masterpiece. It was pure nostalgy for me to listen to those extremely well-executed Death Metal tunes. I can't really pick out any of the songs, because they are all simply rules in my mind. However, I enclose you some song-titles: "Drops Of Faith", "Sudden Outcome", "Deadmist", "On The Depths Of Purgatory" and so on. And what is more, there are lots of great solos, complex drumming and unique sounding of vocals. All this displays the high-skilled level of musicians. Order it straight away from TESSARACT or be cursed forever!

This is the third and the most successful demo by the Hungarian TESTIMONY. The band features Tom Forray on bass, Rudolf Török and László Kótai on guitars, Gábor Kerek on drums and László Bazsó on vocals. "Flaming" includes 5 well-composed melodic Death Metal tunes in the vein of swedish hordes as DARK TRANQUILLITY or IN FLAMES for instance. The guitars plays a dominant role on the whole material and that's great. There is No keyboardish shit at all. The first song "Waiting For Absolution" is a slow tune with various vocal harmonies and precise thoughtful drumming. The second one "Flaming" begins with cool bass lines and seems to me it's their best track on this demo though some parts in it brings me a sad and depressive feeling. I don't know why, maybe the musicians were in such a depressive mood when they composed it. The next track "Scars Of My Christ" is much faster and right after go over to the first notes of "Enigma" which is a short instrumental piece with cool acoustic passages. "Now And Forever" complete the tape which is another song with variable vocals. I deeply advise to check this stuff up for the fans of mid-paced melodic Death Metal.

Huh, TORTURED is another brutal Death Metal band hailing from Olney, USA. "Fucked From Birth" were performed by five musicians: Rottweiler - vocals, James - bass, Trey - drums, Nerses - lead guitar and Bob - rhythm guitar. This demo contains four well-crafted songs with amazingly crushing sound quality. In general, their music is very closer to the first two albums of CANNIBAL CORPSE mixed with some early KATAKLYSM influences. However, there are some original things in their repertory as the full speed ahead drumming and quite complex guitar riffing as well. Besides the title track I'd like to mention "Shackled" and "Confession" which are full of cool rhythm changes and worthy vocal parts. If you consider yourself Brutal Death Metal fan then I advise you to check this demo up! Now, the band preparing its new stuff which will be a full-length album and promises to be more TORTURED brutalness!!! There were also some changes in their line-up as well. And now TORTURED looks like a four-man band: Trey - drums, Erik - vocals (he was the very first vocalist in the band), Bob -guitar/backup vocals and Nerses - lead guitar.

Well, this is the third demo of slovakian UNCONCERN. The band features Jaro on vocals/bass, Palo on guitars/vocals, Rajo on guitars/vocals and Mravec on drums. They play kinda progressive Techno Death Metal with weird song-structures. The promo contains four songs in circa 11 minutes. The first two songs "Irrigation Of Stomach" and "Insufferable Dislike" are totally new ones which mostly jazz influenced Death tunes with lots of breaks and psychedelic inclusions. "Problem" and "Unconcern", which are actually from the period of 1992-1993, follows the tape with its more confused crazy passages, again with a lot of rhythm changes and complex drum parts which sometimes turn into hyper fast grinding madness. If you like the materials of CYNIC or ATHEIST it won't be a disappointment for you. Check it and you'll understand everything!

First of all, I would like to thank Todashi (Macabre Mementos Records) for sending me this cool stuff. VOMIT REMNANTS is a four-men death squad coming from Japan. The members of it are Ryo (bass), Shinjiroh (vocals), Takahiro (guitar/vocals) and Keisuke (drums). Man, it's a fucking brutal material! This three track demo kills well. Gut-ripping riffs, bloodsplashing growls which sometimes turn into crazy psychopathic screams, thumping bass lines and fast grinding drum parts - these are the ingradients VOMIT REMNANTS stands for. Interesting fact that Keisuke all the time plays his beats with a high accuracy. The riffs of Takahiro lent quite a brutal portion to VOMIT REMNANTS' style. His solos came as a thunderbolt from my loud-speakers. Also I've found some classical elements in his solos as well. To tell you the truth, I was totally paralysed by the high level of brutality these japanese guys doing in this circa 12 minutes long Death/Grind attack. Excellent sound. Total sonic destruction guaranteed! I deeply recommend for the fans of Brutal Death Metal to try to get your hands on this demo which will be released very soon (April'99) in CD format by the above mentioned Macabre Mementos Records.

Here I have to present you a surprisingly well-made debut demo of the russian WARHEAD. The quartet - Mike (bass/vocals), Dick (guitar), Ben (drums) and Misha (guitar) - plays technical Death Metal in the best form of it. Their 8-song material is overloaded by an incredible concentration of melodies and emotions, which creates a fantastic mix of straight & powerful Death Metal output together. What about the sound? It's great! Moreover, there are a bunch of cool solos and complex drum-parts there. The vocals mainly located in the interval of deep growls and what's more they're really well-executed. So without further loss of time I would say this stuff is worthy of note. However, I've found a few parts reminiscent of DEATH's "Human" album (of course, minus less of virtuosity). Check out WARHEAD's "The Realms Of Fancy" and you'll understand what I'm basically saying here.

Well, to tell you the truth, I don't expected such drastic changes after their promising debut demo "The Realms Of Fancy". They've lost the spirit of making good Death Metal tunes and started to do something totally different. These 12 new songs show a new face of WARHEAD and I don't like it at all. But to enlighten you some details, I can say they turned their music into more melodic yet Doom Metal-oriented cocktail. So forget the deep growls and brutal sound of guitars, because there are only clear vocals. Of course, you can find there a lot of acoustic guitar-parts, some keyboard backgrounds, but as for the riffing of guitarists they lost the energy they had on "The Realms...". I would say there's nothing interesting. All is left from the early days of WARHEAD are two songs from "The Realms…" demo, which were extremely changed and got a new interpretation here. To add some plus to them I must say the quality of the sound is excellent. So, if you like the type of music I circumscribed here get in touch with WARHEAD.

"Hate" is the third demo of WARHEAD up to date. It follows the line of their 2nd demo "The Various Views…". Here the line-up is the following: Michael Toburdanovsky - guitars, Eugene Makeev - bass/vocals, Dmitry Bersenev - drums. There are 8 songs in melodious Doom Metal way with a few Death/Thrash influences. Overall, the sound is O.K., even if the double-bass sounds a bit blunt in my view. Songs like "Last Hope", "Break" and "B.M. (Bogota Marazmus)" are quite melodic pieces, while "War" is their best track on this demo that includes a lot of fast drum parts and cool guitar-work. The vocals are not so brutal here but far better then they were on "The Various Views…" demo. There's also a great instrumental tune called "The Gale" featured. It shows the real talent and skills of WARHEAD's musicians. I wouldn't say this demo impressed me a lot, 'cause I know they are able to play more complex and brutal music instead of the stuff they doing now. Well, if you liked their second demo then it won't be a disappointment for you.