Demonic Slaughter - Cold Disease of Reality

Release Date: June 9th, 2009
Label: Death Dealers Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Beginning
2.  Reclaming Old Truth
3.  God of Nuclear Void
4.  Confessions of Wounds
5.  Monument of Nature and Will
6.  Between the Walls of Madness
7.  Nonexistence Splendor
8.  ...Of War Religion and Genocide
9.  Antireligious Manifesto
10.  The Cold
11.  Eternal Fall
12.  As Flittermice as Satans Spys
       (Darkthrone cover)

Total playing time:  48:22

April 24, 2010

Reviewer: Kesh

Poland isn't exactly known for having anything cute and cuddly come out from its borders. Perhaps much of it has to do with the harsh history the country has, especially during its time behind the Iron Curtain. And, no wonder, Poland is possibly best known (at least musically) for producing some of the harshest sounding bands in metal today, with bands like Vader and Behemoth blazing the trails for young bands like Demonic Slaughter to unleash their black terror onto the world.

On first listen of the disc, you might think that you are getting a violently hardcore band like their fellow country men, but after another listen or two, you’ll start to feel a little let down because of the lack of brutality in the music. It’s good, just not good enough to stick around in your head for very long, fading off into memory as the disc ends and you go on with the rest of you life, indifferent to whether you ever hear the track again.

Cold Disease of Reality is the first offering from Demonic Slaughter and it falls somewhere between Beherit's Engram and Behemoth’s Evangelion, with a touch of Dimmu Borgir around the edges (if you can come up with a better description, I’m happy to hear your suggestions!). The band comes off as a little more mainstream than I think they were intending. While the album is well written and produced, it comes off as being very uninspired and almost flat in some places and full and powerful in others. It is almost as if they were depressive black metal at one point and then changed their minds and decided to tackle more popular topics like evil and nihilism.

The two tracks that stand out the most are “Nonexistence Splendor,” where the band truly stands out with their own sound, and “As Flittermice As Satans Spys” which is written similarly to “Nonexistence” and is again, the band finding themselves on the disc. Each song you hear on the album that falls between “Nonexistence Splendor” and the Darkthrone cover “As Flittermice As Satans Spys” are much better than anything else you will find on the first half of Cold Disease of Reality. This alone fact alone makes the album worth the purchase because those songs are good. I would also like to add that “As Flittermice As Satans Spys” is excellently covered and played, bringing justice to the original Darkthrone version. The sad part is that Demonic Slaughter do much better on a cover song than they do virtually the entire album. Not a good thing considering this is their first full release.

Vocally, Xaos Oblivion - lead vocals and guitars - has his best performance on the album with the track “Antireligous Manifesto.” While the guitars are their best on “Monument Of Nature And Will.” Bassist Perversor and drummer W are pretty consistent through out the album, a good thing because their performance keeps the album going.

Overall, I wouldn’t say the album is horrible or bad, but it’s not the best debut album ever either. I think that there is a lot of growth potential for Demonic Slaughter in the future if they do more of what they did on the second half of the album (sans the cover), and discard the first half of the album entirely. If you wanted to categorize these guys, I’d put them on your future watch list. It might be worth the time.

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