Dark Oasis are here to kick your ass with the supremely slept on ‘Lurking in the Darkness’ EP from 1997. Another quite short lived band with an excellent output, this is classic “meat and potatoes” early Death Metal with a ton of Thrash in its musical DNA. This band has some Massacre, Possessed & early-era Death mixed together for our consumption. This lost gem hails from the great music town of Chicago, Illinois. Add these guys to the long list of badass musicians who have left their mark on the world coming out up Chicago, good work boys. They had one earlier demo two years previously in 1995 entitled ‘Ode to the Dead’, which is sick as well and worth a listen in my books.
The production is pretty flat and thin but not terrible. This is very old school sounding material here down to the way the recording itself sounds with the bass sounding is rumbly and loud (love it) and the vocals are echoey and loud and have that classic cavernous reverb to them which sounds crisp here.
The drummer is sick, he has a good feeling for groove and a sense of when to use fills strategically. The drums have a flatness to the toms with some really splashy cymbals, very cool rhythm section that sounds perfect together. There’s lots of skank beats, blasts, guitar interplay lock in moments and rocking grooves that make you want to go hop into the nearest truck and go for a drive.
Guitars are sharp and jagged, chugging along with a certain venomous saunter. Some ice cold Death Metal tremolo riffs like on ‘Banished’ or ‘The God Scam’ which comes in with this huge head banging breakdown part before this outer space face melting solo from beyond, just tremendous stuff here. The aforementioned ‘Banished’ has strong main riffs with a bit of desperation and melodicism to them. That was a stand out for me it kept me coming back for relistens with that claustrophobic main riff and crashing middle section. It feels like a hallway closing in on you, really love that one.
Basically, fans of Possessed, Chile’s Atomic Aggressor, Ripping Corpse, Solstice, Demolition Hammer, this type of Death/Thrash, that halfway point between Thrash Metal and Old School Death will all love this material most likely. It’s about 65-70% Death Metal to Thrash component wise in my estimation. A short 22 minute ripper that’s worth checking out and then some.
