American ultra-primitive Death Metal giants Cianide are set to release a new album somewhere in the upcoming months, but before that they reissue their 1996 ‘Rage War’-demo tape through Caustic Cassette. No new material, but rather some sort of replica of the original demo tape from a quarter of a century ago.
All five songs also ended up on the ‘Death, Doom And Destruction’-LP from 1997, released by Merciless Records (and on CD by Lost Horizon Ltd.), so my guess would be that everyone into the band will be familiar with these songs. So why a reissues of an old-in-between-albums demo that has all the songs properly released already? Well, that answer is simple: because it is Cianide! Oh, and because these songs do sound rawer and louder than the album-recordings on these songs. This is a sound that suits Cianide like a glove. I am not saying that these versions are superior to the ones on the album, but the grooving Master and Hellhammer riffs certainly benefits from this rawer approach.
Listening back to these songs, clocking in just under 20 minutes, it is just impossible not to appreciate their ultimately stripped down, old school approach of Death Metal with all the right underground aesthetics. Ever since their inception in 1988, they have stayed true to their roots and refused to change their musical course in, not even just a little. With that, Cianide is one of those rare underground (Death) Metal gems and this demo tape is just one proof of that.
