Cursed Penetrator – Demo II 2023 [Demo / Re-Release]

Early 2024 I reviewed Cursed Penetrator’s first digital demo, a solid and entertaining exercise of primal and rotten First Wave Black Metal, pretty much in the vein of early Mystifier, Necromantia and Profanatica. At the time of writing it was unclear who was actually behind the band, I had my suspicion of the guilty ones and now that we are almost a year on the identity of the duo behind the band is revealed. It turned out that Niko “Behemoth” Thomasson (primarily known for his work in Aske, Kurnugia and Azazel) is indeed 50% of this project of unclean and unpure Black/Noise worship.

Although this demo, as the title suggests, must have been released in 2023, I never saw it surfacing anywhere. So, either it was intended to be released last year or it actually was and was only distributed in a very small circle. Whatever the case, Unpure Records from Poland, a label that’s always up for some raw and unpolished stuff, decided to give this a proper physical release – albeit only released in 33 copies.

Compared to the first demo, ‘Satanic Slaughter’, this new one sounds much less like old Necromantia or Barathrum. That hypnotizing sort of heavy use of bass guitar is still there, but has been tucked much deeper into the gritty and muffled sound of this second demo. ‘Demo II 2023’ definitely finds itself much more into the Black/Noise territories, as mentioned mainly to the extremely rough and grainy production, but once your ears are used to the sonic terror, you can actually hear that the songs itself are even more primitive as well. It is still very bass-heavy and therefore reflect much of the rawest recordings of early Profanatica, so although the accents and details might have changed a bit over the course of these two demos, it is still very much only for the seasoned connoisseur of truly noisy and depraved dark arts.