In the annals of Death Metal history, demos are the foundation of all the great, known and unknown bands of the classic era. Each Metal band, especially in Death and Black Metal, demos are always something that gets the mandatory nods from all the die hard and passionate followers and maniacs all around for their role in setting the roots of these genres deep and eternally etched in history. It surely never stops to astonish that their unique sound, themes, visuals, originality and authenticity in musicianship keeps on puzzling our ears, heart and souls; no matter how many times they get played and rotated! I must confess that, among the lists of many great and essential demos, it still gets bamboozled by discovering demos I somehow missed out, not because they are not popular or not getting enough mentions, but to me it surely tied to some mysterious blessings of getting exposed and discovering something unknown or unheard off. As it always gave me away the similar feeling of walking and wandering around some large old bookshops and its dusty shelves in corners and finding unknown but interesting and essential books and writers.
Eulogy ‘Dismal’ demo is one of those examples again. Eulogy does not come in the top or most beloved Death Metal names from Florida. So, when I was listening to this demo, and getting stricken by its aggressive Floridian sound with the empowering vocal of Monstrosity famed Jason Avery; I found it astonishing that they released this as a demo and it remained so underrated in their over three decades of existence! Metal Archives says, ‘Dismal’ was the debut demo of Eulogy, which was released independently back in 1992 as a pro printed color cassette with five panel cover with a small sticker on a side including red xeroxed foldout lyric sheet. It holds the lineup of Jason Avery on Vocals, Jarrett Pritchar on Guitars, James Medina on Guitars, Michael Bearden on Bass, Clayton Gore on Drums. It was engineered, recorded & mixed Nov. 1992 at Morrisound Studios, Tampa, Florida and was also co-produced by Eulogy. Likewise, all classic demos do, initially they struck with their artwork.
As in ‘Dismal’, at the very first impression of the very minimalistic cover art in tape, it appears to be an album or poster style work in a dark fantasy horror style presented in classic black and white. The band logo is rendered in a dripping, blood like font almost like the Bathory logo in blood! The cover art features skeletal figures, ribcages, and praying hands emerging from an open relic like book in deadly ruins, topped with a multi headed, horned beast or deity. To the left, a prominent three headed goat or demonic beast figure with glowing red eyes and gold nose rings almost upheld the eulogy logo in its entirety. This netherlandish shaped entity establishes a theme of occultism and underworld power, so explicitly expressed in its high contrast, black and white stipple and line work style, perfectly characteristic of the DIY style demo tape culture of the early 1990s.
Reflecting what it really means gives more shocks ahead, as soon as the record began with the opener ‘Dismal’, and fell rapidly into ‘Perish the Screams’, only to abruptly ended with ‘Chained Are Their Souls’ in just 12 minutes. Like recalling ‘Slowly We Rot’ era brutality, but in more speed and authenticity that demands volume cranked to skull crushing levels. It’s brutal, filthy sound with some mind-blowing clarity that comes with raw dark edges, leaves ears hungry for many repeats. This sounds very close to what is seen in the cover artwork. As reflected in just three compositions’ here, not only the tonality of Jarrett Pritchard and Medina’s Guitars which superbly held the sound and atmosphere of that era US Death Metal, so is their deadly surgical riffing techniques that sounds insane and dark without being played all over the place. This suitably completes the brilliance of Avery vocal delivery, and Clayton’s drums, and make these three tracks compatible anytime with the very best in the genre.
With few rapid repeats of the demo, it surely gets quite astonishing how Jason Avery’s vocals dominate the whole record in some monstrous way! Undoubtedly this shaped his way of deliverance in later works, such as the 1999 Monstrosity classic, ‘In Dark Purity’. Avery’s maniacal variation in the gutturals, and ability to throw with robust and razor sharpness combined with the resonance of his grunts, surely felt as if he was going through some merciless landscape in ruin during the take. The filth ridden yet awesomely organic output of the production should amaze any ears considering this was a demo. It surely got more strengths with the band also taking part in producing. Together they were able to expose the inner strength of this demo in some lethal best of dynamic ranges. I can vouch that due to that, this demo sounds far more powerful than many well produced albums in a modern studio. Again, this is not unexpected from the infamous and history ridden Morrisound Recording Studio production standard. All heads are aware of the amazing Morris brothers responsible for producing many classic Death Metal albums from the ’80s onward, who shaped and strengthened the genre and are now rightfully considered landmarks of that death metal style that influenced the evolution of Death Metal sound. The Eulogy demo belongs to that list, in a high spot.
With the insanely impressive yet minimalistic artwork drawn by ‘Cutter Nightbreed Tatoos’, this debut demo from Eulogy is a sticky, sweat drenched short but enough slab of Death Metal relic that should belong in every tape trader’s collection and shall be spined and repeated with all other classic demos. It been already 10 years, since this demo was released as a very limited-edition compilation named ‘The Essence / Dismal’ (Reissued/Rereleased/Remastered/Remixed by Dark Symphonies and The Crypt label in 2016), ‘Dismal’ from 1992 deserved a proper single demo re-release, which will further spread the unknown, unshared but essential history of Eulogy.
