During the second half of the 80’s Terrorizer, along with peers like Repulsion, Carcass and Napalm Death propelled extreme music into whole new levels extremity by pushing the boundaries that were thought to be impossible to break. With fast and hooky punk riffs, insane speed and barking vocals these bands brought something completely different.
Carcass’ ‘Reek Of Putrefaction’, Repulsion’s ‘Horrified’, Napalm Death’s ‘Scum’ and Terrorizer’s ‘World Downfall’ are all genre-defining classics that belong to every metal fan’s starting gear. But before those iconic debut albums, all were frantically demoing around and these recordings were tape traded all over the globe by an ever growing following. All these demo and rehearsal tapes found their way to both Hardcore Punk kids and metal fan’s and many of those recordings also found their way to various bootlegs.
So is the case with this Terrorizer demo from 1987. This demo appeared on many a bootleg LP over the past years and six out of seven tracks even ended up being re-recorded for the monumental debut LP in 1989 (Earache Records). So, one could argue about the necessity of re-releasing these tracks again, sure. But I think these tracks always deserves the attention they can get, so, why not give them a stand-alone 10” EP release in this 10 Inches Of Deathcult series. And with all due respect… who needs ‘Darker Days Ahead’ or ‘Hordes Of Zombies’ when you can also blast these songs?
Musically there is not much that can be said that wasn’t said (or written) already. The main difference with the songs that appeared on ‘World Downfall’ and we all know so well, is that there’s more of a Punk feeling to them in these demo recordings. These early incarnation have more in common with 80’s Punk/Hardcore/Grindcore than it has with metal, while ‘World Downfall’ has a darker and very solid Morrissound metal punch to it.
To me it is not choosing which version you like best, for that is total nonsense, but this short ride on two sides of this 10” EP gives you a nice throwback to the 80’s scene where extreme music was just extreme music, without much boundaries. You were into Suicidal Tendencies, Napalm Death, S.O.B., Carcass, D.R.I., Necrophagia, Possessed, Massacre, Morbid Angel and Entombed just because they were great bands. And to me that still very much counts, even today.
