The exact purpose of this demo is unclear to me, the Californian based VoidCeremony already released their debut album ‘Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel’ in 2017 through the same label, 20 Buck Spin, after having released three EP’s through Blood Harvest. It seems that they are still signed to 20 Buck Spin, so a real ‘demo’ should not be really necessary, so maybe we should consider this more of a promo tape for future releases, or maybe as another EP, even.
Their technical and more or less unorthodox take on the Death Metal genre was already present on the ‘Dystheism’ demo tape from 2014, which was released as a 7” by Blood Harvest in the same year. So, with that in mind, not too much has changed in the band’s initial musical recipe, yet they have managed to refine and perfect it, pushing it to a (much) higher level. VoidCeremony’s debut album was reviewed on our pages and at its first line it already gave away what to expect: “Death, Dissection, Iron Maiden, Demilich, Morbid Angel and many other things in one album, sometimes 1 song? Well, this is VoidCeremony!”
On these three songs, clocking under the 10 minute mark, this is still pretty much the case. Maybe omitting the Dissection and Iron Maiden parts, but the Demilich, Death and Morbid Angel bits are still very much around. In fact, the emphasis seems to be even more on that progressive and technical brand of Death Metal on these recordings. Listening to these songs, it might not surprise that the ever-creative and illusive Damon Good has joined the band (after having played the fretless bass on the band’s debut album as guest musician). Damon Good pushed his own bands Mournful Congregation, Cauldron Black Ram and StarGazer to unprecedented heights, both in musicianship as well as in song writing.
This 3-tracker is definitely another step up, though sounding a little rougher, from the album and is really watering the mouth. You just have to love the (slower) Azagthothian leads, the amazing bass lines and extraordinary dynamics, it all just works perfectly and blends into some of the most intense tracks in the genre.
