Finland’s Demilich were an important name during the earliest nineties. Their demo tapes got distributed all over Europe and abroad, and in 1993, Necropolis released the band’s debut full studio recording, Nespithe. This album has been re-issued a couple of times in the past, both officially and bootlegged, by the way. The band broke up a little later, and reformed in 2005 for a couple of months. Nevertheless, MDD decided to re-issue this stuff once more, with 1991’s demo The Four Instructive Tales Of Decomposition as bonus again, and with new artwork.
Nespithe brought / brings a technical form of Death Metal with, evidently, an approach that is very ‘early nineties’. Like many other bands from Finland back then, and this in contradiction to many colleagues from Sweden and Norway (and the rest of Mater Terra), the sound is little sludgy and grinding. This is one of the many eccentric elements that did characterise Demilich. What to think about the gurgling gutter-guttural growls? Or the lyrics / titles (!!!)? Or the progressive undertone, which wasn’t that common back then?... Seriously, this album was a milestone, an experience, a case apart, though still maintaining the purest essence of Old School Death Metal in all its glory.
Translated into a 21st-century’s point of view, such an album can still be considered ‘unique’. Throughout the past decades, there aren’t that many bands that succeeded to reach the same intensity and approach Demilich did more than twenty years ago. But a record like this one must be one of the main reasons to not-dislike the ever-growing scene (the first half of the nineties brought some over-consumption, unfortunately).
[Note: former Demilich band leader Antti Boman is nowadays known from Jess and the Ancient Ones and Winterwolf especially.]