On November 4th 2013, MDD Records re-released Demilich’s grandiose 1993-album Nespithe. I’d like to refer to the review I did for this re-issue, which was posted on February 8th 2014, for a (short) history of the band.
…brings me to 20th Adversary Of Emptiness, a boxed LP/CD-set which includes that original album too. But 20th Adversary Of Emptiness is a complete discography, including the demonstrational material the band did in the past as well. It consists of two parts (on vinyl or CD). The first disc / long player brings the Nespithe-album, the second one (CD or double-LP) the stuff taken from the original demos.
When it comes to the first part (LP1 / CD1), Nespithe, I am about to use an excerpt from the review I did a couple of months ago; it’s what follows right now: 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).
The second section (CD2 / LP2&3) of this anthology consists of material that, for the bigger part, was foreseen to be released officially through a decent label, but unfortunately the band had never been able to do it a proper way. Thanks to Svart Records, Demilich’s unique efforts will finally be made available for the obeisant audience. It opens with Em9t2ness Of Van2s1ing, consisting of the demos tapes The Four Instructive Tales …Of Decomposition (July 1991; recorded and mixed by Heikki Peltonen; it was part of some former re-issues too, such as the MDD-edition I referred to above) and …Somewhere Inside The Bowels Of Endlessness… (May 1992, recorded and mixed by Sami Jamsén, who re-mastered the whole compilation at his famous Perkele Studio during the second half of 2013). Both demos are strongly comparable to the album (many tracks were on Nespithe), and the sound too is comparable, i.e. roughly unpolished, brutally sharpened and destructively pounding.
The second part of disc 2, or the third LP, consists of the 1992-demo The Echo (originally recorded and mixed once again by Sami Jamsén, who worked with great band like Deathbound and Deathchain, Barathrum, Shade Empire, Calvarium, Trollheims Grott a.o. before), as well as three reworked versions from older songs, done in 2006 (the band reformed for a short time around that period) and finished last year for this compilation specifically, and the sole (instrumental) track from the first demo, Regurgitation Of Blood. The Echo is, once again, very much in the vein of the other stuff, but since this material is of an exceptionally high quality, one cannot but appreciate these filthy tunes of old schooled death-morbidity. And the 2006-versions from the past, well, they do sound like they had been recorded fifteen years earlier. This goes for the musical approach, as well as for the production! …which is just nice!
The score is the same as the one I gave on the former review (cf. February 8th earlier this year) plus one for this compilation is a complete anthology with nothing but splendid stuff.