Saturday, August 13, 2011

Review : Clandestine (Pol) - Clandestine demo 1994



In most places across the internet, Clandestine is described as a Melodic Death Metal band. According to Metal-archives, Clandestine have 3 demos released across 3 years. The Melodic Death Metal tag is partly correct, as the band plays a groovy and slightly variety of Death Metal, but those influences don't overshadow their general sound, which is essentially old school Death Metal.



This 1994 demo contains 4 songs, all titled in Polish, so it is obvious that the lyrics are in Polish as well. Nonetheless, the tape rip I found over at RAF666Underground blog also included a scan of the lyrics sheet that confirms this. The music played by the band is generally mid-paced Death Metal with speed/thrash like grooves and occasional bursts of speed that may sometimes reach frenzied levels heard in most Death/Thrash. But this is no Death/Thrash Metal release. The band uses eerie and sometimes melancholic melodies (and hence the melodic tag) to create a strange crypt-like - yet spacious or open - atmosphere. The demo is plagued by bad production and the guitars sound too silent in the mix compared to the drums, bass and especially the vocals. Yet, they are sufficiently loud to make out the riffing, which is honestly nothing new or unique, despite having a catchy groove to most of them. An exception to this is the last track titled Niepojety, which has a slightly epic feel to it. Similarly, all other elements of the music follow the general formula employed by Death Metal bands from early 90s, which is not a bad thing at all, but don't look for any kind of innovation here. The demo is sufficiently long at 23 minutes, and although good, it isn't interesting enough for me to give it another listen immediately.

Overall, a good demo that deserves a couple of listen and definitely something you might want if you are into demos. Don't look for anything new here, as this is standard stuff, but if you enjoy old school Death Metal, you will certainly enjoy this.

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=05XUYO1S

No comments:

Post a Comment