Last year, Indiana’s Demiricous burst on the scene with their debut, (One) Hellbound, a thrash homage in a sea of metalcore and rockstars, and while not my personal cup of thrash tea, I can appreciate the follow up, (Two) Poverty, for what it is: an ode to the Bay Area Thrash scene with a little more bite and a heavy dash of Slayer.
Where as a thrash band like say Cerberus or Skeletonwitch injects some other, melodeath influences into their sound, Demiricous is pure thrash, thrash with a modern edge and though not as continually high octane as say Dew-Scented, their overall sheen, polish and modern, steely veneer to a classic sound is comparable. The tight production, the mix of razor sharp defined, classic thrash riffing and slow burning, rumbling riffs all glosses with Nathan Olp’s heavily Tom Araya influenced (just listen to “Tusk and Claw”) shout makes for a nostalgic listen that will make you wear skin tight, stone washed jeans, big white sneakers and a grow a huge curly mullet.
The thing is at times, (Two) Poverty sounds like such a homage, it loses some of it’s individuality and could at times be construed as almost a cover album its such a well parleyed ode to the classic thrash of the 80’s. You’d be forgiven if you were thinking that you were listening to the illegitimate love child of Testament (“Never Enough Said”, “Knuckle Eye”, “Language of Oblivion”) and Slayer, (“Engineer”, “Expression of Immunity to God”)-a great idea in concept but in practice why settle for a mimic, when we already have numerous classic albums by the parents? Only lengthy closing intrumental “Blackish Silver” retains any sort of non homage character, delivering a more droning and sluggish, crawling number that’s more Pantera than the more classic sound of the other 10 tracks.
Still though, the thrash revival appears to be in full swing as bands like Evile, Ultimatum and the larger profile Demiricous are spearheading the movement with gusto and a respectable delivery of some classically inspired metal that’s a welcome break from breakdowns and pig squeals.
