Sweden’s STRANGULATION might be the closest sounding thing to the CANNIBAL CORPSE of “Butchered at Birth” we ever had from Scandinavia. At a first listen I would have catlogued the demo as just another American-inspired heavily “mosh” Death Metal, yet there are these heavy, rolling, cadenced, guitars and characteristic tempos which were main property of our Buffalo zombie heroes, saturated with gore and highly claustrophobic. Of all the bands playing today instead, none would possibly fit better than the American PUTRILAGE for comparison, being themseves more or less the continuation of the CANNIBALs Barnes era. Elgh from the band BUTCHERY appears as a session vocalist in the demo so I will better concentrate on songwriting only for the following review. We have here a huge, dense guitar sound (doesn’t sound like a demo at all) and constantly stopped riffs that just alternate between mid to slow tempos, with the occasional burst but still not overly fast, as if speed would damage the balance of heaviness of the entire music work. Despite we never get too fast, the music doesn’t drop to boring slam, however. For a demo, the packaging is really superb, I can’t understand if it’s some high resolution print or a professional booklet, in any case the artwork and layout for the Cd are real good, too. Technically ineccepible although doesn’t transmit too much energy. Should be ripe in an year or two.

 

Tracks (3): 1) Inhuman Autopsy 2) Merciless Strangulation 3) Carnage in Heaven