Demonic Slaughter
Haunted

Is it a haunted house the feature on the cover of this new album? This band that calls themselves Demonic Slaughter is a very underground band and they have just released their fifth album. The second I review by the band and for the second time when I review them they have a house on the cover. Maybe they are tired of sitting outside the stores begging for change, it is quite tough to try and live on the traditional black metal stuff as the five fans of the genre don’t usually buy any more than one album a piece. The sales pitch of saying that it is raw black metal of the traditional kind is a bit of a “keep away”-sign rather than something that attracts any buyer. They say that it is grim, menacing, cold and raw sounding like that would be something positive and they also say that they use no triggers and digital lies for this recording and at the same time they have the same guy playing both guitar and bass – can you really play both those instruments at the same time?

In sound it is your classical cave production with the sound of wind blowing through the caves, the sound of the creaking of the trees outside the cave and the moist sound of murky instruments and microphones. It sounds cheap and it sound bad even though some people who are into the genre thinks it sound a bit modern in production – I wonder what prompted such an idea. This album has nine tracks just like the previous album I reviewed by this band it has nine tracks and if the titles had not been written on the cover it would have been impossible to know the titles of the songs as it is impossible to hear any word or letter this vocalist grunts out of himself. It sounds kind of like your everyday traditional old-school black metal band, nothing really different about that.

The label says: “Haunted recalls the true glory of the Norwegian scene early sounds, in short - it's grim, menacing, cold, raw sounding and well- executed.” – they are lying. I just don’t understand what the point of this kind of stuff is, I mean it has already been done to death and hell and back to life and back to death again – so what’s the point? It is not like it is good. And the thing is that these guys has already done this album, it was named Revelations of Death and the only difference between this one and that one is the title and the title of the songs – the cover is also different but in sound and all of that it is the same album. I ask again: what is the point?

Nine tracks, nine boring tracks devoid of anything interesting – that is what this album is. I guess that it is probably appealing to the fans of the genre but none other than them, the lack of quality, creativity and the similitude towards what has already been done has put me completely off. Haunted is as aforementioned an album for the ones initiated in this genre, which means that they will sell about five albums. The rest of us will destroy the album on sight; the best way to use it is to burn it for heat in the cold winter months – listening to it is not even an option.

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