There’s something about death metal demos that is incredibly refreshing. Perhaps it’s having the rare opportunity to glimpse a band before they’ve fully formed their identity, or perhaps it’s because you’re hearing them at their most elemental – without the studio trappings that came with success. Whatever it is, I have always been a sucker for such packages, whether it’s Paradise Lost’s thrillingly bleak Drown With Darkness or Autopsy’s Critical Madness (although one could argue the latter never really left their demo sound behind), and so this reissue from Polish death metal legends Decapitated was high on my purchase list. First released via Polish label Metal Mind back in the year 2000, The First Damned gathers together two sessions – The Eye Of Horus from 1998 and Cemeteral Gardens from 1997. The running order here is subtly changed, with the intro to Cemeteral Gardens restored, and two bonus live tracks omitted, but this works in the band’s favour, as the demos flow very nicely and benefit little from having live extras tacked onto the end. There’s also new cover art, which better reflects the material than the more colourful cover than adorned the original.
Opening with the 1998 Eye Of Horus session, a brief Intro does little other than provide nineteen seconds of noise before the band engage in a little aural trepanning with the lengthy title track. Instrumentally impressive, it’s a tightly-wound mix of blast beats, proto-thrash riffing and guttural grunts. While raw, the band’s demos are surprisingly well-produced, meaning that the band’s well-documented instrumental prowess was laid bare from the start. Next up, Blessed offers up some dizzying lead salvos from Waclaw “Vogg” Kieltkya, while Witold “Vitek” Kieltyka’s percussion is truly a thing to behold. He remains a tragic loss to the metal community, and these tracks offer fine testimony as to his immense skill. The First Damned, from which the set takes its name, sees the aptly named Sauron (Wojciech Wasowicz) shredding his larynx over an impressive backdrop that recalls the neo-classical excursions of Emperor at points. The dense Nine Steps maintains the high standard of musicianship but lacks the diversity of the other tracks on offer. However, the short synth piece Danse Macabre brings in a horror influence that segues neatly into a suitably necrotic cover of Slayer’s Mandatory Suicide (more or less a death metal “how to” in song form) that brings the first demo to an end.
Kicking off with a two-minute intro, Cemeteral Gates is rather more in thrall to thrash than The Eye Of Horus, the treble-heavy guitars of Destiny doing a good job of aping early Slayer. Nevertheless, with Sauran’s demonic growl, Decapitated were already taking their material to a darker place, and the instrumental prowess of the band, while perhaps not as fully formed as on Eye… is still devastatingly tight. Next up, Way To Salvation adds some Children of Bodom-esque synth into the mix, further adding to the notion that the band were keen to break out of the mould from the very beginning, and while these elements are fleeting, they nevertheless showcase a band trying to do things their way. It’s followed by the superfast, super-tight, Ereshkigal, which is an impressive display of technical ecstasy building to a devastating climax. Rounding out the demo, and the disc, Cemeteral Gardens is the longest track on offer here, and the band make good use of the six-minute run-time, demonstrating the same flair that was to come to fruition a year later on The Eye Of Horus. Few bands can show such sustained growth, but when you consider that, just two years later, the band would be signed to Earache for The Winds Of Creation it is clear that Decapitated had the ambition, the determination and skill to succeed in a field in which many fall by the wayside.
The First Damned is a must, both for death metal fans in general and for Decapitated fans in particular. With both mix and master left intact, this is a beautifully warts ‘n’ all rendering of the band’s formative years and a snapshot of just how technically capable the band were right from the off. 9.5/10
