Poison (Ger) - "Into The Abyss" demo, 1987

Germany arguably did more than any other European country in the 1980s to push the boundaries of extreme music. Sodom's first demos in 1982 were an astoundingly raw and primitive form of musical bashing of which the like was unheard of in heavy metal at the time. Their masterpiece "In the Sign of Evil" would, along with Bathory's first album and Hellhammer's "Apocalyptic Raids" would define the first wave black metal sound. Playing right alongside them were equally as influential bands Destruction and Kreator with their own forms of primitive blackened thrash by way of "Sentence of Death" and "Endless Pain". The German thrash scene would grow into one of Europe's strongest scenes, producing a myriad of bands which on the whole were much heavier than their American counterparts. Orienting towards more of a death metal approach as opposed to the lighter, more mosh-pit oriented structures that plagued the American thrash scene of the late 80s, the Germans produced a wealth of bands which would stand the test of time.

Poison were one of the first thrash bands from Germany. Forming in 1982, the band started off playing a murky, barely listenable form of primitive music which was clearly inspired by Hellhammer. Mirroring the Swiss trio's mid-tempo riffs found more on the "Triumph of Death" and "Death Fiend" demos as opposed to the faster Discharge type songs found on "Apocalyptic Raids", Poison's first demo "Sons of Evil" had the right idea, but ultimately failed in execution. The admirable adoption of cool pseudonyms like "Virgin Slaughter", "Angel of Death", "Witchhammer" and "Incubus Demon", awesome simple song titles ("Black Death", "Reaper", "Demon"), and handdrawn cover artwork of the grim reaper are all signs of what is sure to be a killer recording. Unfortunately at this stage in the band's career, the songwriting skills were fairly clunky and the recording terrible is barely field recorder rehearsal quality, which makes the listening experience rather difficult. The second demo "Bestial Death" had much better sound quality, but the actual songwriting skills hadn't improved too much. "Awakening the Dead" followed in 1987, which was another step in the right direction. "Into the Abyss" came around in 1987, and by this point, the band had drastically changed for the better.

Containing only four tracks in over thirty two minutes, the band had largely scrapped their prior Hellhammer influences and went for a more epic and drawn-out approach to writing music. The riffs themselves were rather simple, but the songwriting had improved to make even the simplest riffs string together effortlessly, with various subtle touches in the forms of slight rhythmic changes, well-placed drum hits and angular guitar leads. The sound quality the band had on this recording had never been better; all the instruments are mixed well and heard perfectly, the guitar tone is extremely dark sounding.

Opening up with a classic line of "Into the abyss I fall..." (also used to open up Darkthrone's first album "Soulside Journey"), the song "Sphynx" nicely sets the tone for the entire recording. Very dark and occult sounding black metal. Poison adopted a rather Lovecraftian slant to their lyrics, and this carries over into the music as well. "Into the Abyss" is one of the few recordings I've heard that are able to truly capture the weird, otherworldly vibe of Lovecraft's writings. This odd atmosphere is one of the demo's strongest points, and is part of the reason why this has always been a cult record for as long as I've been listening to this kind of music.

For a while this recording was difficult to track down. The album was released on vinyl in 1993 (the cover shown on the right with the upside down cross made up of skulls incased in triangles - a very cool cover if you ask me), and since then has been bootlegged several times until the recent Iron Pegasus compilation "Further Down the Abyss", which includes "Into the Abyss" in its entirety, as well as several rehearsal, live and various other demo tracks. None of the previous three demos are included in their entirety, which is rather disappointing as I quite like the "Bestial Death" demo, but its not a huge loss considering how much better "Into the Abyss" is than the rest of their catalog.

Poison never really achieved the recognition that they deserved, and split up in 1987. "Virgin Slaughter" would later form the band R.U. Dead?, which aside from having one of the worst names of all time, carried on the Poison legacy through the 90s, moving in the same musical vein as "Into the Abyss" with varying degrees of musical success. Most of this material is compiled on the "Completely Dead" CD, and is certainly worth tracking down. "Into the Abyss", however, is an absolutely essential recording, which to me is the best metal to come out of Germany. While Kreator and Sodom were certainly much more influential in the long run, none of their works were as well composed or performed as Poison's masterpiece. A true classic.