Armoured Angel (Aus) - "Communion" demo, 1990

The Australian metal scene, especially in the mid-late 80s was a rather small but strong group of bands. The death and thrash metal scenes started rather early with excellent bands like Slaughter Lord and Sadistik Exekeution cutting a few influential demos in 1986 and 1987. Armoured Angel, while predating both bands, started off as a fairly straight forward speed metal band. Their first cult demo, "Baptized in Blood" came in 1985, and for the rest of the decade the band was largely silent. In the four year span between "Baptized in Blood", and their second demo, "Wings of Death", the band changed some members and took on a more death metal approach. Though a far cry from the insanity that bands like Martire and Sadistik Exekution were doing around the time, "Wings of Death" was a very raw and nasty piece of death metal that would have fit in nicely with the American first wave.

"Communion", the bands third demo, is very much in the same style as "Wings of Death". Rather basically structured death metal, but with a huge emphasis on the riffing. These songs are extremely well written and catchy, and have a similar, almost rockish, approach to riffing style that bears some similarities to albums like Slaughter's "Strappado" or Celtic Frost's "Morbid Tales". These riffs are eccentuated by simplistic, yet well timed percussion. The drummer knows which objects to hit at the right times and in particular does some excellent cymbal work which greatly livens the pace of the demo. In the time between this recording and "Wings of Death" the band had musically tightened up a lot; even though the two recordings aren't very dissimilar in terms of style and approach, "Communion" is a much more focused and tighter assault and for this style of music works much better than "Wings of Death". Vocals are delivered in a manner that isn't exactly a harsh death metal growl, but neither is cleanly sung, instead falling somewhere in between. I get the feeling if Lemmy were more into death metal and had a thick Australian accent, he might sound somewhat like this.

The band's sound would tighten up even more for the following releases, and while aesthetically they became much heavier, they lost some of the energy present on this recording. While "Communion" is a lot tighter than "Wings of Death", it still retains somewhat of a feeling of musical looseness and youthful energy. Not to say that the later material is bad, far from it in fact, but this remains my favorite recording by them and one of the best recordings to come out of Australia.

Due to the nice balance of a somewhat rawer sound and more focused musicianship, this should appeal to both fans of raw death metal and the more polished bands that were becoming popular at the time. The flow and composition is excellent, and when I first heard this recording, the four songs on here couldn't leave my head for days, thick Australian accent and all. From what I can understand, there is some conflict between the members of the band that played on the "Wings of Death" and "Communion" demos and the two following EPs, so it is unlikely that this material will ever see a legitimate reissue on CD or vinyl, which is disappointing considering how good it is. Highly recommended.