Necromancy (USA) - "Cremation" demo, 1986

By 1986, the United States death metal scene had started to take a definite shape. In the two years after Possessed's landmark "Death Metal" demo, over 100 death metal recordings had come from the United States alone. While this volume is relatively high, the style was still firmly cemented in the underground; many of these early death metal bands had only released demos, a handful released 7"s and only a select few released LPs. Thrash was barely catching the attention of mainstream metal media, and the death metal bands were making waves only in the eyes of tape traders and fanzines run by people that had the "right" idea of this kind of music. With all these factors considered, its not that difficult to see how some bands would get lost in the shuffle, especially a band like Necromancy who was only active during the period of one year.

Also known as Necromansy, "Cremation" is their second demo and shows a vast improvement over their first output. While their first demo, also from 1986, was fairly decent, it suffered from slightly poor production, unfocused playing, and weak vocals. In many cases I don't mind a rawer production and loose playing, but the band's performance on this demo was more indicative of a young band trying to find their sound as opposed to a group of maniacs channeling wild and untamed raw energy.

Containing three songs, "Cremation" reprises one song from the first demo ("Submit to Torture", arguably their best song), as well as two others. Musically this straddles the line between first wave death metal and the heavier thrash at the time. Like many of the other death metal demos from this period, it doesn't have a clear edge which firmly pushes it into one genre or the other, but instead encompasses both at the same time. This isn't particularly complex music, but contains rather smart songwriting; the band has a good sense of flow and doesn't rely on repeating riffs for longer than they are welcome. Vocals are somewhat atypical for the music of the time, as they come in the form of hoarse shouts as opposed to growling or a raspy snarl. The production is clean and heavy and compliments the vocals quite well; fans of heavier thrash bands like Demolition Hammer or Prime Evil would probably find a lot of similarities here.

The only real problem with this demo is its length. The three songs on here are excellent yet short, and merely whet the listener's appetite. Necromancy show an enormous amount of potential on this recording and its a shame that they didn't get a chance to record more material. As it stands, this is a great yet brief document of American death/thrash. The delivery and atmosphere of the music isn't nearly as dark or evil as some of their contemporaries, but anyone looking for catchy and heavy music will not be disappointed with the three tracks contained within this demo.