Label: Apostasy Records
Release date: March 21st, 2025
Here’s the newest, seventh, released March 21st by Apostasy Records full-length of a Bavarian ensemble who were founded 1998 in a little, around six and a half thousands inhabitants, town called Neumarkt-Sankt Veit. Well, actually Soul Demise is a continuation of the band born in 1993 whose name was Inhuman. Yeah, the fact is that at the moment only guitarist and backing vocalist Andreas is the one who connects these two creations. But in fact, the very first line-up was the same as the one who decided to change the name of the ensemble. The reason for this, although it’s only my assumption, is that changes in music guys created. I mean, they put there more melody, even if in general that’s the same shit which calls death metal.
“Against the Abbys” contains twelve tracks mentioned before sub-genre of our beloved music style. As I wrote there’s a huge element of melody there. And I feel this is what’s very, maybe even the most, important thing for guys. Of course, you can find some brutality here, but this is still, let’s call it, somehow hidden. The consequence is other vocalizations. That’s growling as well, but from time to time it becomes almost clean singing – or to put it more correctly something between growling and clean vocals. I hope you know what I mean. Anyway, if you don’t do it, listen to some legendary Gothenburg old-school legends, especially their new, I mean these from the last decade or so, releases and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
To be honest, also in music itself I can hear a huge fascination with such creativity. I don’t think I need to go into the details here, because we all know what the Gothenburg school of playing death metal. We all know, melody is created by guitars and accurate vocals, there’s a lot of several guitar tricks, drumming is variable, tempo the middle one and so on. I know it’d make my scribble longer and maybe even more informative. But instead of writing about all this, going into detailed analysis, etc., I’ll only say that the common concept of Soul Demise’s logo absolutely isn’t an accident or even coincidence. I mean, it’s enough to look at this to know what kind of music you’ll be able to listen to after putting “start” on your cassette-, vinyl-, CD- recorder or even virtual one (two first versions, cassette and 12” vinyl, are limited). And your intuition, exactly like mine, will not twist your mind. Well, honestly, I could, with as clean as fuck soul, end this review right here, because my last sentence says everything you need know before making decision if you should spend your money on “Against the Abyss” or don’t do it, I guess. I, of course, recommend you choose this first option and do it from the bottom of my black heart and dark soul!
I mean, everyone who likes Gothenburg sound in death metal should have this stuff – in what format you only wish. Believe me or don’t do it, but, every entire copy sold, regardless of whether it be physical or digital (this version is released by the ensemble itself), means a lot both for the band and label, giving them a huge kick of motivation to even harder work and stuff! By the way, what I think I forgot to inform you about, guys except these seven albums released also some other releases and they participated in almost never-ending number of compilations as well. “Against the Abyss” is a solid piece of melodic death metal, probably you could find some better items among representatives of this genre, but I’m also sure, even if I prefer this, let’s call it, classic and more brutal kind of death metal with deeper growling, people who’re sitting deep into such creativity could find many worse releases. As far as I know, I believe that guys stick to the framework of the genre, but at the same time you can see, or rather hear, that they’re thinking during the process of creating their music. I’ll surely return to this stuff from time to time!
