DYSENTERY (DEMO)

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"Dysentery" is the first demo cassette tape released by Dutch death/thrash metal act Pestilence. The demo was self-released in early 1987. Pestilence was formed in 1986 and on this release consists of Patrick Mameli (guitar, bass, vocals), Randy Meinhard (guitar), and Marco Foddis (drums).

Stylistically the music on "Dysentery" is raw thrash metal influenced by "Hell Awaits (1985"-era Slayer and artists like Sodom and Kreator. Patrick Mameli has a fairly raw voice and delivery, the riffs are simple and predominantly fast-paced, and the drums follow suit. So this is still pretty classic old school thrash metal and there are only very few hints of the death metal style they would soon turn to. The 4 tracks on the 17:24 minutes long demo are all decently written, but nothing out of the ordinary compared to the best output in the genre, and the material does sound a little old fashioned for a 1987 release. It´s quite obivous that Pestilence had not yet found a sound of their own at this point. The lack of an original sound is a bit of an issue to my ears, as Pestilence does come off as pale imitation of their influences.

The sound production is alright considering that "Dysentery" is a raw thrash metal demo from 1987. Again nothing out of the ordinary but definitely decent in quality. The musicianship is a bit unpolished and at times slightly untight but that´s to be expected. So upon conclusion "Dysentery" is a fairly good quality first release by Pestilence. There´s nothing here which would suggest that they would go through an almost explosive development in sound and style over the next decade, but a 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is still warranted for a solid first effort.

Raw and unfettered Dutch thrash masters PESTILENCE hit the ground running in 1986 and recorded a couple demos and caught the attention of Roadrunner Records. DYSTENTERY is the first of these demos. Up to date only Patrick Mameli (guitar and vocals sometimes) has been in the band telling me that this is his creation and for better and worse has continued on throughout the thrash history of the last few decades. DYSENTERY is a fast and furious brutal thrash release from the era. It incorporates the speed demon worship of Possessed and a dirty hellish sound of early Sepultura. There is also the inevitable thrash influences from early Metallica in the riff department. I'm also detecting a rather early Exodus vocal delivery system.

Unfortunately i became acquainted with the magic world of PESTILENCE groundbreaking progressive metal album "Spheres" and nothing before quite measures up. This sounds like very generic thrash metal in its infancy, well in PESTILENCE's infancy. Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer had already produced much better metal concoctions at this point. This is a great one for the hardcore fans but not really something anyone else would seek out unless you're totally curious as have been i. In short, well played filthy raw thrash metal demo quality material from the 80s. Nothing more. Oh yeah, the production sucks too if you care about that crap.