BEYOND THE DARKEST VEILS OF INNER WICKEDNESS (DEMO)

"Beyond the Darkest Veils of Inner Wickedness" is the 2nd demo by Swedish death metal act Therion. The demo was independently released on cassette tape in November 1989. It´s the successor to the "Paroxysmal Holocaust" demo from April 1989 and since the first demo lead vocalist Matti Kärki has left to join Carnage. Christofer Johnsson therefore performs both lead vocals and rhythm guitars on "Beyond the Darkest Veils of Inner Wickedness".

While the recording quality hasn´t improved much since "Paroxysmal Holocaust", which is actually slightly disappointing since the first demo was recording on an 8-track recorder, while "Beyond the Darkest Veils of Inner Wickedness" was recorded using a 16-track recorder. You´d expect a better sound quality than this from a 16-track recording. But it´s probably just another testimony to the young age and inexperience of the band at this point.

"Beyond the Darkest Veils of Inner Wickedness" features 3 tracks and a total playing time of 17:57 minutes. "Macabre Declension" opens the demo with a combination of brutal death/doom and some faster paced death/thrash parts (and some nice lead guitar work on the opening). Johnsson´s growling vocals are abysmal deep and completely unintelligible, which is a big change from Kärki´s vocals on the first demo. "Megalomania" is slightly more energetic and uptempo thrashy, but still within a death metal context. "Paroxysmal Holocaust" closes the demo and it´s an instrumental track. It´s a bit hard to figure out, why they didn´t put vocals on this track, because it feels rather empty and vocals could probably have brought more texture to the song. All tracks are relatively long and all outstay their welcome. There are simply sections on these pretty anarchistic structured tracks, which are unnessary and which make the songs too long and slightly tedious to listen to.

I´m not sure I hear much development of style since the last demo, maybe other than slightly better lead guitar parts (they are still very few), and as the recording quality hasn´t improved much either, "Beyond the Darkest Veils of Inner Wickedness" is like its predecessor a more interesting listen rather than a release you´d put on for listening pleasure. A 2.5 star (50%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)