Dark Millennium - The Apocryphal Wisdom (1991)

Dark Millennium put out two full-lengths and another demo in their career, but i haven't heard any of those. What i do know is that this is a nice little death/doom demo from back in the day that actually does it's bit to stand apart from the infinite amounts of death metal demo's from the early 90's. With vocals kind of like a mix between John Tardy and Martin Van Drunen, Dark Millennium's surprisingly well-produced approach to death/doom is an extremely worthy effort. Tight instrumentation, interesting, often-times strange riffs, all wrapped up in that wonderful fuzzy tape sound make this a worthy addition to any collection, not just the completists looking to find every single demo released from the years 1985-1993.

The Apocryphal Wisdom

Gorement - Demos ('91-'92)

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What we have here are relics of Gorement's demo years. The Ending Quest is one of the best things to come out of the Swedish Death scene, due in large part to the fact that it is pretty atypical when compared to the other stuff coming out of Stockholm and Gothenburg at the time. Also because it has some of the best melodies ever recorded on a death metal album but yeah. There are three demos that came before their full length (Into Shadows is labeled as a single, but there are two songs that are essentially dirty versions pre-existing tracks).

Most everything on here would later become part of The Ending Quest aside from one or two tracks, but what is interesting (at least to me anyways) is to hear what most of these songs sounded like before the full length. The production in all three is much more Swedish-sounding than what would later come, buzzsaw guitars and lots of dirt and grime, but still those kick ass melodies that make The Ending Quest so good.

There is a promo that comes after the release of TEQ but i can only find one of the supposed three tracks and the one i do have has this god awful vocalist and see's them moving forward to the gothdoom sound that they would try after their name change. I've always wondered why so many of these early DM bands decide to switch to this shitty melodic goth doom stuff later on in their careers but whatever, at least we still have TEQ to listen to.

Demos '91 - '92

Excavation - Gravemouth (1991)

Excavation were a death metal band from the Netherlands. They formed in 1990 and changed their name in 1995.

Gravemouth

Celeborn - Etherial (1992)

Celeborn was formed in the late 80's and only released a couple of demo's and a split before splitting up. They contained members of Defaced Creation and Dismember and play an atypical flavor of Swedish death.

Etherial

Adramelech - Spring of Recovery EP (1992)

Adramelech are a death metal band from Loimaa, Finland. They started in 1991 and released a several demos and EP's before the release of their classic full-length Psychostasia. They play a characteristically gloomy form of Finnish Death Metal and are one of the most acclaimed bands to spawn from the scene.

Spring of Recovery

Burial - Loss of Life (1991)

Burial were a death metal band from Florida, USA. Loss of Life is your pretty standard American Death Metal with good riffs and pretty good, dirty production. What makes Loss of Life more than just another DM demo from the early nineties is the vocals. Instead of going for a guttural growl or a thrashy rasp, Mike Callahan uses a high pitched shriek that actually works quite well for what they're doing. He would later go on to join a rap act according to MA but whatever, at least he likes DM right?

Loss of Life

Cartilage - Discography (1991-1992)

Cartilage was a death metal band from Vaasa, Finland. They started in 1991 and released several demo EP's and one split.

Cartilage Discog.