"The Demos" are a collection of early recordings from the German band, TORCHURE. Life is a dreary passage, an unforgiving all consuming pariah of self interest and avarice wherein all forces meet at the confluence, the nexus, of life and death leaving no sullen stone unturned. This is the creed the theme that death metal carries about itself-forever intertwined between the walls of morbidity and malignity, yet, unlike other genres, never afraid to explore the deeper values of the human condition.

TORCHURE meets these ideas head on, perforating each and every song with them wherein the desperation and anger are felt with every gnarly chord dirty riff, whose dirty gritty passages sweep in and out of speed driven riffs and long drawn out chords; every beat of the drum that truly hammers every strike; and every guttural growl and scream which drive home and tie together the whole motifs of despair, desperation, and desolation.

One note to make is that their sound changes with every demo, from more involved compositions as we can see in "Way of Fate" and "the Redeemer"-who both possess intricate parts coupled with bright guitar work with piercing tones-to the faster pace and darker compositions such as "Abysmal Malevolence" and "Doomed to Live On"-whereat both guitars become much dirtier and saturated in tone coupling themselves with wailing guitar solos-then finally ending with the much slower and simpler deliveries where the strings are more in sync with the drums such that interruptions, pauses, and transitions occur much more often and seamlessly bringing the music more together as a whole as seen in "Traces (Traces demo)" and "Genocidal Confessions." Despite the changes in tempo, construction, and delivery every song still possessed the same attitude, the same collected focus of rage and anger whose conductivities are so pertinent in the genre, never once did TORCHURE sway from their origin.

The only strife I can find with these tracks are the lack of production quality-that being said it is to be expected as these are 30 year old demos, and in no way should they hinder someone from wanting to listen to the band; acknowledging the fact that these are demos they are, in truth, exceptional in their form as they are by far superior to what one would expect even current demos to be. The fidelity varies between what specific single these songs came from, with song such as "Return of the Dead" and "Abysmal Malevolence" being significantly less impressive than "Genocidal Confessions."

The greatest thing this album offers is ease of access as before all of these demos were produced in limitations on cassettes, as such no one needs to hunt down for rarities in order to gain access to any of the majesty of songs previously unavailable to the wider world. Anyone with a penchant or interest towards Death Metal would find favor in these demos, and anyone unfortunate enough to covet the rarities now has access to TORCHURE'S starting days.