Oh, man, remember Demiricous?  Their Metal Blade debut, One (Hellbound), fucked our faces off in 2006, and they released an equally crushing follow-up, Two (Poverty), just a year later. They had such a bright future! They were Kerry King’s favorite band! And then… well, they pretty much fell apart. Word around the campfire is they got completely fucked by some scumbag manager, and then they fell split with Metal Blade in 2008. In 2009 they announced that they were working on new material, but 2010 came and went with no news whatsoever from the band.

But there’s news now! According to Lambgoat, they’re releasing a four-song EP/demo this Thursday, March 10 (rad cover art above). And there’s already two new songs streaming on their Facebook page! Hoo-ray!

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Like myself, Dallas Coyle is a huge film dork — I love geeking out with him, ’cause the dude really knows his shit. And I’m stoked to see that he’s started to put all that knowledge to good use: He co-directed The Judas Syndrome‘s new video, “Death of the Soul,” with Frankie Nasso, who has previously helmed clips for Mudvayne, Hatebreed, All That Remains, Sworn Enemy, and Demiricous, among others.

The video just debuted on Noisecreep, and is really cool; you can check it out below. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more from Dallas Coyle, cinemetal auteur in the not-too-distant future!

“Death of the Soul” comes off The Judas Syndrome’s Underneath Blood Skies, which is out now.

-AR

Remember Demiricous? They were (are?) this band from Indianapolis who sounded just like Slayer (and not the way every band sounds just like Slayer – I mean holy shit, did these dudes sound like Slayer)  if Slayer had a death metal vocalist instead of Tom Araya. They made two really good albums for Metal Blade, split with that label, announced that they were going to soldier on, and then promptly dropped off the face of the planet. Someone seems to have logged into their MySpace page as recently as this past Saturday, but there hasn’t been an update to the blog there since 2007, so I have no idea if this band is still active or not.

That’s a very long-winded way of telling you that I liked Demiricous, and when I saw Black Bubblegum from Brooklyn Vegan at the Flourishing show last Thursday night he told me that at least one former member of that outfit was now playing in a band called Coffinworm. “They’re serious,” BBG told me. And when BBG tells you a band is “serious,” you best pay attention.

So. I haven’t yet heard When All Became None, the new Coffinworm album that’s just been released on Profound Lore. But Kevin Stewart-Panko gives it a good review in the May issue of Decibel, BBG gives the band the thumbs-up, they’ve got a connection to Demiricous, and, oh yeah, “Start Saving for Your Funeral,” the song streaming on their MySpace page, is really good. (But it’s worth noting that it sounds nothing like Demiricous, in case that turns you on or off.) Which is a long-winded way of saying, I plan to listen to None sooner rather than later.

Here’s video Brooklyn Vegan got of the band playing SXSW earlier this month:

Coffinworm @ Hoeks Death Metal Pizza 3/18/10
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-AR

I was seriously worried about the fate of Demiricous, and with good reason, I’d say. The best band ever to sound exactly like Slayer that aren’t actually Slayer, the Hoosier quartet made two killer albums on Metal Blade (produced by Zeuss and ERIK FUCKING RUTAN, respectively) and were endorsed by no less a figure than Mr. Kerry King himself. But then they were, at least as I understand it, more or less completely ripped-off by their then-manager, and they finally parted ways with Metal Blade last year. No one could blame them if they broke up. Bands break up over much less these days.

But now Lambgoat is reporting that Demiricous is, in fact, alive and well, and will enter the studio in November to record a new five-song demo with Gates of Slumber drummer “Iron” Bob Fouts. They still don’t have a label and “will issue the material themselves.” That part confuses me a bit – I mean, I’m thrilled to get to hear new Demiricous music, but is it a demo to try and land them a new label, or is it a self-released EP…? Whatever. Why look a gift horse in the mouth?

Here’s the band’s video for “Vagrant Idol.” Holy shit, this song is heavy.

-AR

Sasha Horn at Metal Review recently wrote a piece on the three song self-titled EP from unsigned band By Any Means Necessary. Here’s the part that caught my attention:

“…the rodents have crawled out of their cage, and have learned to conduct some experiments of their own. Specifically, the equation of Exodus divided by Vio-Lence, plus the square root of Devastation, times Chimaira.”

Well, Horn said the magic word – actually, there’s like four magic words in that sentence – so I had to check this band out. And, holy crap, am I glad I did.

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Demiricous played in Brooklyn last night and I couldn’t make it – which seems to be the story of my life these days. At least I can console myself with repeated loud blasting of Two (Poverty), their excellent new release on Metal Blade. If Demiricous were a cartoon, they’d be the Tazmanian Devil; if they were an event, they’d be a bar fight; if they were an amusement park ride, they’d be a hideous rollercoaster that goes too fast before finally flying off the rails and killing dozens of innocent people; in point of fact, if they spit in your mom’s face and then punched kicked her in the vag, you couldn’t proclaim surprise. All of which is just a long, drawn-out way of saying that this album is very, very good.

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