Embrional - Annihilation

EMBRIONAL - Annihilation (Self released - demo 2007)

One year has passed since Embrional released their debut demo “Cusp of Evil” and another fierce demo attack have been unleashed, the 2007’s “Annihilation”! And the demo is exactly what the title says – pure death metal annihilation, a musical murder and blasting ferocity right in your face. When listening to “Annihilation” you do feel like there’s no time wasted; just constant headbanging and destruction. And from the first listen I must admit that I liked the production a lot, especially that this demo was recorded in rather amateurish conditions, not in a studio. But the whole material has got a nice crispy sound, relatively raw and morbid, but equally old school and has almost something like a feeling of live playing, which is great. The drums sound is especially cool, not triggered or whatever, but very real and pounding.

While on “Cusp of Evil” Embrional went for six, even seven minutes long tracks, which was great and I must say that I liked it, here on “Annihilation” the songs were much shortened, now they’re all just around three, up to four minutes long, what of course added some extra energy to the whole music and now each track is like a furious, unstoppable attack. It’s like a quick punch in the face, knock out and that’s it. Most of the “Annihilation” material has been played in extremely fast tempos, what of course could be risky, as it can bring some monotony into the demo, luckily “Annihilation” has just six tracks and not all of them are that fast. “Human Brew” is something what allows you to take a breath in the middle of the demo, here Embrional really slowed down, played almost some doomy melancholic parts, which sound quite weird and I cannot say this is my favourite track on the demo, but it’s a decent stoppage before another massive attack. I prefer the relentless playing on “Annihilation”, like the skin whipping of “Hellfuck” or “Destructionthirst” (which also has a slower part in the middle of the song, with relatively melodic guitar lead thrown in). Stylistically Embrional reminds me Krisiun in many places, Polish deathlords Damnation (R.I.P.???), but also the one and only Immolation. Especially the deep vocal of Marcin sound quite similarly to Ross Dolan’s grunts. The whole material is relatively technical, definitely the riffs are not so easy and simple, but with song structures which do not demand 20 riffs per minute it makes the whole music clear and more straight forward, especially that Embrional also resigned from using intros between each track (what they did on the first demo). So everything is just as it should be. Really, “Annihilation” reminds me a fastened version of Immolation (just listen to “Murder and Cruelty”!!!!) and I cannot say that I feel not well about it. It’s the opposite actually, I really like “Annihilation” a lot and so I can only recommend you getting this stuff. Unfortunately, unlike “Cusp of Evil”, this second demo has never been re-released by any label, so I have no idea whether it’s still available or not. But who knows, you may get lucky and find it somewhere.

Final rate: 83/100