Deathstorm - Storm of Death

DEATHSTORM - Storm of Death (Demo CDR 2010)

When I contacted Deathstorm about the interview, which I wanted to do with this band and also about my review of their excellent debut CD “Nechesh” I asked them whether they still have any copies of Deathstorm’s debut demo – I really wanted to hear it, because the album is incredibly good and it is always nice to have full discography of the band you like; including the demos, which are usually quite difficult to obtain. The answer, which I got first was “maybe, I’ll need to look for it… but this demo wasn’t that good, that’s why we didn’t have too many copies of it…”. OK, OK – good or not, I just wanted to listen to it… and finally I’ve received “Storm of Death”. And you know what? It isn’t that bad as the band would want me to think it is hehe!

Obviously “Storm of Death” is not as good and not as killer as “Nechesh”. It isn’t even half as intense, brutal and fast, not to mention the production values of the debut demo comparing to the album… “Storm of Death” has the quality rather typical for the demos, so the songwriting is fine, but not outstanding and the production is more amateurish (here I must say that the sound is pretty clean, but I don’t like it too much, especially the drums; everything just isn’t brutal and powerful enough for my taste…)… I guess it is enough to mention that none of the songs from “Storm of Death” ended up on “Nechesh” in new, improved versions. You know, bands usually re-record their best demo songs on their first album… Deathstorm must have composed enough of new material, whose quality was superior comparing it to the demo, so they didn’t feel an urge to use their early songs. But even if the quality of the “Storm of Death” songs isn’t as good as the songs from “Nechesh” I think they’re fine anyway. There are some really nice, chunky riffs, some really cool fragments on the demo and overall I think that if only the production was better, then the whole demo would sound damn good and would be aggressive as hell. The music on “Storm of Death” is relatively simple, without any technical fireworks, what makes it sounds more straight forward, so it is really pity that the production is so unpassionable and lifeless. The material is not the most thrilling, sometimes it is too predictable or even sounds like an unfinished song (for instance “Adversarius”), but such “Benefactor” for sure is a good is a good track. In the end I am happy to have a copy of “Storm of Death” in my collection, even if I doubt that I’ll listen to it that often…

Final rate: 65/100