Merciless Death - Holocaust

MERCILESS DEATH - Holocaust (THRASHING MADNESS - CD 2009)

Five years after their debut demo "Eternal Condemnation" (1987), Merciless Death came back with demo number two "Holocaust" (1992). This material has got a much better treatment, not only because the production and songwriting are better. But also because this demo was released professionally on tape by Carnage Records!! And years later, in 2009, Thrashing Madness Productions had an idea to provide us a CD version, which is such a killer effort! There's a nice booklet, with some archive band photos, lyrics, a bit of Merciless Death history from that era, as well as a short tribute to Figas, who played guitar on this demo, but died in 2009. It's all there, and I have to say that I like such supplements to old albums or demos reissues. 

The only thing, which I usually don't like in such reissues, is when some additional songs have been added. I prefer if there's just the original recording, nothing more. I'm kind of allergic to extra tracks because mostly they have shit quality, from a rehearsal or live recording. And that's exactly the case here. "Holocaust" has four songs recorded live at Thrash Camp in July 1988. They have great archival value, sure, but the sound is rather bad, which gives rather little pleasure from listening to them and I mostly skip these songs anyway. Which is why I would prefer to have only the original demo on this CD, nothing more. But who cares... let’s not complain too much, there’s no point at all to do so. 

Musically "Holocaust" is a very cool demo, it probably is one of my favourites from those old days of Polish metal scene. To some it may feel like it's nothing exceptional for old school death / thrash of early 90's. Sure, there were many better bands, many better demos or albums at that time. I suppose that in 1992 this demo already sounded pretty archaic, as it's so 80's like! But for me it sounds awesome and has a great charm and quality. For Polish scene it definitely sounded very strong at that time. Plenty of Slayer, Sodom, early Pestilence influences, a lot of crushing, razor sharp thrashing riffs, very nice harsh vocals of Wiechu... It's all here. Songwriting may be quite typical, sometimes it may almost annoy for being so archaic, so primitive almost... but I like these songs anyway. There are some fragments, which I'm not big fan of, like the acoustic intro for "The Last Hour (Nuclear Holocaust)", but it's nothing what would ruin this demo for me. And when compared to "Eternal Condemnation", "Holocaust" feels like a big step forward, for faster, more aggressive and brutal music... which later had its peak on "Sick Sanctities", which was even more death metal influenced. And Merciless Death’s best effort. 

Yeah, Merciless Death definitely is an important part of Polish death / thrash metal history. They weren’t lucky enough to get wider attention, especially abroad, which is a shame. But that’s what happened to many Polish death metal bands at that time. They were good, often better than more known foreign bands... but living in this country kind of gave them slow and unfair start. OK, that’s history now. It's good at least that a lot of these old recordings got a second life and often are now more recognised than they were at the time of their original release. 

Verdict: 70/100