With utter nonsensical "death metal" bands offering "albums" that are nothing but rubbish, a product of Internet hype and mere imagery, such as Australian outfit Portal or Spanish Teitanblood, we also see the emergence of a different breed of bands co-evolving in the mire, offering 'real' death metal, where the music is at least as important as the image and where, instead of offering cacophonous layering and dubbing it as 'atmosphere', there is actually music that's being played, where the guitars actually make sense and the riffs are discernible; where the very instruments, their harmonious wholeness, as well as how they are assembled and orchestrated to form an actual song -- are the very ambiance-generating factors; bands who use no production trickery and no redundant, multi-textured layering masking the inability to play a decent riff.

Poland's own Embrional are such a band. They play death metal with a capital D. Their metal is fast, and slow, and hyper-fast, and plodding and sluggish, but it is at all times simply death metal. Embrional's death metal is brutal without being 'brutal death metal', technical enough without delving into the 'technical death metal' realm, advanced and forward-thinking without the need to be tagged as 'progressive death metal' and atmospheric enough without being a cacophonous copycat of Incantation (that are in themselves a poor excuse for a death metal band, for the exactly above mentioned reasons). Embrional are full-fledged musicians, playing pure breed death metal with a twist.

In 2012 Embrional had released an album that became one of the year's best offerings; _Absolutely Anti-Human Behaviors_ was a major highlight in terms of adopting an interesting approach to writing extremely violent death metal music. But five years before that monumental metallic beast, the band, at their infancy, had recorded a remarkable demo called _Annihilation_. Judging upon the quality of that demo -- the level of musicianship captured therein -- no wonder Embrional are among the best contemporary death metal outfits active in the underground. If you thought Polish death metal was good, then Embrional should be the crème de la crème of that lot.

Now, courtesy of Old Temple Records, we are presented with a more commercial and accessible product containing that demo plus some live tracks from a gig whose set list is comprised mostly of _Absolutely Anti-Human Behaviors_. The latter is a great addition to the demo, because that album is so damn good, it is interesting to listen to it done live, and see how the band manage to handle their instruments and convey those live energies into the recording and ultimately to the listener (which they do). And yes, that album still sounds as powerful and as good as it gets, even outside the sterile studio environment.

Seize the opportunity and get this rare recording as soon as possible, if you enjoy unique, exceptionally dynamic, complex and intelligent death metal of the most vitriolic kind. With clinically precise and insanely fast drumming, surprisingly varied tempo changes, original and catchy riffs and an excellent growler spitting rather intelligent lyrics -- it all boils down to being one of the very best expressions of sonic violence captured on tape, made now easily available for your maximum pleasure... and pain.