CoC : Helgor - Untitled Demo : Review

Helgor - _Untitled Demo_
by: Jackie Smit (1.5 out of 5)

Extreme music circa 2003 is a genre splintered into so many numerous sub-strains that to the ignorant outsider it must conceivably look more confusing than ever before. Death, black, thrash, grindcore, doom -– the list goes on and chances are very good that if you're reading this you probably enjoy a varied number of these styles. This in turn leads one to draw the obvious conclusion that people embarking on their own musical forays will inevitably (as has been happening for many years now) combine a wide range of these influences into their work. Trouble is that as much as these schools have in common, they are not necessarily particularly comfortable bedfellows, and unfortunately Holland's Helgor appear unable to bring them into some sort of cohesive structure. The result is a messy and confused recording that will no doubt end up on the large pile of CD-R's I have labeled "Frisbees". While I could certainly overlook the fact this demo sounds as though it were recorded using a low-price dictaphone, for the most part the riffs on offer switch between black, death and grind sequences without seemingly having anything in common. And where Lord Capibara's vocal style is suitably generic death metal, Lord Ibex's "pig suffering from foot and mouth disease" screams are pretty horrendous. The only track remotely approaching anything with potential is the ludicrously titled "Enslaving the Human Goulash", but otherwise this just lives up to the name of the band's previous web address: helgor.virtualdogshit.com.

Contact: http://www.helgor.com

(article published 28/8/2003)