Band:	Demilich
Album:	Nespithe
Style:	Progressive death metal
Release date:	February 08, 1993
A review by:	Lucas

01. When The Sun Drank The Weight Of Water
02. The Sixteenth Six-Tooth Son Of Fourteen Four-Regional Dimensions (Still Unnamed)
03. Inherited Bowel Levitation - Reduced Without Any Effort
04. The Echo (Replacement)
05. The Putrefying Road In The Nineteenth Extremity (...Somewhere Inside The Bowels Of Endlessness...)
06. (Within) The Chamber Of Whispering Eyes
07. And You'll Remain... (In Pieces In Nothingness)
08. Erecshyrinol
09. The Planet That Once Used To Absorb Flesh In Order To Achieve Divinity And Immortality (Suffocated To The Flesh That It Desired...)
10. The Cry
11. Raped Embalmed Beauty Sleep

It seems so simple. All you have to do in order to acquire a legendary status in the underground Death metal world is this - be unique. It is, apparently, one of the most difficult things of all for many a band these days.

Back to '93. Death metal was still young so it was easier to stand out, I'll give you that, but there were still a couple of bands that did something in those days that nobody was ever able to copy. Not then, not now. One of those bands is the bizarre Demilich. 1993 sees the release of their sole full-length Nesphite (or "The Spine") and to this day it remains an incredible and breath-taking album.

I've already mentioned it, but I'll say it again: Demilich, and in particular Nesphite, is bizarre. Nesphite is not an ordinary piece of Death metal, Nesphite is a cosmic tribalistic celebration of the dead. Well, that or just something extremely wicked. I don't know much about music theory but I do know that the amount of tempo changes could not be counted on ten hands. There is no such thing as 'flow', all there is is constant contradiction, obstinate riffing and you're constantly cheated on. You think you know where the riff is going, but halfway through it makes a 540 degree turn and you're left with your face buried in the pavement. A roller coaster ride, that's for sure. Don't hop in if you're easily sick.

Corpse (bass) and Mikko Virnes (drums) play equally nauseating parts. It's all undeniably Death metal, but still so completely different from regular Death metal. And then there's Antti Boman, responsible for the vocals. Demilich claims not to have used any vocal effects, the sane part of the worlds thinks it's blatantly obvious they have. Whichever is the case, his vocals are LOW. Drink a couple of gallons of Coca Cola, step into a compression chamber and you still won't burp like Boman did. Paired with the atypical instrumentation and the spacious production they make for a positively insane album.

Nesphite is, how lame it may sound for a reviewer to say this, an album you must hear for yourself. If you don't like, that's fine, but if you want some unique and purely alienating Death metal, check it out. One of a kind.

PS: A label screwing over a band occasionally produces positive side-effects. All the Demilich you could ever wish for is up or download, here, completely legal and free of charge.