UMUR
Plagueswept is a demo album release by Canadian blackened death metal act Haiduk. The demo was independently released in February 2010. Haiduk is a one-man act consisting of Luka Milojica who handles guitars, bass, vocals and drum programming. Plagueswept contains 8 tracks ( 29:47 minute playing time). The two tracks that bookend the demo are instrumentals, while the 6 songs in between features vocals.
The music on Plagueswept is a kind of raw yet melodic blackened death metal. The vocals are raspy/ growling. Haiduk is actually difficult to place in either the death metal or the black metal catagory because there are equal amounts of elements from each genre in the music. A band like Unanimated comes to mind. The first thing you notice when playing the demo is the extremely raw and purposely underproduced guitar sound. It sounds great and really gives the music character. The vocals are pretty good too but not exceptional. What I enjoy most about the songs on the demo is the atmosphere though. It´s dark, harsh and cold, and while there are lots of melodic material to keep the songs memorable, it never sounds like melodeath or other more easy listening parts of the death metal genre ( which in my world is a good thing).
As Haiduk is a one-man act Luka Milojica has opted to program the drums, and while the programmed drums fortunately don´t act like a distraction, they don´t add anything extra to the music either. They are more or less just there. Other than that the musicianship is good.
Plagueswept is a promising demo release by Haiduk, and it works like a good teaser, just like a succesful demo should. Now rating demos with a rating scale designed for official albums always seem a bit unfair but there are enough qualities on Plagueswept for a 3 star rating and at times even 3.5 stars.