UMUR
"No One is Divine" is the first demo cassette tape by Danish death metal act Nations of Death. The band was formed in 1991 in Roskilde and they released this demo tape later that same year. Nations of Death was a relatively short lived act and they only released "No One is Divine" and the "Wrecked" demo in 1993 before disbanding. Drummer Jesper Frost later played with prolific Danish death metal act Iniquity.
The Danish death metal scene was in full blossom in 1991 (a few years behind their Scandinavian brothers in Norway, Finland, and Sweden) and although Nations of Death was never signed for a label release, they were still pretty active in the Danish underground extreme metal scene. Listening to the quality of "No One is Divine" it´s actually a bit odd Nations of Death never got a recording contract, because we´re generally dealing with a high quality demo release.
Featuring 4 tracks and a full playing time of 28:49, the listener is given a good opportunity to learn what Nations of Death is about, which is of course the primary function of a demo. Stylistically the music is technically well played death metal (the drumming is especially impressive). Varied tempos, brutal riffs, and brutal yet intelligible growling vocals with a great aggressive edge to them. If I have to mention a minor issue, it would be that the tracks are too long for their own good. Two of them exceed 8 minutes in length, and the other two are around 6 minutes long, and while the music is generally both interesting and well played, there isn´t enough variation and changes in atmosphere to warrant such long song lengths. To my ears more conscise songwriting would have done the trick.
When that is said, "No One is Divine" is still a high quality demo from the early 90s Danish death metal scene. It´s very well produced (I dare say semi-professional), well played, and predominantly well written, so a 3 star (60%) rating isn´t all wrong.