UMUR
"Darkest Age" is the first demo release by Swedish thrash metal act Morbid Fear. The demo was independently released in April 1990. "Darkest Age" was the sole release by Morbid Fear as soon after its release, the band changed their name to Authorize. With the name change also came a change to playing death metal.
"Darkest Age" doesn´t in any way point towards death metal though. It´s raw, aggressive, and intense, but this is thrash metal through and through. Furiously fast-paced, energetic, and techncially well played thrash metal featuring a great aggressive groove and some raw snarling vocals. These guys can play...tempo changes, relatively well played guitar solos and themes (take a listen to the lead guitar work on "Mindless Confussion" for proof of that), and catchy songwriting. I put "Darkest Age" in the same high quality Swedish thrash metal demo catagory as Dark Abbey´s "Blasphemy" demo from the same year.
"Darkest Age" features 5 tracks and a total playing time of 21:27 minutes. The two tracks bookending the demo are shorter instrumentals though. The demo features a powerful, detailed, and well sounding production, considering that "Darkest Age" is a demo recording. With just a little more polish this could well have been released as a label release. A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.