UMUR
"Down There..." is the first demo recording by Finnish black/death metal act The Lord Diabolus. The demo was independently released in July 1991. The Lord Diabolus was a monicker Beherit took on for a short period of time, because they had some issue with their then record label Turbo Music, and they had to change their name to release something. so this is actually not a debut demo as Beherit at this point had already released three demos, an EP, and had recorded a full-length studio album. The latter was shelved though (part of the issues Beherit had with Turbo Music) and didn´t see the light of day until June 2011, when it was released through the Kvlt label. "Down There..." was the only release under The Lord Diabolus monicker as the band changed their name back to Beherit shortly after releasing this demo.
If you´re familiar with the preceding Beherit releases the aggressive, noisy, and savage black/death metal style of "Down There..." will be no surprise. This sounds very much like the last couple of Beherit releases. The greatest difference between this release and the Beherit releases which came before it is that the band were down to a duo on "Down There...", as bassist/vocalist Demon Fornication left Beherit before the name change.
The demo features four tracks (one is a short intro) and two of the tracks were actually already recorded and included on the full-length studio album, which ended up shelved. So these versions are actually re-recorded and re-arranged versions of previously recorded versions of the tracks (which had not been released in 1991).
"Down There..." is a decent quality demo release featuring a murky, raw, and savage sounding production job. It doesn´t add much new or interesting to the early part of the Beherit (The Lord Diabolus) discography, but if you´re a fan of the raw infant sound of Beherit this demo shouldn´t be lacking from your collection. A 2.5 star (50%) rating is warranted.