HELLHAMMER — Demon Entrails (review)

Boxset / Compilation · 2008 · Black Metal

3/5 · 2023-05-04
UMUR

"Demon Entrails" is a compilation album by Swiss speed metal/thrash metal/black metal act Hellhammer. The compilation was released through Century Media Records in February 2008. It compiles the material from the June/July 1983 recording sessions, which would be released on the two demos "Death Fiend" (June 1983) and "Triumph of Death" (July 1983), and the material from the December 1983 demo "Satanic Rites". 29 tracks and around 100 minutes of music.

Hellhammer formed in 1982 (shortly as Hammerhead before changing their name to Hellhammer), released three demos, the "Apocalyptic Raids (1984)" EP and were featured on the 4-way split album "Death Metal (1984)" (with Helloween, Dark Avenger, and Running Wild), before disbanding on the 31st of May 1984, the next day morphing into Celtic Frost. They are often cited as a major influence on the infant speed, thrash, death, and black metal scenes.

Disc 1 features the material from the "Satanic Rites" demo, was is 12 tracks distributed over what could have been a full-length total playing time of 45:55 minutes. "Satanic Rites" is the Hellhammer release which earnt them the seminal extreme metal act pin, and rightly so. Stylistically the material is a blackened speed metal style which is greatly influenced by Motörhead and Venom, but also to a certain extent hardcore/punk. It´s an incredibly intense release, featuring raw and snarling vocals, pounding drums, and distorted guitars and bass playing simple but effective aggressive riffs. Four of the tracks from "Satanic Rites" also appear in early versions on Disc 2 ("Maniac", "Triumph of Death", "Reaper", and "Crucifixion").

Disc 2 features the 17 tracks recorded during the June 1983 sessions (recorded at Grave Hill Bunker, June 10th and 11th 1983). The 17 tracks were originally released on two separate demo releases "Death Fiend" (June 1983) and "Triumph of Death" (July 1983), but five of the tracks appear on both demos. Honestly the material recorded at these sessions is a lo-fi produced mess of hardcore punk influenced primite speed metal. Just as the material on the "Satanic Rites" demo, the material on "Death Fiend" and "Triumph of Death" is greatly influenced by Motörhead and Venom, but here the scale tips a bit too much to the hardcore punk side of the scale, and as the band are also pretty amaturish on their instruments at this point, and they haven´t really tweaked their material to become especially intriguing yet, the quality of these demos is not very high.

So "Demon Entrails" is a bit hard to rate, as it features the material from the "Satanic Rites" demo which is pretty brilliant, while the material from the early demos isn´t really worth much time or focus. Because of the significance and seminal nature of the "Satanic Rites" demo I´ll give this one a 3 star (60%) rating but it would have been higher had the release not been dragged down by the crude primitive lo-fi recordings of "Death Fiend" and "Triumph of Death".