DEMONA — Metal Through the Time (review)

DEMONA — Metal Through the Time album cover

Album · 2012 · Speed Metal

3.5/5 · 2012-10-15
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Speed metal. I don’t think this is a genre that we really hear that much about these days, despite pre-dating many of the commonplace metal styles of today. That may be in part I guess because the genre spawned two children, namely thrash metal and power metal, which kind of took over and in the late eighties and bands like Helloween and Blind Guardian, who started as speed metal, turned towards power metal. I’m sure there were also speed metal bands who went full thrash as well but being less interested in the thrash genre I can’t say I know any to reference here. Every so often though there comes a new band with a sound that belongs in another era. Most of them are classable as traditional heavy metal but Demona, originating from Chile but now relocated to Canada, however are unashamedly speed metal. Not thrash, not power, just pure speed proving even with its children two of the most common metal genres of the modern era that speed metal is alive and well.

Demona started as a one woman band and released a number of smaller releases since the 2007 inception of the project. Now more of a band, but still led but that one woman, Tanza (who is the daughter of Mauricio "Jackie" Godoy of Distorsion fame, who appears on the album), Metal Through the Time is Demona’s first full-length album and it was released in 2012. It is twelve tracks of speed metal that if you didn’t know better you’d say were recorded a couple of decades earlier than they actually were. Tanza is clearly not a lady who cares for the modern aesthetics of metal music such as crystal clear productions, keyboards (common in power metal) or growling vocals (becoming common even in genres that never used to use them of late, it seems). Just relentless riffs, leads and pure aggression. Should speed metal be any other way? Of course not!

And, although I can’t say Metal Through the Time numbers among my favourite releases of 2012, it is still a lot more satisfying for its blatant old school approach to metal than anything many of the more modern artists following trends have been delivering of late. I’m all for metal evolving into new styles and introducing new approaches to older styles, but some of the recent trends have left me a lot to be desired, although I guess that happens in every era of metal. Trends of course divide opinion, but I think there is something to be said for the retro trend and its classic approach that Demona can be placed in. It is a respectful nod to metal of the past and shows that the sound still has a place with the young artists of the current generation.

What kills the release somewhat though is Tanza’s vocals. While she’s crafted some solid speed metal for the album I don’t think she’s ever going to win any vocal awards. Describing her vocals as being an acquired taste would be appropriate but the simple truth is that she’s given a patchy performance on Metal Through The Time. There are times when her voice and style of singing works but more often it does start to grate on me, especially on repeated listens to the album.

At this stage all I can say is that it would do Demona wonders if they followed the suit of other young artists and had Tanza focus solely on her guitar playing and bring in a new vocalist. This has worked wonders for others artists before Demona such as with the UK traditional metal act Dark Forest. While I’m sure there’s an appeal for Tanza to sing her own material there’d be no shame for her I think to allow someone else to sing her songs, because it could lift her music to a whole new level.

Since vocals seem often to be the make or break aspect of any band though (they are for me at least) this does pose a major problem to fairly scoring Metal Through the Time. Musically, this is generally excellent, but vocally it leaves much to be desired. At the end of the day though the album is, as I said, satisfying for me but ultimately the only reasonable score I can award it, all things considered, is a low end ‘good but not great’ tier rating.

6.5/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))