by: u/an_altar_of_plagues

So you're looking to be a big nerd... Welcome to the Demo Primer.

Demos! What the hell is a demo, anyway? Well I'm glad you asked, curious reader and imaginary person I made up in my head.

In their original use, a demo was a "demonstration" of a band's initial ideas. Demos were rarely published through labels, often financed exclusively by the band, and not intended for wide release. Practically, demos were often recorded rehearsals, where they were more about getting ideas down on tape so both the band and others in the scene would have an idea of the music. Bands could be signed by a label happening to catch a live show, or by the band sending in a demo to show what could be realized with the time and money invested in an LP.

In the modern world of Bandcamp and digital distribution, a "demo" is "anything the band calls a demo". But back in the day, a band self-publishing their LPs was a whole lot rarer (and a hell of a lot more difficult), so demos were often the main way that a young band could start making a name for themselves outside of live shows. This is even more relevant in the pre-Internet age where if you couldn't see the band live, then how else would you hear their music? Early zines would often have pages dedicated to bands to whom you could write with a few dollars included and they'd send you their demo. Zines like the Mexican Reborn from Ashes and the Norwegian Slayer zine are full of ads and reviews of demos, including interviews with bands who might only have live shows and a single tape to their names.

Demos and the history of metal - or, how one is the other.

Demos were foundational to the development of metal, especially the tape-trading scene of early extreme metal. Sure, the band rarely (if ever) received money from these trades, but tape trading certainly helped a number of bands find an audience. Metallica has gone on record to say the early tape trading scene directly contributed to their early popularity. Zines would often feature people who wrote-in with a personal blurb and an address to connect with other fans and exchange music. It's the snail-mail version of someone asking for recommendations on Discord or Shreddit and you getting a bunch of links in return. Famously, the Norwegian second-wave black metal scene of the late 80s and early 90s traded tapes with the burgeoning South American scene. Euronymous was reportedly highly influenced by and interested in developments in Peru, Chile, and Brazil. In a 2009 interview, Peruvian extreme metal band Hadez reported that Euronymous wanted to sign Hadez and the Colombian band Masacre to Deathlike Silence - which wouldn't have happened without trading tapes.

Although demos have always been a part of the metal underground, their heyday was certainly throughout the 80s and early 90s. During the general lull that was metal in the post-grunge world (especially extreme metal), the tape trading scene largely diminished. Reduced recording costs and easier distribution also reduced the relevancy of the demo as a "demonstration" for a label. The glut of metal bands signed to and subsequently dropped from labels made it harder to justify the time and expense (even slight) to recording demos, especially in the USA and UK.

Then the Internet became mainstream. Suddenly, the humble demo became a lot more interesting as the Internet offered an ability to show ideas at even more limited cost. Platforms like Bandcamp and even YouTube offered a quick, low-hassle way of posting music and (in the case of the former) receiving a bit of money from them more quickly and easily than ordering through zines and praying those five dollars made it across the Atlantic Ocean in two months' time. A number of labels arose that primarily distributed digital releases rather than physical, emphasizing the idea of the "label as curator" even more. One of the most salient examples is Maggot Stomp in the late 2010s, which released a string of meat-and-potatoes death metal and brutal death metal demos that exploded throughout the underground and led to not a few of these bands being signed to much larger labels for their LPs.

Metal's Internet era is also defined by rediscovery. YouTube channels such as Ken's Death Metal Crypt upload early, unknown, and forgotten demos - as well as shining light on new and upcoming bands. Timeghoul and Rippikoulu are perhaps the two biggest recipients of this trend; neither of these were particularly well-known in their day, and both fell into relative obscurity for decades. But the ease of sharing a link to a demo rather than mailing a tape has made it so much easier for metal fans to discover something new.

In the early 2010s, a number of labels popped up that focused on identifying, compiling, and releasing demos and other releases from obscure yet interesting acts. This rediscovery has also led to a ton of demo-only bands from the 80s and early 90s to reform, tour, and occasionally release a long-awaited LP (like Witches Hammer, who only had a couple speed metal demos from the 80s and released their first LP in 2020). Some people joke that this has led to a bunch of bands being unearthed that probably should have remained buried - but at the same time, metal demos from all walks are more accessible than ever.

Modern demos tend to heavily weight on the side of extreme metal - particularly black, death, and grindcore. Why is this? Well, extreme metal subgenres are also the dominant form of music released in terms of sheer numbers. This can broadly be described as the barrier for entry to extreme metal being lower than traditional heavy metal and power metal, both of which place higher value on technical ability and recording fidelity. There's also simply a stronger culture around demos within extreme metal, with many bands pointing toward demos released in the 80s and early/mid 90s as particularly relevant inspirations. This is not to say that demos do not have a place in non-extreme metal today, simply that modern listeners can expect to see a much greater focus on these genres even compared to the early or mid 80s.

So, why should you care about demos in 2023 (or whatever year)?

To those outside of the demo-hunting scene, demos often have the reputation of being poorly-recorded early versions of tracks that would be better fleshed-out for an LP. The fidelity is lower, the band is often sloppier, and that tape hiss - why couldn't they have edited out the tape hiss?! And if the band never recorded an LP or released with a label anyway, doesn't that probably mean they were terrible and I shouldn't care about them? They couldn't even get signed!

Well, I'm glad you asked that question, too. Here are five reasons that demos are worth checking out:

• Many demos feature music never recorded on future LPs or EPs. This is especially true for extreme metal demos from the 80s and 90s - from obscure bands with one-off releases (e.g. Anubi, Kvist) to genre stalwarts (e.g. Master's Hammer, Order from Chaos, Enslaved, and Abigor). Demos often feature an EP's worth of material, but plenty of demos (like The Mass by Master's Hammer) are album's worth of material.
• There are plenty of demos from bands who never recorded an LP. For one reason or another, some bands just don't make it to the studio. This isn't always due to a lack of quality or interest - life happens, and often a band doesn't survive. But this can leave behind an excellent and interesting swathe of material, and plenty of demos have become extremely well-regarded in their own right. Necrovore, Poison, Whetstone, Morbid, Abhorrence, and Treblinka are just some of the bands who didn't get into a studio but nonetheless have substantial material.
• It's more music from a band you might like. If you like the LPs, why not check out the non-album material? You might surprise yourself! This is double so for bands who have a large discography of demos and EPs in addition to LPs, which is particularly common in extreme metal. Add in the fact that many demo versions of bands' tracks are often wildly different from the LP counterparts, as with Metallica's No Life 'Til Leather and Portal's Lurker at the Threshold.
• Contemporary demos from new bands can open you up to new sounds and new scenes. While many demo lists are bottom-heavy with 80s/90s dependables, plenty of bands nowadays get their start by releasing demos that percolate throughout the community. Demos allow you to hear what new bands are coming up on the scene and show you easily-accessible, bite-sized chunks of bands that might have more on the horizon. Add to this that demos are often a way that a band experiments with new sounds, and you have the ability to hear often interesting takes on established formulae. Bog Body, Ossuary, Eternal Champion, Tomb Mold, and Undeath are all modern bands who got a bit of buzz from their demos precipitating out of the æther.
• Exploring demos can help you better understand a scene's influences and history. Many demos have strongly influenced the development of metal, and the underground begets the mainstream. Necrovore's Divus de Mortuus has inspired a wealth of bands like Beyond, Omegavortex, and Ascended Dead - to the extent that any release of hyper-chaotic black/death will inevitably invite comparisons. One of the best-known examples nowadays is Timeghoul's influence on Blood Incantation.
• Demo artworks are super goofy and fun to look at.

Let's start the dive!

Beginning the search...

One of the best ways to get into demos is to look into the wider discographies of bands you already enjoy. This is how I started searching demos - simply by loading up a copy of Abigor's Lux Devicta Est as I wanted to learn more about the band outside of the first several LPs. Many of the "big names" in metal have a healthy back catalogue of non-album material. Lots of these releases are available on services like YouTube, whereas Spotify (at least at the time of this writing) generally does not feature nearly as many demos unless they were specifically reissued by a label. Luckily, there are many channels on YouTube that specifically focus on uploading demo releases, as well as curated labels and playlists.

The next best way to get into demos is to research bands' influences. The Metal Archives' "Similar Artists" feature on band pages is an extremely effective resource. While MA does not state specific releases that influenced various bands, it is still worth searching that tab and seeing what common names stick out. Looking up interviews of contemporary bands is also an easy way of finding demos, given that many bands are forthcoming about their interests and influences.

Reading zines can help you discover more obscure releases and bands. Since the mid-2010s, a lot of zines have been compiled and reissued in omnibus format, such as the aforementioned Slayer zine. These are great ways to learn about the history of a scene from the bands and writers themselves while also finding whatever releases are mentioned. I have often treated zines as encyclopedias, where I read interviews and look up bands I'm not familiar with to see what comes up. While getting copies of zines can be difficult, there exists resources such as The Corroseum that specifically upload scanned copies.

Some resources!

You don't have to hunt down Lithuanian death metal demos from 1993 to "get" what demos are about. Exploring demos can be an excellent method of learning more about a scene - or just having more metal to hear! Here are some resources that can help you dig further:

• Ken's Death Metal Crypt. Mentioned a few times already, this YouTube channel uploads obscure and classic death metal demos while highlighting contemporary bands and occasionally featuring question-and-answer videos by Ken himself.
• Various fanzine upload/scan sites: The Corroseum, Send Back My Stamps, and Arcane Archivist. These are three sites (out of many) that scan, upload, and host old zines from the 80s and 90s.
• Tape Wyrm. Run by two of the r/metal mods, Tape Wyrm is a Wordpress blog that dives into the obscurities of Bandcamp releases. Tape Wyrm focuses on all areas of metal releases, though the nature of bandcamp means black, death, and grindcore are often the most heavily featured.
• Dark Symphonies / The Crypt. This label partnered with Dark Descent Records to exclusively focus on reissuing demos, EPs, and LPs from obscure bands of the 80s and 90s. The majority of their releases are well-curated, so simply going through their roster can be a good way of exploring scenes.
• Ride into Glory - Essential USPM Demos. This guide includes significantly influential (and still excellent) US power metal demos for those interested in diving into the scene.
• Compendiums of Death Metal and Black Metal Demos. Disclosure - these guides were written by me (and requested for inclusion by the community, lest I be accused of nepotism toward myself). They feature brief write-ups for hundreds of black and death metal demos, from the influential to the completely obscure.
• Shreddit's Top Demos - as of March 2023. The r/metal community's votes for the best demos released up until the voting period of March 2023. Check out a large list of demos chosen by you all for inclusion!

Whoa, I'm overwhelmed by options. 😳 Give me some recommendations?

Here are 25 demos that are both influential and euphonious. This is not intended to be a complete list, just an introduction - but any of them would show up in a demo hound's favorites. Note that more than most other scenes and genres in metal, a list of recommended or top demos is going to skew early in metal's history. This is simply because the quality and influence of demos are often judged in retrospect by the nature of the medium.

• Angel Witch - 1978 Demo (1978, UK). The first demo on the list comes from one of the earliest NWOBHM bands out there, and it opens with a fitting "OWW!" on a track called "Baphomet". A few of these tracks would show up on the 1980 debut LP, while others only appear here. And they're all in that early heavy metal rawness and imperfection that captures the spirit not only of demos but metal as a genre.
• Iron Maiden - The Soundhouse Tapes (1979, UK). The first release from the NWOBHM/heavy metal giants themselves, The Soundhouse Tapes shows NWOBHM's punk influence that would define much of the developments in metal throughout the upcoming 1980s. The original Tapes were 11 minutes and three tracks; subsequent reissues have expanded it to a full half hour of material.
• Metallica - No Life 'Til Leather (1982, USA). Easily one of the most "important" demos out there, No Life 'Til Leather shows Metallica's speed metal side at its strongest, featuring a lot of tracks that would be on the debut LP in a punkier and more traditional heavy metal context.
• Hellhammer - Satanic Rites (1983, Switzerland). Hellhammer is almost synonymous with "black metal", with their string of releases from 1983-1984 placed alongside Bathory and Venom for sheer, unbridled influence in what would become the subgenre as we know it today. Check out Tom G. Warrior's hoarse bark and the ultimate fuck-all attitude.
• Possessed - Death Metal (1984, USA). I'm not here to participate in the "who made death metal" debate, but between Mantas and Possessed, I've chosen to feature Possessed in this list of 25. Death Metal demonstrates the beastly attitude of the namesake subgenre as much as any other, with the extreme metal equivalent of a call-and-response chorus shining through the fuzz.
• Death Strike - Fuckin' Death (1985, USA). Death Strike is closely related to Master by way of bassist/vocalist Paul Speckmann. The original four-track demo was released in 1985; it is a wicked and ripping bit of death/thrash that hits hard on the "death" side with Speckmann's double-tracked full-throated barks. Fuckin' Death was reissued in 1991 as an LP with four additional studio recordings, as with other demos in this list.
• Mefisto - The Megalomania Puzzle (1986/1986, Sweden). This compiles Megalomania and The Puzzle, two semi-obscure Swedish demos that are positively famous in the black metal underground. Like thrash metal on down-tuned downers, Mefisto rips while setting up an unsettling atmosphere with weird screams and thundering percussion.
• Slaughter Lord - Thrash 'Til Death (1986-1987) (1986/1987, Australia). Slaughter Lord existed at that curious nexus of black, death, and thrash metal where the distinctions between the subgenres don't matter. This compilation grabs two of their three total demos, with two studio recordings appended to the end.
• Poison - Into the Abyss... (1987, Germany). No, not that Poison. This Poison is one of the cornerstones of underground European black/death. Four tracks in 33 minutes, Into the Abyss... features strange, sinewy guitar leads with thrashy rhythm guitars and throat-shredding vocals. This was reissued as an LP in 1993. (Ignore the YouTube link saying this came out in 1986 - the demo was recorded in December 1986.)
• Morbid Angel - Thy Kingdom Come (1987, USA). Morbid Angel's fourth demo would also be one of their best, with every aspect of their chaotic and mind-bending death metal pre-Altars of Madness being on display. The recording quality is slightly lower and Dave Vincent's vocals are almost black metal-levels of raspy, but that's what makes this feel so damn raw.
• Necrovore - Divus de Mortuus (1987, USA). Raw even for demo standards, Necrovore's one and only release became sixteen of the most influential minutes in metal history. The revolving rhythm guitar leads and simple yet crashing percussion are part of the blueprint for so many contemporary black/death bands today.
• Nuclear Death - Welcome to the Minds of the Morbid (1987, USA). One of the earliest grindcore releases from a band not named Napalm Death (but sharing half the name), Nuclear Death came from the mind of Lori Bravo in burning desert wasteland of Arizona, USA. Welcome to the Minds of the Morbid is what happens when you take thrash metal at its most intense and blend it with Bravo's over-the-line take on horror. The band would later become full-on deathgrind by the release of the first LP Bride of Insect and became more experimental as time went on (and Bravo took more drugs).
• Abhorer - Rumpus of the Undead (1989, Singapore). From Sabbat to Sarcófago, metal is and always has been a global phenomenon. Non-European scenes tend to be pushed aside in the mainstream metal consciousness when discussing the roots of black, death, and thrash, but the scenes were just as vibrant every which way in the world. Southeast Asia in particular has had an extremely strong history of the most blasphemous and intense extreme metal out there, with Abhorer's debut demo (and 1994 EP Upheaval of Blasphemy) showing some of its harshest sounds. Contemporaneous bands include Nuctemeron, Libation, Sepsism, Sil-Khannas, and Debauchery.
• Blasphemy - Blood Upon the Altar (1989, Canada). Rarely can an entire subgenre be tied so specifically to one release, but with Blasphemy, it is undeniable that this demo established what would be what people think about when they hear the words "war metal".
• Xysma - Swarming of the Maggots (1989, Finland). This is an excellent example of how demos can show completely novel music in a band's discography that might be utterly unlike anything else in their discography. Xysma started off as buzzsaw-bass goregrind before dropping it utterly for psychedelic rock-tinged death metal on their first LP (yeah, you read that right). By their third LP, they were an alternative rock/post-grunge band and have remained so ever since.
• Sadism - Perdition of Souls (1989, Chile). South American extreme metal has had a positively enormous influence on scenes the world over, the least of which being the relationship between Euronymous and Hadez as described earlier in this primer. Sadism wasn't the first Chilean death metal band out there, but their Perdition of Souls demo was absolutely one of the original purveyors of the sound that reached other shores. Other early releases in this sound include the 1987's Sacrilegio EP from Parabellum and 1988's Guerra Total EP from Blasfemia, both of which hailed from Colombia.
• Armoured Angel - Communion (1990, Australia). Armoured Angel is a textbook example of strong non-album material, with the majority of their nearly two-decade run being demos and EPs. While any of these could be featured on their list, Communion is the strongest example of their extreme take on thrash metal, which would later evolve into full-on death metal by the Mysterium EP in 1994.
• Sabbat - Sabbatical Demon (1990, Japan). Sabbat is one of the most recognizable and longest-running Japanese extreme metal bands, and their discography is an excellent example of one with a ton of non-album material worth hearing. Of particular mention is "Black Fire", which was played in one of the more infamous (and awesome) live recordings in extreme metal history.
• Abhorrence - Vulgar Necrolatry (1990, Finland). Abhorrence is another one of those blueprint-bands, from which most bands in their scene can claim a direct lineage. Vulgar Necrolatry was the band's first-ever release, and it shows the best of Finnish death metal's weirdness and discomfiting nature. A couple band members later joined Amorphis!
• Varathron - Genesis of Apocryphal Desire (1990, Greece). One of the earliest examples of Greek black metal, Varathon's second demo shows the scene's early lean toward melancholic melodies while hitting hard the punky speed and thrash metal roots of black metal. Check out Rotting Christ's 1991 EP Passage to Arcturo and Septicflesh's 1991 demo Forgotten Path for similar takes on the early sound.
• Emperor - Wrath of the Tyrant (1992, Norway). There's plenty to choose from in the second-wave Norwegian black metal scene, and Emperor's Wrath of the Tyrant is one of the first options for goobly demo goodness. In tandem with Enslaved's Yggdrasill, this demo is an early realization of the raw fury, tremolo attack, and spittle-encrusted vocals of the teenagers from the north.
• Rippikoulu - Musta Seremonia (1993, Finland). This demo is the typecast for 80 percent of death/doom bands that came after. Previously, death/doom bands were of the vein of Sempiternal Deathreign or Sororicide - a variation on punky death metal rhythms but with the danker atmosphere of doom. Rippikoulu changed that to more of a "death metal at quarter speed" sound with deeper, more guttural vocals and a lugubrious guitar tone.
• Mütiilation - Ceremony of Black Cult (1993, France). The Les Légions Noires collective is an early and highly influential example of "demo as its own art form". LLN eschewed normal interpretations of fidelity and sound quality in favor of extremely raw recordings that flitted between black metal, noise, and dark ambient music. Mütiilation is perhaps the most accessible LLN artist, though "accessible" is certainly doing some lifting. Still, check this out for an important look into how modern black artists purposefully use fidelity and the "demo" medium in ways that expand the original concepts.
• Timeghoul - 1992-1994 Discography (1992/1994, USA). Alongside Demilich, Timeghoul strongly benefited from the ubiquitous Internet bringing to light death metal's history. Released to little recognition and less fanfare, Timeghoul's two demos are weird and progressive, with the second demo Panaramic Twilight laying the foundation for Blood Incantation.
• Paysage d'Hiver - Paysage d'Hiver (1999, Switzerland). Paysage d'Hiver demonstrates how the demo is an aesthetic as well as music. This one-man raw atmospheric black metal band's are "demos" in all but name, a tendency that the artist dropped upon 2020's "official" LP Im Wald. For Paysage d'Hiver, calling a release a "demo" was a statement of authenticity, giving listeners an expectation of coarseness and grit throughout its hour, with icily low fidelity and a ghostly violin.

... and here are five vanity picks from me. These might not show up in other peoples' lists, but I think they're worth exploring:

• Terminal Death - Faces of Death (1985, USA). Terminal Death only released this and a rehearsal before splitting up, with half the members leaving metal altogether. What they left is an absolute ripper of death/thrash, with John Piotrowski's screeches tearing through the mix. "Hacksaw" is my choice for a demo track hidden gem.
• Whetstone - Ancient Metal (1988, Germany). Another one of those demo-only bands, Whetstone only released this and 1986's Blood United before breaking up. Ancient Metal is one of those beloved releases in the traditional heavy metal fandom, featuring incredible sing-along choruses and one of the strongest baritones in the genre. Check out Virtue's We Stand to Fight for similar anthemic heavy metal - that compiles the titular single (1985) and the Fool's Gold demo (1987).
• Lucifer's Hammer - The Burning Church (1994, USA). I can't think of many other places more fitting for a black/death band than cold and cloudy Michigan in January. This demo shows exactly what to expect by cover alone: fiery, intense, and full-throttled black/death that's heavy on the rhythm section and deep in the blasphemy.
• Anubi - Mirties Metafora (1995, Lithuania). This is a particularly vain vanity pick given I wrote the Shreddit primers on Baltic extreme metal in 2017. Of the Baltic bands of the 90s, Anubi and Skyforger are the ones most-recognizable to non-Baltic audiences. Anubi was a particularly interesting case of outsider-black metal that tragically ended when the creative force of the band drowned in a fishing accident off the coast of Lake Michigan in 2002.
• Worship - Last Tape Before Doomsday (1999, Germany). Worship is a German funeral doom metal band that emphasizes the subgenre's despairing aesthetic. Last Tape Before Doomsday was their first release when vocalist Maximilien Varnier was just 19. Reissues have humorously retitled it under various permutations of Last CD Before Doomsday and Last Vinyl Before Doomsday.

For a bit of modern representation in this list, here are ten demos from 2005 onward:

• Damaar (دمار) - Triumph Through Spears of Sacrilege (2007, Lebanon). Damaar's one and only release is nineteen minutes of terror in the form of war metal, a specific form of black, death, and grindcore strongly based in percussion rather than outright riffs. Listen for a harrowing introduction and stay for the refrain "DO YOU WISH TO DIE???"
• Rhinocervs - RH-07 (2011, USA). Not so much a band as much as a collective, all of the releases under the Rhinocervs label are technically without artist. Active from 2010 through 2013, Rhinocervs released a variety of experimental extreme metal demos that flirted with black, death, and dark ambient. As with Paysage d'Hiver and Les Légions Noires, Rhinocervs is a modern example of the demo as its own aesthetic medium.
• Stone Dagger - The Siege of Jerusalem (2013, USA). Stone Dagger released two tracks and then disappeared, even if they are (as of March 2023) listed as "active" under the Metal Archives. These are perfect for the modern heavy metal fan who's looking for powerful vocals and mid-tempo rockers.
• Arnaut Pavle - Arnaut Pavle (2013, Finland). Arnaut Pavle takes from the foundation laid by black/punk bands such as Bone Awl and Raspberry Bulbs, but with a distinctly vampyric take prior to the explosion of similarly-themed bands in the early 2020s.
• Tomb Mold - The Moulting (2016, Canada). One of the modern standard-bearers of death metal in the late 2010s, Tomb Mold's demos practically exploded upon the scene and drummed up significant underground hype for their LP Primordial Malignity released the following year. Death metal at its filthiest.
• Bog Body - Through the Burial Bog (2018, USA). Bog Body's debut demo is a grinding mix of death and sludge metal filtered through the bass-and-drums approach of early Ride for Revenge. Four tracks and plenty of noise - I'd use the word "desiccated" to describe them if it weren't already in the first track.
• Undeath - Sentient Autolysis (2019, USA). Another death metal act whose demo gained significant underground traction, Undeath's first two demos are straightforward Cannibal Corpse-tinged death. A band for which the tag "meat and potatoes" was created.
• Primitive Warfare - Primitive Warfare (2019, USA). As with Damaar, Primitive Warfare plays war metal - but with an even more chaotic, barky approach that's resplendent within their first demo. Primitive Warfare is also demonstrative of the broader black/death scene that sprouted in the USA's East Coast, as typified by Antichrist Siege Machine and Caveman Cult.
• Sijjin - Angel of the Eastern Gate (2019, Germany). Born from the ashes of Necros Christos, Sijjin plays death/thrash with motormouth vocals and a Mesopotamian cultural influence. The demo serves the dual purpose of featuring tracks that aren't on the 2021 LP Sumerian Promises and providing a rawer version of the title track that did make it on the LP.
• Sordid Blade - Demo MMXXI (2021, Sweden). Sordid Blade's ten-minute demo is raw and roughshod alright, but that fits this kind of traditional heavy metal. If you don't want your heavy metal to be as clean as other 2020s releases, then Sordid Blade's ten minutes of demo can be a good place to go with buried baritone vocals and earworm lead guitars.

Thanks for reading, and happy exploring!