Artist: Vergewaltiger
Country: USA
Label: Self-released
Formats: Digital demo
Year: 2023
Although the band had a demo, a one-track single and a split EP before, the music of Vergewaltiger never reached my ears before. Due to a recommendation I stumbled upon them and the nice and tasteful black/purple cover convinced me to give this 4-track demo (including intro) a shot.
The cover attracted me the most initially, but certainly the combination with the band name also piqued my interest. While again, I don’t want to say that the cover and band name are the best thing about this demo, the music disappointed me a bit. The somewhat sharp-sounding Raw Black Metal with an icy (non)production is basically not very bad, but mostly somewhat messily executed. This manifests itself especially in the somewhat undersized drums. Because of the marginal production and the somewhat messy sound, I can’t quite make out whether it is with a slight lack of musical talent or whether it is mainly due to the recordings. I can certainly appreciate some untightened playing, but here it does detract a bit from the atmosphere of the demo as the riffs are certainly good and remind of early Second Wave Black Metal more than once – there’s even a riff in the first track that sounds so familiar that I spent over an hour digging through records and songs to find out what it reminded me of, but to no avail (so far). Anyway, a demo also has a function: to try out ideas, so let’s see (and listen to) it that way. Support they will get anyway, because it has potential, I look forward to the next demo (or EP).
