Artist: Atavistic Passage
Country: United Kingdom
Label: Self-Released
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2026
With two solid demo under his belt, Atavistic Passage didn’t quite chose the easiest way to go forward with his third one. I wouldn’t quite classify both of his first two demos as easy listening, as the musical formula seemed to quite heavily rely on Black Metal’s rawest tradition, but ‘Demonstration Three’ is taking things further in almost every way possible. To such an extent that it sounds like a completely different band for the very most part of this demo’s 17-minute playing time.
I can fully imagine that adding a new dimension to the music you are used to making can be very refreshing, opening your eyes and ears, all your senses, basically, to new ideas. But if things go drastically into basically all directions, I think it might be a downright surprise. Even for the musician involved, or maybe especially for him.
For me, an innocent consumer of anything that comes from the deepest gutters of underground scenes, this was quite flabbergasted. The degree of Black Metal on ‘Demonstration Three’ has been reduced to practically zero, only in the waning moments of the demo there’s a tiny bit left – at least in feeling. The rest of the demo is filled with some Dungeon Synth and a lot of old fashioned Martial/Dark Ambient in the right Cold Meat Industries tradition. As a whole, I don’t even think there’s any guitars being used, it’s all samples, synths and vocals (perhaps sampled too).
That means it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it surely does convey a very dark and sometimes disturbing feeling. Yet, although it is not fully going into Abruptum territories, it bears a few obvious resemblances, but also to a more sinister sounding Summoning. As a whole, I think it might best be described as something that Karsten Hamre, the Norwegian experimental Ambient musician, could have done in the mid-00s. Whatever you prefer to call it or compare it with, it has very little to do with the first two demos of Atavistic Passage. I personally liked it, it definitely offered something more substantial compared to the usually rather dull sounding Dungeon Synth affair, or perhaps it just a certain sense of nostalgia, reminding me on those old alluring releases from Cold Meat Industries, God Is Myth or NOTHingness Records.
