Artist: Chaos Insignia
Country: Romania
Label: Self-Released
Formats: Digital Demo
Year: 2025
Earlier this year I stumbled upon Chaos Insignia’s debut EP (or demo, if you prefer). I was enamoured with this band’s take on the Bestial Black/Death genre, even though resemblances with Antichrist Siege Machine were hard to miss. Now the Romanian trio returns with what can be seen as a bit of a warm up to what should become the band’s first full-length album.
This demo, only made available through the band’s Bandcamp-page, was recorded live in their rehearsal room in a seemingly rather primitive way. Perhaps with a cell phone or at least just with one microphone. That will definitely bother audiophiles or those who seek for well-developed and nicely polished metal. Well, this ain’t it, that’s for sure. But, then again, their debut EP wasn’t much of a shiny diamond either.
But, if you are used to listening to raw and crude demo recordings, ‘Precode Rituals’ isn’t that much of an issue. Because of the total lack of a mix, it is mainly the drums that are audible, overpowering the guitars for the most part, but when your ears are used to the sound quality, then you hear a band that is getting better and better at what they are doing. The first five tracks are the ones from the debut EP, with only the last two being new additions to Chaos Insignia’s repertoire. These new tracks are largely in the same vein as the older tracks, but also here you can actually notice the band has taken a few steps forward. As a whole, I definitely love the extreme harsh conditions of the recordings in combination with what I assume are samples or some sort of electronics. That shows that Chaos Insignia isn’t just a band pushing the gas pedal and go for broke on the chaos-thing. Let’s see what it this all sounds like when the tracks are properly recorded for the upcoming long player.
