Artist: Kos
Country: USA
Label: Elf Eggs
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2025
Kos is yet another concoction of the person behind such bands as Red Right Hand Of Plague, Great Tribulation and Thirsting Ampoule and the one running the Elf Eggs label. With a fine track record in which his knowledge and expertise of the deepest regions of Extreme Metal is beyond question, he manages to convince with Kos, operating here under the name Knappheit, just the same.
‘Demo MMXXV’ serves us six tracks and 15 minutes of worshipping the wildest late 80’s and early 90’s Black Metal. It is not only the evident musical comparisons to Von, Beherit, Profanatica and Demoncy that’s giving this debut demo tape its obvious timeframe, the overarching sound structure and production is equally important to the overall experience. The wild and hysterical guitar leads, the thunderous riffs and bellowing vocal delivery: none of this is anything that we haven’t heard before. On the contrary, I would say. But seldomly it is done in such an authentic way. The murky, dark and oppressing production fits perfectly within the chosen concept for Kos. Consequently, if you’d really look for proper parallel in today’s scene you basically can’t deny the similarities with the Finnish masters of all that’s dark; Witchcraft. In my book that is quite the compliment and it underlines that there’s no real need for originality, sophistication or trendy stuff when things are done right.
The rehearsal-like sound and this one-man project’s balancing act between Black Metal and Death Metal with some obvious bits and pieces of early Grindcore (Carcass, Xysma) makes ‘Demo MMXXV’ a genuine homage to those ever-compelling demo tapes from the developing days of Extreme Metal.
