Demilich is a Finnish
death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...
band, which formed in the early 1990s and consists of frontman Antti Boman, guitarist Aki Hytönen, bassist Ville Koistinen, and drummer Mikko Virnes. Their debut album, ''
Nespithe'' (1993), features intricate death metal riffs with unusually low, guttural vocals in the
vocal fry register
The vocal fry register (also known as pulse register, laryngealization, pulse phonation, creaky voice, creak, croak, popcorning, glottal fry, glottal rattle, glottal scrape) is the lowest vocal register and is produced through a loose glottal clos ...
. The album contains long, complicated song titles and unconventional lyrics which were written in code in the booklet.
''Nespithe'' was featured in
''Terrorizer'''s ''Secret History of Death Metal'', in their list of "The 40 Albums You Must Hear"; they commented: "Even trying to scream your lungs out whilst vomiting a mix of haggis, outdated goat's cheese and kebab won't do. Tested extensively by Terrorizer's scientific team, we can now safely say that no normal human is capable of reproducing the effect-free vocal madness displayed by Antti Boman on these Finns' sole, totally unique, album."
[Badin, Olivier. ''Terrorizer'''s Secret History of Death Metal, "The 40 Albums You Must Hear", p. 95, March 2010.]
Demilich played what was believed to be their last show on 22 July 2006 but performed many other shows since then, including appearances at
Jalometalli Metal Music Festival
Jalometalli Metal Music Festival is a Finnish heavy metal festival held annually in Oulu since 2002. The festival mainly features old school thrash metal and death and black metal bands.
Lineups
2002
* Thyrane
*Monsterspank
*Funeris Nocturnum
...
and
Maryland Death Fest.
History
Demilich was founded in 1990 by guitarist/vocalist Antti Boman and drummer Mikko Virnes, creating a unique
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
sound of technical death metal in A standard tuning, with extremely low-register vocals. Demilich recorded four demo tapes (some containing re-used material from previous demos) before creating their debut, ''Nespithe'', in 1993. The band split up shortly after the release of the album due to complications with their record label and the album's profits. Demilich remained inactive until 2005 when they reformed and began playing live shows, as well as writing new material. This material would not be released to the public until 2014. Demilich played what was to be their last show in 2006, yet performed one-off shows in the following years.
The compilation release ''20th Adversary of Emptiness'' contains everything Demilich have ever recorded, starting from ''Regurgitation of Blood'' demo (1991) and rounding things off with three songs the band recorded during their brief comeback in 2006. The only Demilich full-length album ''Nespithe'' has been reissued several times over the years in various guises, but always using the inferior 16-bit CD masters and sometimes
brickwalled beyond recognition. For this release the band dug up the original unmastered 24 bit studio tapes for ''Nespithe'' and best possible sources for the demo material, and then had Sami Jämsén of Studio Perkele thoroughly
master
Master or masters may refer to:
Ranks or titles
* Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans
*Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...
these original unmastered mixes.
Discography
Studio albums
* ''
Nespithe'' (1993)
Demos
* ''Regurgitation of Blood'' (1991)
* ''The Four Instructive Tales... of Decomposition'' (1991)
* ''...Somewhere Inside the Bowels of Endlessness...'' (1992)
* ''The Echo'' (1992)
Compilation albums
* ''20th Adversary of Emptiness'' (2014)
* ''Em9t2ness of Van2s1ing / V34ish6ng 0f Emptiness'' (2018)
References
External links
Current official websitePrevious website*
Demilichand ''
Nespithe' at
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Demilich
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups disestablished in 1993
Technical death metal musical groups
Finnish death metal musical groups