Welcome to Demo:listen, your weekly peek into the future of underground metal. Whether it’s death, black, doom, sludge, grind, thrash, heavy, speed, progressive, stoner, retro, post-, etc. we’re here to bring you the latest demos from the newest bands. On this week’s Demo:listen, we burn it all down and rout the incipient resistance in the name of Missouri’s Morbid Rites.
From Springfield, Missouri, Morbid Rites are a brand new thrash band dedicated to remaining true to the genre’s roots. According to Dakota, Morbid Rites’ bassist, “Morbid Rites . . . came together Summer of 2016. Gage (guitar), Ethan (guitar and vocals), and myself have been friends for a long time. And we all had a deep appreciation for old school thrash metal. Kasey was someone we didn’t really know at the time he joined. But one of our friends knew we were looking for a drummer and highly recommended Kasey.”
Listening to Morbid Rites’ self-produced, self-released, self-titled four song demo is a refreshing reminder of why many of us are here in the first place: the riffs. As Dakota explains, “Gage and Ethan live together, and . . they’re constantly showing each other riffs and ideas, sometimes coming up with full songs by themselves.” And you can totally hear that in the tightness of Morbid Rites’ music. While their demo sounds like friends hanging out and recording some killer thrash tunes they wrote together, because the young men involved are proficient musicians, Morbid Rites is also some damn fine thrash. On their demo, the band’s every move sounds at once natural, but thoughtfully calculated, as if they’re veterans, not newcomers, to the genre. Not to mention their expertise in balancing groove and speed.
“The demo was recorded at our practice space, which is Ethan and Gage’s house,” explains Dakota. “Ethan had just bought some stuff to do recordings at home, so this was his first attempt at engineering, mixing, and mastering, and he really nailed it. He got a great raw sound that was perfect for this release.” We’re inclined to agree. Morbid Rites’ demo will snap your neck while soothing your fears. Because here’s a new band dedicated to the old ways. As Dakota puts it: “We’re definitely not trying to reinvent the thrash metal wheel, but we want to bring that raw primitive sound that the bands we love had back, without sounding deliberately retro.”
Morbid Rites’ demo tape is still available for purchase, as well as download. If you’re looking for underground and untrendy true metal then look no further.
You heard it here first on Demo:listen. Check this space next and every Friday for promising new metal.
