Spooky Fingers 04: East Coast vs West
October 10 2008 at 12:43:15 AM  Two obscure demos from the heydey of US Death Metal Malibu, California’s Mutilage was formed in 1991 by Chris Williams (guitar, vocals), Evan Shanks (bass) and Jody Kern (drums). The group released only one demo in 1992 and were later featured on Roughage Records’ now rare Heralds of Obliveon compilation alongside fellow Cali-based Death Metal bands Decomposed, Brainstorm and Demolition. Although leaving behind only a handful of songs on tape, Mutilage became a momentary sensation in their brief time together, often playing live shows in backyards and on the beach until finally landing a gig at LA’s legendary Whisky club. While the rest of band came from a punk rock background, Williams grew up the son of a noted blues-rock musician and songwriter who made his bones working with Bonnie Rait, Eric Clapton, The Doobie Brothers and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Described by one Malibu paper as playing “grindcore, speed surf/skate enviro blues,” Mutilage’s four-track demo is a blessed mess of spastic beats, precarious riffing, chaotic dive-bombs and gut-wrenched vox that confound the band’s typical beach bum appearance (looking exactly like Slayer circa 1980s in their casual wear) and help transform the scenic view of suntans and windsurfing associated with their hometown into a waterfront holocaust. But it never went further than this. After disbanding in 93, Shanks and Kern went back to playing in local punk groups Entropy and Bad Samaritans. Williams restarted Mutilage for a brief time in 1994 but soon partnered up with drummer Alex Orbison (Son of "The Big O" himself) to form the rock group Backbone69. Williams continued writing music and performing live in Malibu with Backbone69 until 2001, when he was killed in a fatal car accident. More info available at the Chris Williams tribute site.  Long Island’s Embrionic Death was another only-demoed band heavily influenced by fellow New Yorkers Baphomet and Internal Bleeding, known primarily for churning out some of the heaviest death grind around at a time when the band's members were barely elligble to take driver's ed. Recorded in 1992, Regurgitate The Dead is a sort of pre-cursor to the now common ”slam” style of hardcore/Death Metal that peaked early on in the area with local legends Dehumanized on their lone album Prophecies Foretold. The six-track demo hews close to a formula of choppy, tenderizing rhythms familiar to listeners even back then, but in addition is one of the earliest recordings by any band to conceive of the now infamous wheezing "slaughterhouse" hog vox (courtesy of 14 year old Brian Herman), a "tin can" snare and bass fluttering like a three-ton eyelid, either dead or disoriented from one massive bong hit. So categorically simple is the music, boiling down style and technique to its most tasty bits, that it’s both brutal and soothing. This is the sound of wasted time, as indifferent as marching to and from the couch to get lit or pop in the next volume of Faces of Death. A feeling compounded by the cutouts of infant cadavers on the cover and Merrie Melodies cartoons sampled into mix. Given the small but affection praise given to other bands of this nature in the last few years, I guess it's a shame Embrionic Death have never really gotten there due. On ED’s next demo Stream of Solidarity (produced by the band and Steve Earl, then known for his work on Incantation’s Onward to Golgotha) the band attempted a more progressive sound, perhaps influenced in-part by the release of Cynic’s Focus earlier that same year, and began working with odd time-changes and more harmonic effects, although with far less density and oppression in the music as a result. The band is now rumored to be back together and working on new material. Comments (0)
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