Demiser the Demiser: Vocals
Defiler: Bass
Infestor: Drums
Gravepisser: Guitars
Phallomancer: Guitar
Like a lumbering, ferocious beast awoken from a centuries-long slumber, the metal behemoth known as Demiser emerged from the primordial ooze of the South Carolina metal scene in 2017. After several years working toward a sonic apocalypse and intent on causing untold havoc, Demiser is releasing its sophomore album and Metal Blade debut, Slave to the Scythe,
The 9-song LP is a devastatingly intense slab of work, an aural harbinger of hellish intent that sees the band blend '80s thrash, first-wave black metal, death metal and a healthy dose of NWOBHM. Slave to the Scythe is the work of a band of men determined to destroy everything in their path. Musically, of course.
Their names are: Demiser the Demiser -- occult liturgic blasphemy; Gravepisser -- six-stringed satanic fukklord; Phallomancer -- abysmal rhythm of death; Defiler - dismal baritone curator; and Infestor -- purveyor of percussive bile. They are simply not here to fuck around. Press reports note that Demiser is the perfect choice for when "you're in the mood for some dirty blackened thrash long on fun and short on pretense."
Slave to the Scythe was recorded in the summer of 2023 with Chase McGuckin at Seaboard Recording Studio in West Columbia, South Carolina. "We record one at a time with scratch tracks and clicks and all. We recorded with minimal AC so it was hot as fucking shit." Demiser see Slave to the Scythe as the perfect follow-up to Through the Gate Eternal. "We feel like it's a continuation of our first album and upholds the same ripping sound," they say.
The band will be releasing three singles from the new opus, staring with the face-ripping "Infernal Bust" - a sort of Rosemary's Baby for a gore-loving audience that includes the lyrics, "Rot your womb, spread the seed that satan seeps; Flesh grows pale, fruit of man wilts."
"We wrote the music for this one in a single practice, it came together pretty quickly," they say. "Then Demiser the Demiser's dumb ass decided to call it 'Whores and Fire' and we told him to shut the fuck up and call it something cooler. We still failed. The lyrics are about the downfall of man through a really evil cumshot."
"I really wanted a swingy song to explore some triplet fills and had the most fun writing this one for sure," elaborates Infestor. "When we play it live I improvise half the fills just to keep it fun and fresh."
"Hell is Full of Fire" is an epic tale of a demonic war, featuring the lines, "Call in the hordes, prepare for victory; The vermin Christ and his servants; Will soon plead as their blood spills; By the will of my steel." "This was one that started with a riff Phallomancer brought to practice and we all jumped in and got it fleshed out," they say. "Lyrically, we were making up dumb song titles we thought Demiser the Demiser would write and somehow he dropped this gem out of his ass. We ran with it. We still regret it."
The final single will be "Carbureted Speed," an adrenaline junkie's anthem with the lines, "Fresh air, you can keep it, give me that Florida snow; Blowin rails n gator tails, bumpin' as I go; The devils headlock has me in its grip; Snowblind and out of time my mind begins to slip." "Gravepisser wrote most of this one musically and we got it fully finished during practice." they say. "The lyrics are about doing cocaine and riding choppers."
For the uninitiated, Demiser formed in 2017 with the mission of "getting big enough to get a free bar tab," they say, with no trace of irony. The five men want to drink and play brutally heavy music. They describe the Demiser sound as, "Fast-ripping black thrash with some dirty rock 'n' roll influence at times. As we've continued writing, we've come more into what Demiser's sound is rather than setting out to sound like a specific genre."
The band's influences include the likes of Venom, Bathory, Slayer, Motorhead, and Destroyer 666, plus movies like Terminator 2, Commando, and Predator ("pretty much anything Schwarzenegger really").The overarching themes on Slave to the Scythe are essentially "hell, fire and hellfire." There are no ballads, no love songs - this is devilish music for devilish people that was largely written on the road.
"We wrote it over the course of a few years between touring with the legendary Bulldozer and other shows here and there," they say. "Everybody in the band generally brings something to the writing room (except for Demiser the Demiser) and we all workshop it until we have a song. Then we do it a bunch more times."
Yet Slave to the Scythe is more than a collection of individual songs, it's a full body of sledgehammer-heavy ferocity. Each song offers a different shade to the Demiser palette. "I'm happy with the whole album overall, but the bridge riff from 'Phallomancer the Phallomancer' was something I kicked in and Infestor wrote that solo over, it so it's cool that the rhythm section got to contribute to the guitars," says Defiler.
"This album is more of a mixture of my lyrics and contributions from other members," says Demiser the Demiser. "The standout track for me is 'Total Demise' which is lyrically half and half written by me and Gravepisser, but overall I'm happy with the sound."
And the look: The cover art, featuring a demonic looking creature (perhaps the Lord of the Flies himself?), fits that theme too."We came to Lucas Ruggieri with lyrics to a few of the songs and let him run with it," the band says about the artist. "We're really happy with how it turned out - he crushed it as always."
Decibel has raved about Demiser: "All the aggression and speed of black-thrash with heavy metal melodies, Demiser take the best of both worlds." Memorable, evil and impossible to deny, Slave to the Scythe represents the sound of a band on the rise, momentum firmly in their favor, waving the metal flag with pride and fury.
