DEMO:LISTEN: Anasarca “Survival Mode”

Every week, DEMO:LISTEN will premiere a new demo (or demos) by a band of heavy nature. There’s no boundaries here: death, black, doom, sludge, progressive, stoner, retro, whatever! It’s all fair game. For this week’s premiere, we explore Germany’s Anasarca.

When Anasarca last put out their third full-length, Dying, the year wasn’t going too well for the Germans. In fact, it would be the last anyone would hear of them for a good 11 years. Well, after stints on Repulse and Mighty, they’ve returned, death metal intact, unsigned yet ready to kill. That their new demo, Survival Mode, is titled the way it is makes sense, actually. Though they’ve been dormant for more than a decade, the Lower Saxony-based quartet haven’t lost their sense of brutality and innovation.

The Survival Mode demo consists of five throat-slashing tracks. Death metal purists will hear mid-period Cannibal Corpse in tracks like “Survival Mode” and “571”, while death metal leftists will hear early Pestilence, where thrash riffs are inverted into dissonance and awesome counter-point. Certainly, Anasarca, like on their early albums, aren’t moving death metal’s Everest-sized mountain, but they perform it like they’ve lived it and understand its history. No deathcore in Anasarca.

That being said, few bands are doing death metal this proficiently at this stage. So, labels with medium-sized pockets should be interested in Anasarca. Really, Survival Mode‘s that good.

To bash your brain into red juicy bits, click on their Facebook page HERE.

You can thank Anasarca later for memory and brain matter loss.

Hit this space next week for the next installment of DEMO:LISTEN!