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 are visited by the ghost of Underground Metal Present in the form of the UK’s Spectral Apparition.
I heard the noise—some abyssal howling like the siren of the void—, on the floors below; then coming up the stairway; then just outside my bedroom door. It passed through the heavy door, and a Spectral Apparition came into the room before my very eyes. Upon its coming, a cry escaped my throat. Though I should never expect such a nocturnal visitation, I knew this awful phantom!
And, lo, it spoke: “Spectral Apparition commune with the living on behalf of entities calling from beyond the shroud of perception. Spectral Apparition summon forth visions of the unfettered soul soaring through vast chambers of death beyond the slow rot of the corporeal form.”
Then I realized, like a sudden downpour of freezing water, I had been warned of this Spectral Apparition’s coming. My friends, likewise engaged in the life-consuming pursuit of discovering new and unheard of sounds, told me of this entity, but, unfortunately, I had not heeded their advice. I asked the Spectral Apparition what it wanted, and it spoke: “The significance . . . of the entity will become apparent to those who listen to Manifestation.” Then, in the diminishing lacuna between the apparition and myself, there appeared a three song demo tape.
“[Manifestion] was recorded with Greg Chandler (of Esoteric and Lychgate) at Priory Recording Studios,” said the Spectral Apparition. “[He] implicitly understood exactly how the songs needed to sound.”
I was made to understand that I would take the demo and present it to the loyal readers of Demo:listen. You must realize it was everything I could do to stay conscious during this malign visitation. If not for my stout journalistic integrity, I would have flown from my quarters with the alacrity of a man ablaze. Instead I remained, steadfast if not petrified; and now I give to you this Spectral Apparition’s three song debut, Manifestation.
At times sounding like doomed death metal, at others sounding something more like the decaying corpse of a black metal band, Spectral Apparition’s demo is the first iteration of a soul possessed by legion manias. Solos banshee from the maelstrom of harrowing riffs. The drums bang around like cupboards and doors and pots and pans slammed and hurled by a poltergeist. All while the vocalist—whoever they are—screams like a mad necromancer in the midst of demonic transcendence. Easily one of the most memorable recordings we’ve heard all year.
Manifestation is available now through Invictus Productions. Get yourself a copy before it’s too late.
You heard it here on Demo:listen. Check this space next and every Friday for promising new metal.