This week’s Demo:listen uncovers New Jersey’s Burial Stone.
Last Tuesday, without any warning or hype, Burial Stone released their 3-song, lizard-people-green demo, dubbed Lost History. Members are known collaborators of the NVNM alliance, alongside bands like Damnation Lust, Massive Retaliation, Siege Column, etc., but Burial Stone defy that pantheon of rippers and beasts with some advanced decomposition caveman death doom.
While the guitars, vocals, and bass are all handled by an anonymous person behind the pseudonym Spectral Maniac, the familiar Joe Aversario is responsible for all the battery flogging your ears.
“We split and doubled the [guitar] leads for this first demonstration,” says Spectral Maniac. “The name [Burial Stone] came from my research for lyrics, writing in ancient culture, and struck a chord with me. I believe it fits the cavernous filth on this first tape. Most of the songs have been kicking around for the last few years and finally found the right fit.”
He continues: “There is a lot going on in my head constantly that forces me to feel the need to work on multiple ideas at a time between the different bands. I tend to get stuck on an idea and beat the horse until it’s dead and the songs are complete. The cold of north-east winter and a loop of Finnish, Swedish, and Dutch death metal kept me focused for weeks, honing the tracks until they were complete.”
Also recorded by Aversario, Lost History sounds convincingly old school, although it’s doubtful that that’s the point. Likely the point is, as Spectral Maniac puts it: “Slow rotten filth that is represented across all tracks.” All the same, when your demo literally sounds like it’s from 89 or 90, and doesn’t, instead, sound like it’s trying to sound like it’s from 89, congratulations are in order.
As for the perfect trifecta of an enviably apt demo title, a killer logo, and gnarly cover art, Spectral Maniac explains: “Lost history is an ongoing theme throughout the project. Lyrically all tracks are based in the prehistory that we no longer understand, and the technology that ancient civilizations like the Atlanteans and Egyptians possessed. As the band progresses we will dive further into the mine and explore what is now unknown.
“The demo cover was done by Snakeingrass and is his take on some ideas I explained to him in the writing process of the record. I believe it fits the aesthetic and atmosphere of the this tape, TOTAL DEATH.” While the logo was executed with archaic precision by NVNM’s own TG.
As for that much needed physical manifestation of Burial Stone’s Lost History demo, Spectral Maniac only alludes: “Beware the Ides of March.”
He does, at least, affirm that Burial Stone have a future.
“Burial Stone will have one newer song feature on the NJ METAL ATTACK VOLUME III compilation that will be out at some point this summer as it has the last two with other NVNM affiliated acts and we will continue to work on our next demonstration.”
