Alcoholic Metal

Tankard’s second demo has clearly stronger points, and you can really see some better arrangements here and there…

First thing that you notice is the production. The production is still demo material and the sound is still raw and pretty low. However, the boys of Tankard really show some improvements as far as arranging everything from instruments, vocals, and even the production.

Apparently the demo I got is a bit different than the original demo version. The original version does not contain the track ‘Mercenary’ but the other version I got has the re-recorded version of it. Also, the intro to the original demo is called ‘Rippers Delight’ but in the other version it’s called simply an ‘Intro’. Whether the intros are different, that’s something I haven’t figured out yet. But I seriously doubt it as I find out that both intros have the same length according to this website (53 seconds).

The demo starts with a funny intro – with techno music going on in the background and someone at the end (sounds like Gerre) screaming some kind of shit that apparently he hates techno. And then it goes straight into the decent track called ‘Zombie Attack’. Clearly, this track will prove to you that this demo obviously has better arrangements here and there, and the production is rather better.

The weakest track on here is rather stupid, ‘Poison’. It starts out very catchy actually, but the rest literally falls into annoying stupid crap. The chorus is just flat-out annoying and badly thought out. POISON! POISON! POISON! And every time he shouts out poison, it goes right on top of the other time he shouts poison…

There isn’t really much difference in between songs, and that’s what Tankard really lacks in this demo overall. Though Tankard really shows good signs of early-thrash, everything is really under-produced… and you have to really dig into the production to actually enjoy it.

So, just like Tankard’s first demo: it has really strong points but at the same time really weak points. Some songs were really arranged badly, especially a lot of choruses (e.g. Poison & Acid Death), yet at the same time they show better signs of arrangements on some of the songs. The re-recorded version is ‘Mercenary’ is much better than the version of the first one, and Gerre's vocals don't change that much at all (except for his tone, which makes it sound a tad different because of the production). It’s really hard to choose, but I’d say this demo is better than the other one (but not by much).