Into the Halls of Extermination

The Chicago scene should get more credit for the development of early death metal. Back in 1985/86 there might have been more proto-death metal bands in Chicago than anywhere else in the world. Death Strike, Master, Terminal Death and Devastation could all be seen as death metal to some extent (albeit with lots of hardcore punk influences). For some reason, people seem to have forgotten about most of these bands. Master are well known, but mainly through their official albums which were released several years later. The other names languish in obscurity.

It hasn't always been like this. Sindrome was an all-star team of the Chicago scene. Three of the four musicians on this demo had previously played in the aforementioned bands. Chris Mittelburn played on the unreleased Master album from 1985 (easily Master's best stuff), Shaun Glass played on Terminal Death's “Faces of Death” demo (1985), Troy Dixler sang on Devastation's “A Creation of Ripping Death” demo (1986). This Sindrome demo, “Into the Halls of Extermination” is the culmination of all this, and should have been the beginning of a glorious future. The tape itself was traded around the globe and influenced many other bands.

For listeners in 2019, this represents an interesting mix of thrash and embryonic death metal. The predominant influence is early Slayer. From a musical perspective the whole demo sounds like an extended suite of "Chemical Warfare". Sindrome, like Slayer, do not conform to the typical triplet/chug/triplet thrash guitar patterns. The riffs are loose, complex and ugly. There are passages of steamroller momentum, which would later be used by bands like Deicide and Vader (see 0:16 of "Cathedrals of Ice”, or 2:30 of "Precognition"). The production is dense, more similar to a contemporary death metal album (“Scream Bloody Gore”) than an extreme thrash one (say, “Darkness Descends”). All five songs are great, the lyrics are memorable and engaging (particularly the title track in its depiction of World War II extermination camps).

Troy Dixler's vocal approach is unique. His style differs to the death growl he used on the first Devastation demo. Instead, he opts for cleaner singing and a well enunciated delivery. I like this choice from an artistic perspective. The vocals suit the narrative lyrics and Dixler has a powerful voice. However, these are thrash metal vocals, a genre which had already reached its creative peak. Looking back, these vocals seem to root this demo in the past, the anthemic thrash chorus of "Rapture in Blood" is the only section on the entire demo that sounds dated.

Sindrome never capitalised on this excellent release. Perhaps Dixler's vocal choice cost them extreme metal immortality, perhaps not. I certainly wonder what these songs would sound like if he had used his death metal growl. A second demo emerged five years later, but by then Sindrome had developed into a technical thrash band (and the world had moved on). "Into the Halls of Extermination" stands up well today though, and anyone interested in the boundaries between thrash and death metal should check it out.

“...as I awake to feel the pain…”

As I lounge here collecting thoughts about a demo that’s been a fave of mine since I barely had enough scruff on my taint to scratch, I recall my twinkle-eyed delight that a band from Illinois not only heard of, but decided to seek space (and my opinion) in my dinky, still-new ‘lil zine. High hopes radiated from this thing, and despite the front cover shamelessly announcing its ‘debut demonstration cassette’ rank, it was still well beyond yer standard Memorex tape and crookedly-folded, Xeroxed card scribbled in dried-out pen. I mean, its full-color J-card and pro-printed cassette easily cost more than my then-current issue’s entire print run, therefore after marveling at its cosmetics, as fast as I could slap it in I began marveling at its phonetics.

Yeah, surely I was easily impressed; an eighteen year old who in the scope of things hadn’t heard half his weight in metal. I was a pudgy kid, however, one I don’t mind saying had heard more than the average teen at the time, and Into the Halls of Extermination has stuck with me like a tapeworm throughout the multi-tonnage of music I’ve ingested since and remains a tall-standing mile marker of mid/late ‘80s deathrash right next to a Ripping Corpse demo or two, and a lot of its adhesiveness will be blamed on what I’ve dubbed ‘the all-star bellow’.

Deathrash is a stylistic term that’s gonna get thrown around here a tad, the obvious cross-pollination of death and thrash metal beset with guidelines that were and still are as headachingly-subjective and opaque as most any sub-style with –core as its caboose. We all know this. Regardless, the terrain – especially the battleground therein where the styles cross swords - is almost always hazy. Well, sometimes the smoke clears when the wind blow just right. From about a catapult stone’s throw away, Sindrome can be spotted infecting the pitted blades of both styles, particularly the guy with the bent mikestand dry coughing all over the joint.

The title track erupts these five songs of unrest with some semi-triumphant, semi-soaring, and semi-‘yer-time-has-come’ introductory power chords (which also help close finale “Aortic Expulsion”) that quickly repel into deep n’ dirty thrash tactics as expected, then…holy mother ‘o pearl, who’s this guy roaring - intelligibly - like an abyssal arch-villain on the warpath? Why, that’s Troy Dixler of course, one of the scene’s early-on growlers who previously threw spittle for the Illinois-area Devastation, another deathrash act that whipped a few lethally well-respected demos around the underground in ’86-’87. Pick any track and hear lyrics stiffen red-eyed at attention, militantly, yet bend with a misplaced grace of brutish diction born of an almost alien diaphragm that could probably double as a spring-loaded steel trap for rhinos.

“...by the powahh invested in me…!”

Musically above-standard, “Rapture in Blood”, “Aortic Expulsion”, “Precognition”, and the title cut rumble with deep, heavy thrash groove that tends to churn some death metal-colored mud when spun in the production’s turbines, but only a minority have pouted over this color scheme over the years? While Dixler is clearly each story’s main propeller, drummer Tony Ochoa, ex-Terminal Death bassist Shaun Glass, and quasi-celebrity guitarist Chris Mittelbrun, co-founder of living legends Master and Deathstrike, sustain drivetrains throughout their rhythmically low-profile hills and valleys and sideways strafing, and while exhibitions of musical prowess admittedly aren’t seen streaking from anywhere near dizzying Ulysses Siren or Watchtower heights, their fundamentally virile thrashing grace is hard to (dis)miss. Still, an exception to this is the mostly speed-resistant, nearly spoken word “Cathedral of Ice”, where its articulated narrative (which may as well have come from an unusually gifted eastern lowland gorilla) is recognized as the track’s pulse, meanwhile the trio’s rhythmic bedrock has to be satisfied with its reduced background stance.

In addition to uncharacteristic enunciation, Mr. Dixler knows how and where to embellish passages for greater stylistic effect, either by his own creation or with the aid of the mixing board. For instance, overdubbed vocals and overlapping verses boggle an already dynamic title track, meanwhile cooling the edges of its hot-breathed proclamatory chorus is the unexpected whisper of “…Treblinka…”, the fate of many that only requires hushed tones to spark unwanted remembrance. It’s little things like this that aren’t so little, y’know?

Alas, despite the residual spotlight on the lyrics here, and while those which are even mildly decipherable from such a growly guy can be a boon, don’t pay too much attention to them or take them too seriously, ‘cos I’m sorry to say that for all their seemingly heady and thought-provoking overtures, half of the time they’re either idealistically or grammatically out in left field glaring angrily at cloud formations (read: “Precognition”, “...by the power invested in me...” = vested).

If Sindrome are best known for anything, it’s their status as one of those premier, fan-tested bands who, along with the aforementioned Ulysses Siren and evil German thrashers Poison (at least until ’93), denied the masses the brilliance of a label-backed full-length release with their name on it. Some would argue such missing links are blessings in disguise. Of course many of us know, at least through hindsight anyway, that if their equally-lavish ‘91 Vault of Inner Conscience demo had in fact been made public as an ‘official’ release, it wouldn’t have sucked.

Apparently unhappy with the demo’s original Tanglewood Studio mix, they’d have it remastered at Fuller Sound Studios (by Mike Fuller) and the never used (ha!) Morrisound Studios (by Tom Morris) in ’91. I’ll take both, ‘cos having two copies of Into the Halls of Extermination allows fans like me a sound sleep during nightmares of vicious cassette-devouring tapedecks. Monsters do exist, y’know.

Now on iTunes along with their '91 Vault of Inner Conscience demo

“...I’ll enforce the plan of your attack and take what I proclaim…”

I’ve always been fascinated by all those bands that for different reasons never reached a considerable and deserved notoriety among far worse realities in metal. Many of them were buried by time and reached the level of cult bands in the genre, like this thrash metal band Sindrome. Thanks to the free download of the two demos, I came in contact with another good, but too soon forgotten piece of thrash metal like only the '80s have been able to deliver to us.

Into the Halls Of Extermination is the first demo and contains five tracks of relentless, brutal thrash metal that, thanks to the deep vocals, can be labelled also as death/thrash metal. By the way, the riffage and the drumming are thrash metal-based and even if the vocals are quite deep for the period, it’s difficult to call this exactly death/thrash metal. Anyway, the violence is always high and the influences come from bands like Dark Angel and Slayer. The palm muting riffs are pure, fast and essential while the drumming is a bit hidden during the singing parts because the production is not the best.

The speed is almost always high and the title track or the following “Rapture in Blood” manage to be also truly dark and evil thanks to several distortions and frightening vocals. The guitars solos are simply on tremolo picking, so fast as hell and massive in their brutality. The snare drum sound is the part you can hear best because the other parts and toms on the drum kit are too low in volumes. “Precognition” is dark and slow by the beginning to restart on speed. The vocals are really vicious and fast here and the following “Cathedral of Ice” features better bass drum work and a return of the dark atmospheres.

The last, “Aortic Expulsion”, is a return to speed and it’s perfect to close this little, but worthy demo. The guitars lines are always quite various even if they are not astounding and everything is good. This is not a masterpiece, but a sincere piece of thrash metal and my advice is to download it and have a listen. It will catch you.