Phantasms

(Reissue by Hellsheadbangers.)

Looking at the back of the album cover, you realize how young these fellas are. I have no information on their age, so I can only guess, and I'd say max 17. No matter specific age, they are young, and you certainly don't expect music with such raw brutality and musical abilities. And I did not expect to find such a gem from Mexico neither.
They also got a lot of attention back then, due to the violent music and their young age and for being in Mexico's rather unknown metal-scene, but even with that, they were quickly to be forgotten.

Speaking of their young age, I was also quite shocked(and pleased) to hear the vocalist's growls, which easily puts every modern growler to shame. The growls cannot be explained better than in the vein of old Death, borderlining to futuristic, modern death metal growls, and in the live songs, it is in the vein of a fusion between Cronos and Chuck.

This definitly is correctly labelled as death/thrash, but it still doesn't descripe it fully enough. Basically, these guys can switch between almost pure death metal to almost pure thrash metal, and still manage to be indentified and it is actually quite enjoyable to have them switch between song as whether they are more thrash than death, even though they mostly do keep it a nice mixture, reminding of Revenant. Black Sabbath must also have ment a lot for them, seeing they did a cover of Rat Salad.

But what makes it all come together, makes them even more original, and even gives you a bizarre, yet very interresting idea of the music, is the classical influences. And one of the best things I know, is guitar soloes highly influenced by classical melodies. Well, aslong as you don't end up being as pretentious as The Great Kat.
Anything bad, the song Graveyard makes up for. Graveyard is an amazing piece of art, also being one of the most classical influenced track, and definitly boost your respect-o-meter for these youngsters.

It is a great shame that their names became forgotten in the scene of metal. This demo is definitly worth your time, although it can be hard to find it when it comes to buying, I think you should just take the alternate route if you cannot purchase it.