Demonic Battle Metal

For many years, I'd seen the name "Demonic Christ" pop up here and there, now and again, hither and yither from various extreme metal folks, more often than not spoken with incendiary tongues. Whether it's due to their music or their antics or the frontwoman being a serious seaward (from people who've actually dealt with her) it was, at times, too much to ignore no matter how much I tried my best. For my part, I had no real interest in them in the least no matter how much they were brought up; their name sounded tacky, half-thought out and uninteresting, so I could only wonder if the music would be just as undercooked. But shame on me, curiosity reared its delirious head to just give something of theirs a listen, anything at all, just to remove the blindfold that little bit to see if the condemnations held water. And so I did, with this, I figured, being the best place to start.

Well...

This is...bad. Embarrassingly bad. Achingly awful with almost nothing good about it whatsoever. If anyone ever needed a face, sound, or image to convey the ever-so prevalent negative traits of "USBM", then laddies and gentlewomen, I give you your straw man. "Demonic Battle Metal" is unbelievable in its trite ridiculousness. Simplistic thrash riffs, staticy distortion with very little (if ANY) amount of mixing, not-so convincing vocals and poorly written blasphemous litanies you could see coming a mile away. Yet to the group's benefit, things aren't always a single shade of vanilla, and depending on the era in which the songs were originally composed and recorded you'll either be lulled into doldrums or annoyed to the point of wall punching. Cases in point: the demo-era Cradle of Filth rumblings (complete with Filth-like growls) of "We Have Risen" toys with a good idea here and there but ultimately stays put all throughout, while the blisteringly brutal nonsense of "Blut und Ehre" rakes down your spine like a rusted railroad spike of irritation. Truly, it didn't matter what sound they were shooting for, death metal, black metal, crusty thrash, whatever else, it's all underdone and nauseating.

At best, the band is doing its damnedest to be extreme, fast and other unpleasant things, so I guess in that regard I can offer a tiny amount of good will their way. It's clear they have/had some kind of an idea on where to go with the tracks at hand (and the drummer's quite the beast behind the kit, so the beats are at least rather well done), but overall it's, for the most part, so horrid and out of control, or done a thousand times by a thousand other black metal acts, that it's almost unlistenable. It makes me wonder what kind of marketing DC could shoot for to have them appear grander than the rest of the American extreme metal horde out there outside of founding member Ms Duffey being their central figure, for clearly they ain't gettin' by on their sound alone, as this has been done before only better. It's not like they haven't tried (she's on the front cover, for Chrissake...), so on this I must ponder most profusely. ...or better yet, I can get back to forgetting this group ever existed. Good riddance.

In the end this sucked and isn't anything I've not been exposed to for the past 15 years or so, only more insubstantial. I'm starting to think the hissing in their direction is quite justified, and those who are, after all these years, still unsure of what they have to offer musically, I urge you to look elsewhere. Y'ain't findin' much with this.

…if 50% of the audience wants blandness, and the 50% others want bad taste. I don't like Demonic Christ.

To avoid being excessively harsh, I'd say I don't really get them. Much like Heather Leather (I've been traumatized by this band, apparently), they have their really bad, what-the-fuck-inducing moments, and when they're not flinging shit at you, they are just not exactly interesting enough to deserve my sympathy. They're pretty bland. Some riffs to "We Have Risen" and "Witches Fall" are nice, second song's title is pretty cool too, the line "I menstruate on his face" is interesting from a feminist viewpoint, but then, it just falls back into basic, boring black/death metal.

I know black metal's appeal is supposed to be that it's basic, dark, angry, poorly produced, ugly. But even from underground bands, I expect some interesting musical moments, some interesting bizarreness, well, some personality. While Demonic Christ's music isn't exactly a pain in the ass to listen to, it's nothing that no other band could do. I don't sense a musical world, a sound of their own at all; and that is a big, big problem. While Heather Leather were awful instrumentalists with half baked compositions, I could still kinda recognize their sound among others, but Demonic Christ is just one of the millions of underground BM bands out there. This isn't giving me anything.

Nah, they do have something that could be slightly distinctive if a band that was just bad and not bad with a capital B would do it. They combine their musical unoriginality with lyrics that even 15 years old kids forming a shock rock band would pity. Let me quote a few things from the wonderfully titled "Church of Profane Masturbation": "I menstruate of his face" (while it makes sense considering the singer is a woman, it's still pretty damn ridiculous.), "The altar boy begs to be fucked", "Priesty gets on his knees and sucks them off". Sorry, I'm all for anti-christianity in black metal, but this isn't bad ass in any way, that just makes me giggle. Add to this vocals that may be admirable for their depth, but oddly sound like vomiting, and the song has a "legendary bad" potential.

And let's take some time to talk about the last track. It is an abomination of a song, so generic it makes you want to bang your head against the wall, and called "Blut und Ehre". I know the nationalist socialist black metal sub genre exists, that doesn't mean I have to like it… and in this case, it's not even good music. Not only does it reveal some very unpleasant truths about the band members' views of the world, it may also have lyrics even worse than "Church of Profane Masturbation". The way they're written, they don't seem to be about what the title suggests. Does Demonic Christ realize that "It was all a game to you" just sounds odd in this specific context? Also, the lyrics seem to be more about someone being angry at somebody who betrayed them, which isn't necessarily bad, but is way too common, and as I said, too vague for the context suggested by the title. The nazi references are thrown in for shock value because that's probably the only way people will remember this boring song.

And this song pretty much represents Demonic Christ as a whole. Devoid of personality, so bland it shouldn't exist, and when it shows some hints of a personality, it's a very unpleasant one at that. They want to shock, to be remembered for the wrong reasons, and that is not what good music is about for me.

Now here’s a great compilation for all Demonic Christ fans and anyone else with an interest in old school American black/death metal. The first pressing of this CD was limited to 250 copies but fortunately BlackMetal.com re-released it.

First up is the “Deceiving the Heavens” demo 1993. It contains three tracks of brutal and raw black/death metal, total underground stuff for sure. The sound took a bit of time for me to get used but after I did, I really enjoyed this demo. The music sounds like a mixture of early Absu stuff and Archgoat. Of all the stuff on this disc, “Deceiving the Heaves” has the most brutal vocals: death grunts. I also think Dana pulls the grunts off quite well, not too many complaints about the vocals from me. By the way, “Church of Profane Masturbation” (love that title!) features a cool spoken passage as well.

In 1994 Demonic Christ were offered a deal and their debut album “Punishment for Ignorance” was released in 1995. After the release of debut, the band recorded the stuff next up on this compilation, namely “Promo 1995”. The sound here is much more professional than on both “Deceiving the Heavens” and “Punishment for Ignorance” and this makes the music a lot heavier. The music has also developed, being more varied and a bit more technical than before, yet still retaining the trademark Demonic Christ sound. The vocals here are mostly black metal type but there are still a few death grunts present. Due to the development of the music and the change in vocal style, I can’t compare this stuff to Archgoat but the Absu comparison remains. In 1996 Demonic Christ released another two-track promo. Both of these tracks have appeared on compilation CDs. The music isn’t really different from the previous promo tape. Both tracks are brutal black/death metal with some technical touches.

The compliation shows Demonic Christ’s musical evolution – from raw and primitive to more refined and technical, yet never losing the brutal essence. Our beloved achtbarer keltischer warrior Dana Duffey has not had an easy ride with her band but she has persevered nonetheless. Oh yeah, and the answer to the eternal question “Can a female front a brutal metal band convincingly?” is “Yes, at least in this case”.