It’s been a while since my last review, as life takes its toll and time for music is rare nowadays. Mighty DESULTORY and my endless love for this band made me step out of the shadow to review the fresh released demo compilation “Darkness Falls”. The band from Stockholm was founded back in 1989 and quickly gained some credits in the underground. In 1990 they released their first demo “From Beyond”, which already came up with some fine tunes and some traces of their later trademarks. The opener ‘Eternal Darkness’ is a nice mixture of Death and Thrash Metal and similar to MERCILESS, bands like KREATOR or even SODOM had a huge impact on the early Death Metal sound in Sweden. But the track already offers the brilliant guitar work of Stefan Pöge, who was an outstanding talent with a unique style and sense for fine melodies. Also even being more Thrash Metal you can already hear the transition into the sound, which got famous some months later as the classic Swedish Death Metal sound. ‘The Awakening’ (hello MERCILESS again!) is also classic Death / Thrash and also the early vocal style of Klas Morberg is far closer to classic Thrash Metal. Worth to mention is the matured drum work of Thomas Johnson, who had a nature given talent already in that stage. Also here, we find the fine lead melodies of Stefan Pöge, who already defined the later classical sound of DESULTORY here. ‘Cease To Exist’ and ‘Insanity’ delivered the same quality and damn the early Stockholm sound is still catching after nearly 35 years. Just one year later in 1991, DESULTORY documented their huge development in songwriting and sound with their second demo “Death Unfolds”. On the opening track ‘Passed Away’ they skipped a lot of the Thrash Metal traces in their sound in favor of classic uptempo Death Metal with lower tuned guitars. But still the tempo of their Thrash Metal roots made their sound really unique. Once again I need to mention the importance of Stefan Pöge to their early sound, who was very talented and a good fit to the overall development. Also the vocals of Klas were harsher on that output and fitted perfectly to the music. ‘The Chill Within’ is one of the best tracks of the band and was overworked later for their debut. But I like the rough charm of the early version. I guess, suffer day and night, says it all. The title track ‘Death Unfolds’ offers all what made me love DESULTORY that much. A perfect balance between Death and Thrash Metal with a good doze of some classic Heavy Metal influences. Enriched by a really cool cover, which was re-used for this compilation, this demo was already brilliant enough, to bring a proper record deal, but as dozens of Death Metal bands were arising from the underground by releasing good material, DESULTORY still had to wait for their chance. Another year later in 1992, the band continued their songwriting in the vein of “Death Unfolds” and returned with demo number three, entitled “Visions”. ‘Forever Gone’ turned out really great and is one of their alltime classics. I always liked the demo version a bit more due to its rough charm. But ‘Depression’ and ‘Visions’ where also very intense tracks with brilliant songwriting, instrumentation and devotion to their music. But this demo also brought them some further attention in the underground and their first deal with Stockholm based House Of Kicks Records, who re-released the last two demos back in 1992 on vinyl, limited to 1000 copies. This output brought them some further attention in the underground and is a highly sought-after item nowadays, also because of its classic cover artwork. I still hope to get my hands on this sometime in my lifetime. This release helped them to get their first record deal with Metal Blade, who released their debut “Into Eternity”, with re-recorded versions of the tracks of their demos number two and three. Even though, the demos were available as bonus tracks to the re-releases of “Into Eternity” and “Bitterness” some years ago, it is definitely good, to have them compiled again with a brilliant sound. For fans of DESULTORY a mandatory release, as the demos never sounded better. I could continue to mention my opinion about the importance of DESULTORY to me and the Swedish scene and how overlooked the band was and still is, maybe also because Metal Blade was huge but not the right choice for a Death Metal band, but at least Darkness Shall Rise Productions seems to have a similar view and makes the demos available again in different formats. Enriched by the mentioned cool cover and some interviews, this output is a respectful appreciation of DESULTORY’s early works. For more info, please check one of the following sources: www.facebook.com/desultory-50447918404, www.facebook.com/darknessshallriseproductions