Listening to the "Innards" demo by Finnish NERLICH made me believe I was dealing with average Death Metal mixing Thrash parts. Some nice breaks and riffs to keep things flowing and bang away. Something nice for a demo and especially the production made it sound so old school it could’ve been from 20 years ago. Like USA style Death Metal before it became too over the top. All sounded familiar in some way and waiting for names to pop in my head to give you a clear hint (which could safe a lot of cryptic blabbing and time) there’s some SINISTER, some PESTILENCE some GORGUTS without too strong similarities. In the four tracks ‘Innards’, ‘Sinister Deprivation’, ‘Hard Days Of Dismemberment’ and ‘Altered Form Of Life’ all is kept within bounds and never too fast, heavy or brutal. The last two more or less reminded me a bit of CANNIBAL CORPSE on "The Bleeding". It isn’t bad, it’s just average, cool and done well. Convinced this would be their first demo, I checked and found out NERLICH was actually formed in 2003 and this is their 7th release as far as I know, before they split up last year. Not familiar with former stuff I thought this could be considered a let down for number 7 or a serious attempt by Miikka Merikallio (vocals, guitars) and Viktor Gullichsen (drums) to grasp good old atmospheres. Definitely less serious and pretty corny is the untilted fifth track. Something that will surely be fun to live or when you’re a nerd but over here it doesn’t really help taking these guys serious. I couldn’t make more of it than that they were praising Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This demo is supposed to be released as an EP on VBP Records and I’m sure they fit the rest of the artist over there… It sells for 3 Euro (Europe) / 5 US$ (world) from Nihilistic Holocaust, c/o Gabriel S., 9 rue de la scarpe, 59552 Lambres Lez Douai, France, site.voila.fr/NIHILISTIC. Band info: www.myspace.com/nerlichband