Atavisma - Where Wolves Once Dwelled

Dirtier than a crusty herpes covered pair of shit smeared lips wrapped around a dusty dildo, Where Wolves Once Dwelled, Atavisma's debut demo, will appeal to death metal die-hards that just can't find enough pleasure in the sounds of gurgling vocals and guitars as thick as quicksand. As if there wasn't enough unholy death metal demo tapes out there to pick up, add this to the list and luckily, this one is easily available and ready to be sucked dry. The trio, based in France (as is label Nihilistic Holocaust) get a lot of noise from the lack of numbers but they also capture more discerning ears when they incorporate disgusting lead melodies into their brand of sewage. In many ways, this reminds me of Mandatory's Where They Bleed with the super swampy guitar tones and powerful riffing. Still, an adept attention to songwriting is at play and should live up to the scrutiny of fans. With bands like Horrendous getting a ton of attention with their recent releases, the primordial ooze is bubbling here with the possibilities of a similar - though hopefully less polished - trajectory.

Where Wolves Once Dwelled opens with the boiling "The Savage One," slowly pummeling and writhing along. Vocalist - unnamed on the insert as are the other two members - is capable of some excellent guttural vocals and uses the talent all across this demo. They are perfect when paired with the ugliness of the material here. The remind of Undergang, Timeghoul or Iniquity on Serenadium. Atavisma's love of Swedish death metal is shown in "Forsaken" and "Nature's Warfare," the shorter of the four tracks. Grave and Entombed - to no one's surprise - are present in many riffs without being pure rip-offs. The title track is the highlight for me, opening it's length with some clean yet sinister guitar plucking before launching into a twisting doom tinted riff. The song is the ugliest, but also most complex with an extended instrumental section where once again clean guitars mimic the intro but are accompanied by tense drumming to create a dense malevolent mist.

This longer track would have been a better opening track for Where Wolves Once Dwelled but the fact it exists here is enough to give me some dirty and ugly thoughts. Even the usage of  'dwelled' instead of the proper 'dwelt' gives just that additional personality which I enjoy, even if it would make an English teacher tear at their eye sockets. As usual with Nihilistic Holocaust's releases, the tape labels are a little skimpy, and not a lot of material is present on the insert which is a little of a bummer but with my only musical gripe being how set back the percussion is in the mix, this is one of those pleasurable items that ends up in my collection and one I would recommend to others interest in quality death metal demos.