Country: Germany

Genre: Old School Death Metal

Record Label: Sevared Records

Release Date: 2006

Track list:
Torture Master demo
1. Intro
2. Torture Master
3. Ignoring The Prophecy
4. A Thoroughly Frightened Prediction
5. Eye Of Blackness
Submissive Intractibility demo
6. Striving For Sublimity
7. Movement
8. Mental Reduction To Misery
9. Buried Alive
The Obvious Transitoriness of Being 7" EP
10. Mirror Of Vitality
11. Enigma Of Desire
12. Immured
13. Moonrays
Split 7" EP with Kadath
14. Odious
15. Shadows (Of My Soul)
Split 7" EP with Malignant Tumour
16. Abnormal
17. Purification
Languid Obstinacy Cassette EP
18. Judged By My Knife
19. Veil Of Salvation
20. Still Moving
21. Torture Master
22. Sinous & Cold
23. Malignant Defecation (Carcass Cover)

Total playing time: 76 fucking mins

Band Website: Immured

Immured - Demo[n] Collection

How many of you know of this German band? No need to feel ashamed or suicidal, I knew beforehand what the answer would be like. Now listen up you ignoramuses and listen up good. This is death metal that will peel the skin off the poseurs, mangle their muscles into pulp, and grind their bones into fine chickenfeed. Yes, I'm talking about that ultra fucking raw, memory abrading, and inexplicably heavy fuzz-laden death metal played by the likes of Rottrevore, Grave, Obscenity and Gorguts when they had just started their career. If you would ask me to sum it up in one word, it would be “tremendous” and its synonym would be “awesome”.

Immured's 1993 Torture Master demo epitomises all of what is said above. The guitar tone is so badass that just one downward stroke with the pick will strip the clothes off an entire row of people. You can imagine what a following upward stroke and further repeated strokes would do. Bass, if you can feel it, will realign the structure of your bones. Hoarse and expansive, the vocals are so overwhelming that you can drown in them. Through them Immured transmit an aura so sickening, it's like taking in deep breaths of a camel's guttural burp. Drums rummage through piles of flesh-deprived corpses, smashing them to pieces with a hideous cracking noise. Immured's overall sound though is well-integrated and you will find it difficult to dissect it as I have. With their riffs being as unwieldy as they are, the momentum of the music becomes almost irrelevant. Groove does indeed exist, but it is far from the dance variety, obviously. The music normally trudges along at a pace that is slow to medium, but may god help you when they pick up pace like how they have done in “A Thoroughly Frightened Prediction”, for that will feel like a massive tusked elephant charging at you. Being raw and heavy doesn't render them dumb as per the prevalent perception, and if you would hear the brilliant deceptive transition in the same song around the three minute mark, you will get my point. Surprisingly, Immured also manage to squeeze in a few old school melodic bits into their music. Torture Master is by far the best Immured material on this collection disc, which is precisely why it has been explained in more depth. [8.5]

Next up is the Submissive Intractability demo from 1994, which is of comparatively diminished but still good quality, and sees a marked change in the vocal department even though they are done by the same Jorg Gotz guy; in that they are much more guttural in comparison and yet fucking gut-wrenching, and he also introduces gagging rasps into the music. The loud chainsaw-buzzing guitar sound has turned ultra fucking raw and delicious but the drums are rendered garage-ish. Bass at times is brought to the front where it often moves like a belly dancer in front of your face. Check out "Mental Reduction to Misery" for that and the mind-blowing song that it is, rumbling forth in the manner of early Bolt Thrower. Even though the production is very crude and uneven, given their kind of music, it barely detracts anything from it. [8.2]

It is followed up by their 7” EP titled The Obvious Transitoriness of Being. The production here is more refined and cohesive albeit a tad subdued, and the music does well in reinforcing the hulking groove element into the music along with a few good hooks and melodies. “Enigma of Desire” is where Immured start using stoner elements a la Pungent Stench in their music to make it interesting and is done partly at the expense of their brutality. Gotz' vocals on the eponymous track particularly resemble Chris Barnes' on Butchered at Birth. This EP showcases a different side of the band, and while I prefer when Immured are in their brutal sober state, this is something worth indulging in from time to time. [7.5]

For their two song 7” split with Kadath, Immured have slightly altered the Pungent Stench groove aspect of their music to accommodate catchy riffs of Impetigo especially on “Odious”. There are also light UK death metal influences in their music of Bolt Thrower and Benediction which get stronger in their following similar-sounding split with Malignant Tumour. By now their unique crudeness is toned enough to make them resemble a standard old school death metal band; nevertheless, their music is still ballsy and punchy with rocking death metal grooves to boot. In "Purification", which features a huge pulverising groove and several catchy parts, raspy vocals tend to go like "Yeeeeeeeaaah" almost as if in sarcastic exultation, fun stuff. [7.2]

Languid Obstinacy is a cassette EP released in 1997 which was apparently re-released later with four extra songs of the above two splits by none other than Obscene Productions. It is where Immured get back on track and that is immediately made evident by old school riffs, huge vocals and a fairly coarse production. Worth checking out are the lurching old school opening riffs of "Judged by my Knife" and "Torture Master", the latter song, an killer one at that, even employs a beautiful semi-melodic tune. However, banal brutal death influences seep through to negate the old school magic, and I sometimes catch Immured chugging way too patiently and with much effort. Hear out the song "Sinous & Cold" to hear influences of Internal Bleeding replete with bulging basslines. A collection disc cannot be complete without a cover song, so Immured have provided us with a cover of a Carcass song which they have performed using really creepy alien vocals. [7.0]

As is often the case with collection discs, the material on Demo[n] Collection too is inconsistent. Rating it would be very tricky and for that reason, as quality conscious as I am, I have given separate ratings to the Immured material based on its merit or the year in which it was released. It should be pretty clear though that this disc is well worth your money If you are into this kind of raw, stripped, bowel-loosening death metal, of the kind that is not created anymore. Just so that you know, the booklet has adequate info with artworks of all the Immured material crammed into this 76 minute disc and there is also a collage of pictures, flyers and reviews dating from their golden old days. You really don't want to procrastinate until a new album is released by them, because although Immured are still active, they have long since changed their style to crust/hardcore and this is all the death metal you are going to get from them. Make that flesh-ripping death metal you can't afford to miss out on.

August 20th, 2008