Got this without knowing much about the band but wanting to hear some genuine American black metal. I haven't heard any of the band's full-length albums, but this surely rocks. Putting aside the intro and the outro, this four year old demo gives us five tracks full of speed, blasts and lighting solos. Despite the strong death metal influence, Summon's music doesn't quite fit the usual black/death formula. The imagery is exclusively black metal, with corpse paint, spikes, standard black metal vocals, fire breathing and song titles like "Burning Black Desire" or "Praising To A Blackened Moon." The songs themselves just rip. Fiery, unrelenting bullets that instantly sweep you off your feet and keep you down until an outro allows you to finally catch your breath. Musically, this stuff is nothing too special, but contrary to some other American bands like Judas Iscariot, these guys are not simply bent on emulating Darkthrone and Graveland, and that's already a good thing.

Like I said above, I haven't heard any other output by this band, but judging by the reviews from other LARM fellows, these guys are steadily improving the quality of their craft. This early demo serves very well as a demonstration of the band's initial stage of development. While it is far from being something you can't do without, I have to concede to BRAND's assertion from his review of "Dark Descent Of Fallen Souls" that this stuff is just fun. What I'd like to do now is hear Summon's full length albums.

© 2000 boris