UMUR "Dead Eyes" is the debut release by German death metal act Macabre Demise. It´s a 6 track, 16:11 minutes long EP released through Lower Budget Records in December 2009. It´s also available in digital form on Macabre Demise Bandcamp profile at a "Name Your Price" option. Macabre Demise was formed in 2007 by Andreas Rieger and is a true one-man project, where Rieger handles all instruments and vocals.

well...not drums. They are programmed, but I honestly didn´t notice before I read about it. So they are obviously very well programmed and produced. Which isn´t that surprising when you listen to the high quality of the playing on the "real" instruments. This is technically a top notch performance by Rieger.

Stylistically the music on the EP is technically well played and rather brutal death metal. It´s loaded with tempo changes, brutal growling vocals, and even though the brutality factor is indeed very high, the tracks are relatively varied (within the genre). The title track which opens the EP is a very strong composition and the quality doesn´t drop during the playing time. The only issue is the vocals which aren´t that intelligible and they lack some aggression to really push them beyond the generic guttural growling that´s typical for the genre. They are obviously run through a lot of effects and it would have been nice to hear some growling vocals without effects.

Other than that minor issue, "Dead Eyes" is a good quality death metal release by Macabre Demise and considering that it´s a debut release there´s a lot of promise here. The EP is very well produced too and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is well deserved.