UMUR "Season of Sorrows" is the second demo recording by Finnish death metal act Preprophecy. The demo was independently released in 1994. It´s the successor to the "A Tomb of Sanity" demo from June 1992.

So two years down the line from their US influenced first demo, and it´s obvious that Preprophecy were trying to find a new style to play. While the music still features brutal growling vocals and the occasional brutal death metal section, Preprophecy have generally lowered the pace of their music and have increased the atmospheric and melodic elements, making "Season of Sorrows" a pretty incoherrent release which is a bit unsure if it wants to be a brutal death metal demo or a heavy, atmospheric, and at times melodic death/doom metal release.

No one can accuse Preprophecy of stagnating...that´s for sure. If their new eclectic take on playing death metal works is another discussion though. To my ears it sounds confusing and like a band still trying to figure out a musical direction. It´s no wonder that after changing their name twice they ended up playing melodic death/heavy metal when they were ultimately called Cryhavoc.

"Season of Sorrows" features a decent sounding demo production, and upon conclusion it´s a relatively good quality sophomore demo release from Preprophecy. Although it´s a bit more evolved and it´s obvious that the band have honed their playing skills since the first demo, the eclectic songwriting isn´t a plus here and I´m left with a feeling that Preprophecy would have been better of playing a more straight death metal style. A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.

UMUR "A Tomb of Sanity" is the first demo recording by Finnish death metal act Prephrophecy. The demo was independently released in June 1992. Preprophecy formed in 1992 and released three demos under that monicker before changing their name to Ravenfall in 1996, and again to Cryhavoc in 1998.

The material on "A Tomb of Sanity" is in the more brutal end of the old school death metal scale with deep growling vocals, brutal riffs, and both heavy and fast-paced beats. I´d say they are predominantly influenced by the US scene (an act like Deicide comes to mind), but still with that gloomy and morbid Finnish twist that many artists from Finland have. Unlike many contemporary Finnish artists Preprophecy don´t use leads to enhance atmosphere, but instead lets the brutality and dark nature of their songs speak for themselves.

"A Tomb of Sanity" features a decent sounding production job all things considered. It´s of course audible that this is not a professional sound production, but the sound still suits the rawness of the music. Keeping in mind that "A Tomb of Sanity" is a debut demo Preprophecy have produced a decent quality release with only a few flaws (they should not have incorporated the acoustic guitar part on "Depth of Delight", as it sounds amaturish) and a 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.