siLLy puPPy One of the many San Francisco Bay Area bands that had their shining moment on the local scene for a quick flash of time and then dissipated into the annals of history only to become a mere footnote if even that. This band ABIOSIS was an old school death metal band emerging from the wine country city of Napa, California. Formed in 1991 this band that consisted of Cisco Alcazar (bass), Lincoln Lucas (drums), Curtiss Gray (guitar) and Dan Nicholson (vocals) only existed for three years and recorded two short demos before calling it quits.

This first demo of 1992 (both were released the same year) featured three tracks that existed somewhere between the final stages of thrash metal of 80s Metallica and the old school death metal of the Tampa scene like Obituary, Deicide and Massacre. Although this band really never evolved past its initial stages, it’s quite clear from these demos that these guys were quite capable of death metal greatness but then again so were many others and not enough attention span to go around so they went by the wayside!

As you would expect this demo features a lo-fi production that was created to sell the band’s talent rather than production skills however there are a couple issues with the band’s playing at this point. Number one on the list is in the percussion department. Sorry Lincoln Lucas but the drumming on this demo is neither inventive nor technically competent in comparison to the legions of death metal bands such as Morbid Angel and Atheist who had already set the bar high even with their debut albums. Not that technicality is the be all end all but ABIOSIS was clearly a few steps behind the bigwigs of the day.

This is a decent if not phenomenal presentation of a band that exuded a great talent but didn’t take it far enough by 1992 to really capture the attention of the fast evolving world of death metal. Except for the lackadaisical drumming, i find this to be a very pleasing expression of old school death metal however i have to admit that it does sound a bit dated and generic however for a mere demo this is better than many other bands at the same stage of development. One of those golden missed opportunity bands in Bay Area metal history but nothing to get overly excited about either.

Both this eponymous demo and the following “The Killing” were released in 2017 as the compilation album “Absence of Life” which allows detective sleuths of all things old school death metal to relish in glee.