UMUR "Endless Tears Of The Distant Sea" is a compilation album by Finnish death metal act Cerebrum. The compilation was released through Old Skull Productions in October 2017 (originally only in a very limited number of cassette tape copies). "Endless Tears Of The Distant Sea" comprise the material from the 1993 "Demo #1" demo and the 1994 "Grief" demo plus two previously unreleased tracks ("Anima Liberum" and "Endless Tears of the Distant Sea").

Cerebrum originally formed in in the Finnish city of Turku under the Midsummers Night's Dream monicker, but soon changed their name to Cerebrum. They were a relatively shortlived act releasing only the 1993 "Demo #1" demo and the this second demo before disbanding.

"Endless Tears Of The Distant Sea" opens with the 6 tracks from the 1993 "Demo #1" demo, and at this point Cerebrum played a brutal, technically well played, and effective old school death metal style. The album features a few rare excursions into something a bit more melodic, but is otherwise a consistent and high quality old school death metal demo, featuring a well sounding production job.

The material from the 1994 "Grief" demo follows, and in only a matter of months Cerebrum had significantly changed their style to playing a semi-progressive, melodic, and keyboard enhanced death metal style, which is creative and innovative alright, but inconsistent and not a particularly enjoyable listen. There are fascinating songwriting ideas here, but they are not executed in a well sounding manner. The sound production is also pretty unpolished and slightly unbalanced (the guitars a placed too low, and the drums too high).

If I should guess the two previously unreleased tracks were recorded between the two demo recording sessions, because they are both relatively brutal old school death metal tracks with a doomy edge, but they both also feature keyboards, which the material on the first demo didn´t. Both a pretty interesting and well composed tracks.

So upon conclusion Cerebrum obviously had a short and very inconsistent career in terms of music style and direction. They were still a young band in the process of developing a unique style, when they disbanded and it´s audible. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.