UMUR "DeathBreed" is a demo cassette tape by Danish death metal act Detest. The demo was self-released in October 1992 and is the band´s first release. Detest were founded in 1991, but quickly became one of the most prolific Danish death metal acts of the early 90s. "DeathBreed" is to my knowledge still one of the best selling Danish extreme metal demo tapes. Expectations were therefore high to their debut full-length studio album "Dorval", which was released in 1994 through the Progress Red Label, but somehow "Dorval" failed to provide the band with the same high profile success as "DeathBreed" did, and after releasing a promo tape in 1995, they disbanded in 1996. Maybe times had changed (in 1994 death metal was already in decline), or maybe the quality of "Dorval" simply didn´t live up to the high expectations that the fans had after listening to "DeathBreed". Having listened to both releases back when they came out and again today, I lean towards the latter explanation. "DeathBreed" is simply a better quality release than "Dorval".

It´s not often you´ll come across demos that are better than the succeeding studio album, but "DeathBreed" is one of those few exceptions to the rule. The music on the 4 track demo is old school death metal. It´s not highly original but it doesn´t belong to any particular death metal school either (old school Swedish death metal, Florida scene, New York scene...etc.). It´s brutal, it´s catchy, it´s heavy (and mostly mid-paced) and edgy, and it´s generally very well played. Considering the fact that these guys had at this point only played together for little over a year, they were already pretty skilled and tight playing. Lead vocalist P. Jørgensen delivers a convincing deep growling performance and occasionally visits more aggressive snarling vocal territory too, which is great for the variation in the vocal department.

So both the songwriting and the delivery of the music are satisfactory, but it´s the professional, raw, and powerful sound production that puts the icing on the cake. Because of the strong sound production "DeathBreed" could easily have been released as an EP instead of a demo, and overall it´s just a high quality demo in every way possible. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is well deserved and might even be a bit too low.