UMUR
"Birth of the Dead" is the first demo recording by Swedish death metal act Beyond. The demo was independently released in June 1990. "Birth of the Dead" would be the only output under the Beyond monicker as the band changed their name to Interment in 1991. Beyond formed in 1988 and were a part of the early Swedish death metal scene, although neither Beyond nor Interment made many international waves.
The demo features two tracks and a total playing time of 7:57 minutes. Stylistically it´s fast-paced, aggressive, and brutal old school death metal with an almost demonic blackened touch. It´s quite effective and it makes a lot of impact with an intense playing style and a convincing delivery. The sound production is very rough around the edges, and some would probably say that "Birth of the Dead" is a noisy and murky sounding release, but to my ears the raw production values suits the equally raw sounding material pretty well. It would maybe have been a bit much on the ears if the demo lasted any longer than it does, but the rawness of the sound production suits the purpose of this demo well.
So, upon conclusion "Birth of the Dead" is a good quality Swedish death metal demo, which doesn´t sound particularly "Swedish". This has a more grim, brutal, and maybe more US influenced sound. A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.
