UMUR "Obeisance to Death" is the second demo recording by Finnish, Turku based death metal act Nephritis. The demo was independently released in November 1990. Nephritis formed in 1990 and released three demos in 1990-1991 before disbanding. Like fellow contemporary Turku area based death metal Interment, Nephritis are one of the lesser known Finnish death metal acts from that time and place, being overshadowed by artists like Disgrace, Xysma, and Funebre.

Stylistically the material on the 7 track, 22:05 minutes long demo is a combination of raw and brutal old school death metal and goregrind. I noticed that there was some fast playing on the first demo, but I honestly missed the goregrind elements because of the extremely murky and lo-fi nature of that recording, but on "Obeisance to Death" it´s more obvious. The recording quality is only a notch better than the murky noise of the first demo though, and I was a bit surprised to learn that this demo was actually recorded at a recording studio and not just on a tape recorder in the band´s rehearsal space. It´s in other words a savage and raw sounding recording...warts and all.

Upon conclusion I´d say there is a reason why artists like Nephritis and Interment aren´t counted among the seminal Finnish artists from the Turku area along with Disgrace, Xysma, and Funebre. There´s simply a huge difference between the trailblazers of the genre and the followers in terms of quality and originality. A 2 star (40%) rating is warranted.

UMUR "Excrement" is the first demo recording by Finnish, Turku based death metal act Nephritis. The demo was independently released in 1990. Nephritis formed in 1990 and released three demos in 1990-1991 before disbanding. Like fellow contemporary Turku area based death metal Interment, Nephritis are one of the lesser known Finnish death metal acts from that time and place, being overshadowed by artists like Disgrace, Xysma, and Funebre.

The 6 track, 16:26 minutes long demo is obviously a rehearsal demo, as it features a very murky and lo-fi recording quality. Death metal demos are generally allowed to be quite raw and unpolished...but to a degree, and "Excrement" is so murky, noisy, and raw, that parts of the demo are almost impossible to listen to. When you can hear what´s going on, it´s audible that these guys can actually play and that they are also capable of composing a decent death metal tune with both fast-paced parts and heavier mid-paced parts. It´s however nothing out of the ordinary for the style or for a 1990 death metal demo from Scandinavia, and paired with the rather abysmal sounding production values, "Excrement" is not an impressive first release from Nephritis. A 1 star (20%) rating is warranted.