CEREBRUM — Grief (review)

CEREBRUM — Grief album cover Demo · 1994 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Grief" is the second demo by Finnish death metal act Cerebrum. The demo was independently released on cassette tape in 1994. It´s the successor to "Demo #1" from November 1993. 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. Both demos plus some extra material were featured on the 2017 compilation album "Endless Tears Of The Distant Sea".

In only a very short time Cerebrum have significantly changed their sound from pretty raw and brutal old school death metal, to playing a semi-progressive, melodic, and keyboard enhanced death metal style on "Grief". It´s quite the transformation, but also a testimony to the major changes the Finnish (and the international) scene went through in a short timespan. "Grief" is loaded with interesting songwriting ideas and it´s performed with technical skill, but it´s a pretty confusing listen, and also features a couple of slightly cringe worthy moments. The clean/talking vocals on the title track was for example a very bad idea (they work much better on "Sweet Melodies from the Surging Sea (Where You Sleep)"). The growling vocals are the most brutal feature on the album, while the music is often more melodic and because of the keyboards also pretty atmospheric.

The sound production is unpolished and not particularly well sounding, although all instruments and vocals are clearly audible in the mix (the drums are a bit high and the guitars a bit low, but otherwise the balance is decent).

Upon conclusion "Grief" is a bit of a head scratcher. It´s sounds like a band in the midst of experimenting and finding their sound, which is interesting enough, but doesn´t really make for a consistent or particularly enjoyable listening experience. This should probably have been recorded as a rehearsal demo, and used by the band members to strongly edit their material, before going into the studio and recording a more well thought out and consistent demo. I give points for creativity and innovation, but not many points for "Grief" being a demo I´d want to revisit that often (the opposite is the case with their first demo, which is quite brilliant). A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.
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