Bulgarian death metal band Deadscape's debut demo is adorned with absolutely magnificent cover artwork. Its joyless countenance acts as a perfect vanguard for the band's musical expression.

With four songs, Deadscape offer gloomy yet powerful melodic death metal with doom metal and gothic overtones. The band draw their inspiration mainly from the Scandinavian melodic death metal scene. The pace is never really fast, as the band operate mostly on slowish or mid-paced tempos, eventhough we get to hear short blast beat in one of the songs. Maybe the pace is the thing that mainly make me think of Dark Tranquillity and their slower material. However, Deadscape's compositions are more like alloying various influences, one being Insomnium, into a very gloomy and desolate, yet at times powerful and pushing forlornness.

Guitar work here is varying. There's heavy down-picking, more heavy metal style riffing, clean and tinkling electric guitar, and high-pitched melodic picking with distortion and rusty tone. The solos are rather nifty, keeping their melodiousness even in tapping. Then there's harmonius tremolo-picked twin guitar playing, which works as a time capsule to mid-1990s. While one riff may sound a bit like old In Flames, the next melodic part is more like Insomnium's style, and so on. The thing is, that Deadscape have managed to amalgamate their influences into a characteristic enough weaving. There's lot of double bass drumming here, giving it all a requisite kick. While the first song is pretty straightforward, Deadscape mainly do it in 1990s labyrinthine style. I like it, since in my opinion, many established bands have lost their love of adventure and are putting out too simple and boring material nowadays, album after album (I'm seriously looking at you, Dark Tranquillity!). Plus, none of these songs sound similar to each other.

The main vocals, female growling, is often paced in a way of Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity), but it is of course more feminine, and biting like Angela Gossow (formerly of Arch Enemy). Then there's fragile clean male vocals, reminding like Stanne's and Anathema's lamenting Vincent Cavanagh, but their tone isn't a total fit in my opinion, because they stick out a bit too sharply.

The production is pretty high caliber for a demo, too, with a bit too clicky kick drum sound; nothing really feels superimposed, though. These songs will feature on the band's forthcoming debut album 'Of the Deepest Shade', probably in re-recorded form. Meanwhile, if murky melodic death metal is the thing for your autumn times, check this fine demo out.

Reviewed by Lane
10/10/2021 09:24