D.S.M., D.S.M. (2013, self-released)

The skull:
I’m not sure what’s going on here. The skull’s skin is peeling away, maybe? And some tentacles are involved? Or maybe it’s some kind of cape or cowl with its own little skull motif? It’s all very confusing, but the overall effect is not unpleasing: the batshit weirdness works in this cover’s favor. Supposedly D.S.M. stands for Double Size Metal, but I think that probably DSM is just how you write BDS in Cyrillic.

The music:
There are many musical ideas presented here, but none of them good. There’s some almost nu-sounding low groove, traces of Darkseed-style goth metal, and even some decidedly Nirvanaesque whining in the first song, “The Way Home”. This three song demo run the gamut of all the low-talent metal styles that no one really wanted to hear in 2000, and this is a brand new release. “Balls of Steel” even features the gratuitous abuse of a whammy pedal. Heavy metal in Putin’s Russia is a grim thing.
— Friar Johnsen