THE EVERSCATHED, …Again the Chains… (2006, demo)

The skull:
This skull thought he knew the layout of his basement well enough to just float over to reset the circuit breaker in the dark, but then he got all snagged up in the chain web he forgot he was working on last week. “Oh, god damn it. Honey! HONEY! Can you grab a flashlight and come down here and help me out? No, no, I’m alright, I just… Can you just give me a hand? And watch where you’re going, it’s a real mess down here. I really gotta clean this place up. God damn it! And can you bring me a band aid or something? Now I’ve got to go get a fucking tetanus shot. This is just great.”

The music:
The instant the first track, “Shackled by Failure” starts, you know that these dudes love Death. But while most Death clones shoot for the melodic complexity of albums like Human and Symbolic, The Everscathed took the low-ambition route of following in the footsteps of Spiritual Healing, and only half of it at that, as they generally stick to the low-string and power chord riffs in Chuck’s transitional playbook and skip the high melodic lines that define the later Death albums. Both of the songs on this demo are pretty much the same in that regard. As Death knockoffs go, even considering the narrowness of their scope, The Everscathed aren’t bad, but you also quickly realize exactly how important all those tapped melodies and harmonic lines were to Death’s creative success (not to mention an ace rhythm section, which The Everscathed definitely do not have.) Without those trebly excursions, you’re left with a lot of samey-sounding riffs that aren’t nearly as evil or heavy as I think The Everscathed want them to be. As far as I can tell, all of the full length albums by the band follow more or less the same pattern, so I guess if you kinda like mid-period Death but think they were just too noodly, then maybe this is the band of your dreams.
— Friar Johnsen