EMBALMER

HELLS HEADBANGERS is proud to reissue the lone, self-titled demo of the UK’s EMBALMER on 12” vinyl format. Adding to the label’s prodigious reissue campaign of the UK’s DESECRATION, HELLS HEADBANGERS opens the crypt for the cult ONLY demo of preceding band EMBALMER. True, the Cleveland EMBALMER (RIP) had a couple records with the label, but there should be little mistaking the UK EMBALMER for them: the latter’s six-song / 21-minute Embalmer demo is both rawer and more blackened, and would otherwise be a lost relic if not for the still-enduring DESECRATION that have helped shaped British death metal for over 30 years now. Back in 1992, a young Ollie Jones (guitar, bass, backing vocals) and Sean Smith (vocals, guitar) formed EMBALMER whilst in high school. Together, the duo recorded one demo, simply self-titled, that also listed a Simon Wilson that “doesn’t drum for us.” That they programmed the drums on their sole recording lends Embalmer a strange, crusty charm, one nearly concurrent with the rising black metal wave in Europe than the exploding death metal movement of the time – especially in their native England, with the likes of Napalm Death and Carcass hitting their creative and commercial peaks. Despite the presence of that drum-programming, EMBALMER’s songwriting remains relatively linear, and their balance between blasting and chugging fit the times to a T…but the muffled, mildly distorted vocals put this in outsider territory (same for swirling instrumental closer “Kulled”). Alas, this demo would be the only recorded appearance of Smith, and Jones would soon go on to form DESECRATON…and the rest is indeed history.