Organ Donor– Demo (self-released)
There are certain facets to Richmond that seem as if they've always been thus, and will never change. Statues of slave owners on a street with paving straight out of the 19th Century. Inept city government. A river that often has a pretty high fecal content. But there are the plus sides to its relative stasis as well. It's still a cheap and easy enough place to live, with enough going on, that anybody wishing to pursue his or her muse (regardless of how weird or unpalatable it may be) can do so without too much trouble. I don't know if that's a major catalytic factor in the steady stream of heavy bands that have come out of this city for years, but I'd suspect it may be. Regardless of the source though, another Richmond standard comes in the form of a plethora of heavy music – which is so plentiful that it could be easy to take it all for granted, to pass over some new name on a flyer because it seems like they pop up as sure as mushrooms in week-old cow shit.
Organ Donor are one of these newer names, though they have the benefit of being comprised of past and present members of some pretty notable bands – Cannabis Corpse, Bastard Sapling, and Battlemaster, to name a few. As it goes with this sort of thing, their pedigree might attract them more attention than if they were just another nascent start-up, but the quality of the material present on their demo demonstrates that they're not the sort of project that needs to lean too heavily on the credibility accrued by the members' other endeavors.
What Organ Donor does is simple and unpretentious, a vicious yet straightforward take on thrashy death metal that makes it sound like the genre's most recent two decades never happened. No drum triggers, no corny breakdowns, no over-the-top technicality, only a steady succession of moments calling to mind a host of the style's early luminaries – some Convulse or Dismember here, some Entombed or Morbid Angel there – blended deftly enough that the songs never come off like a cheap throwback or a shallow imitation of anything from which they draw influence. The production, as helmed by Garret Morris of Windhand, is perfect – neither too crystal clear nor mired in low-fidelity murk, the perfect middle ground to emphasize their traditionalist approach. Lacking a lyric sheet, I don't really know what the fuck the songs are about. However, leading off with the play on words “Family Plot Thickens” suggests maybe the songs aren't exactly the sort of grim, humorless repurposings of Z-grade slasher movie plots typifying many of even the greatest entries into the genre's canon. But that's entirely speculative.
Regardless of that potential stylistic detour, however, there's not really much of anything present on this demo that will be unexpected by anybody who's listened to any death metal. But it's all assembled so well that its power is undeniable. This is the sound of well-versed musicians demonstrating a fluency in their particular musical language, something not a million miles removed from their previous work, but with a slight shift of inflection, a mood that's reverential in its rawness. It results in a final product that's further evidence that, though few things are sure in this life, when it comes to metal, Richmond's ability to turn 'em out is as unrelenting as our August humidity, and as steady as a turd floating its way eastward down the James.