Metal Underground.com

Demiricous have returned with their second full-length album on Metal Blade records, entitled "Two (Poverty)." After their heavily Slayer-inspired debut of death metal-inspired thrash in "One (Hellbound)," I was very curious to see how they progressed and if they would come into their own style a little more. "Two (Poverty)" was certainly not what I imagined, but is a strong and likeable album nonetheless.

The underlying thrash metal sound with the occasional punk elements is still present, but the feel has changed substantially with only some small guitar tone changes and vocalist Nate Olp's delivery. The guitars sound slightly more raw and dirty than the previous tight thrash-riffing. From the first notes of "Never Enough Road" and subsequently listening to the entire album, I soon recongized that both of these changes made the band sound an awful lot like Entombed on their "Mouring Star" album. To test the theory, I dropped "Two (Poverty)" into the middle of that album in a playlist and the guitars and vocal delivery fit right in. The main difference is that Demiricous plays at a thrashing mad pace from start to finish.

Aside from the aforementioned changes in style, "Never Enough Road" sounds like it could have been pulled straight from their previous album--the intensity, pace and song structure are all very familiar despite the slightly different guitar tone and vocal style, and it is an excellent opener for the album.

"Expression of Immunity to God" starts out with a definite punk-influenced intro before breaking into a more Slayer-style riff. The song has some of the crunchiest riffs on the album and incorporates loads of blast-beats and a killer late-song groove. "Knuckle Eye" opens up with an extremely infectious thrash-groove that you can't help to head-bang to, and it features a well-crafted solo towards the end of the song as well.

Demiricous has perhaps exchanged some extremeness from their previous album for more grooves on this effort. On "Leprosaic Belief," the band goes from blistering intensity to catchy groove (and vice versa) in seconds. "Tusk and Claw" and "Engineer" each have some killer grooves as well.

"Language of Oblivion" takes on a more classic death metal sound, however, especially with the opening guitar tone and riff as well as the drumming. The entire song except for the guitar solo sounds very death-metal, in fact. By contrast, "Appreciation for Misery" takes on a more direct thrash approach from start to finish.

"Acid Lung" stands out for its ultra-heavy sound and fast, thrashing pace, and some interesting timing as well as the distinct guitar tone two minutes into the song. For just under three and a half minutes, Demiricous cram a lot of change-ups and stylistic changes within this one song. "Stress Fetish" picks up with a very similar groove from the end of the preceding song and continues as a more groove-oriented thrash song.

The instrumental final track on the album, "Blackish Silver," is very reminiscent of slower-paced Pantera, with the meandering riffing and guitar style throughout most of the song.

While my personal preference is for the tighter riffing sound from "One (Hellbound)," Demiricous has once again delivered an intense, heavy, and well-crafted album. "Two (Poverty)" is absolutely recommended for fans of death-thrash hybrids as well as fans of extreme metal in general. With twelve songs of thrashing metal, any metalhead can find a few songs they can rock out to and there's enough to satiate a true fan's appetite until the next album.