Symbtomy – Demo #1 – Demo Review

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Old school death metal collective Symbtomy hail from Czechia / United Kingdom and they recently contacted us asking for a few lines on their demo release, which originally landed back in September 2020.

Having passed us by the first time, we were happy to oblige and happier still to find that Demo #1 is a well-produced slab of melodic death metal combined with Swedish death metal riffs – Boss HM-2 pedals at the ready! – which pays homage to the usual suspects (Dismember / Entombed / Grave etc) while subtly carving their own path.

Admittedly, there’s a shit-ton of bands honouring the originators of Swedish death metal at the moment and it’s a market that’s in danger of over-saturation. That being said, Symbtomy do manage to rise above the mire (just) with their haunting take on time honoured sounds and a 100% committed stance on delivering authentic 90s death metal forming their core.  

Hats off for assembling attention-grabbling vocal contributions from Johnny Pettersson (Wombbath), Johan Jansson (Interment) and Ralf Hauber (Revel In Flesh) – which adds legitimate weight to proceedings – and, lack of originality aside, there is enough here to warrant interest in a full length debut when it arrives.

Hardly ground-breaking but promising nonetheless. 6/10