Demo-lition Derby: The Rabid Terror

The Rabid Terror
Demo
Is Australia secretly breeding melodic death metal bands as some sort of Blofeldian bid for world domination? Clearly, The Fevered’s secret Dark Tranquillity cloning operation was just the first phase in a much larger, more intricately twined plot that’s hatching before our eyes because The Rabid Terror may have advanced the calendar another decade, ripping out an amalgam of hummable Swede death and breakdowny hardcore, but they’re essentially swiping from the same song book as their countrymen. So now the question has to be asked: fer chrissakes, why?
The Fevered I gave a pass cuz I’m a nostalgic old fuck who remembers the first wave of melodic death with Alzheimery fondness, but I was already over the whole thing before the Kill Switch Engages and Darkest Hours et al began Xeroxing a Photostat of a Polaroid of the original. Another 10 years on, I’m just not sure how much life can be wrung from that desiccated corpse. Now far be it from me to shit on others’ sub-sub-sub-genre preferences (I’ve been listening to Napalm Death clones for 20 years), but melodic hardcore boomed so big and fell so hard, it’s almost impressively stubborn to see a young band try their hand at something so passé.
The Rabid Terror’s four song demo sounds perfectly fine, each instrument and the vocals are clear and meaty and have a nice physical presence. The songs run a tad long for my taste (the 3 to 4 minute range) and just never manage to establish a unique presence. Helen Keller could see the gigantic breakdown in the middle of opener “Eternally Enslaved” coming before the guitarist peels off the first tremolo bar squeal. Otherwise, things careen between In Flames oompah bounce and cargo pantsed circle pitting. This is not to my taste. It's one for the true melodic death/hardcore devotees only. It's free for download on their Facebook page. If that's your thing.