Funebre: Cranial Torment (1989)

Here is one of the earliest Finnish death metal recordings.  Funebre was one of the first Finnish death metal bands and this is the band's first demo.  Unfortunately, Funebre did not last very long, releasing just two demos, an EP, a split and one full-length album, which was released in 1991.  None of the members appear to have done much in metal after the band was done either. 

This is a quick and dirty five-song demo.  None of the songs appear on the band's full-length.  The band's sound is pure gory death metal with meaty riffs and deep, guttural vocals and an absolutely massive bass sound.  The sound is based on early death metal bands from the U.S. with more of a gore focus, such as Obituary and Autopsy.  The songs are generally more complex than one would expect with such an early demo in a band's history too.  Not to say this is super technical death metal, but there is generally a few riffs and some damn impressive soloing.  The lyrics are standard gross death metal fare, but cannot really be understood anyway.

This is an extremely impressive demo.  It is hard for me to comment about how essential or historical it may be, because the fact is that Funebre did not last long and do not seem to have a massive lasting legacy.  Their only full-length only has three reviews on the Metal Archives, so I suspect that Funebre's legacy is as a hidden gem.  That's really not so bad.