A few years back I was sent a copy of Usurper’s demo, Visions From The Gods, I admit that at the time I wasn’t really into black metal all that much and wasn’t fully able to appreciate it at the time and ended up hiding it amongst my stacks of tapes. In 1997, Metal Blade Records sent me a compilation CD containing a newer track from the band, "Slavehammer", which immediately caught my attention and kindled my interest in the band. It wasn’t until last year that I actually picked up the CD originally containing the track, Threshold Of The Usurper. Much to my disappointment, when I got the CD home from the store and opened up the case, for some reason, a copy of Darkthrone’s Total Death (a horrible album, by the way) was contained within, which confused me. To further my disappointment and annoyance, the store I purchased it from refused to refund me after I had told them what happened. Since that time I have not bothered trying to buy another copy of the album, nor their most recent release Skeletal Season, so I’m still relatively new to the band’s music. In 2000, Necropolis decided to re-release the band’s demo, along with some bonus material, including a re-recording of the demo track "Soulstalker", the unreleased song "Bonefire" and re-recording of "Wolflord" from the Skeletal Season recordings, a live recording of "Blood Passion" and a cover of Mercyful Fate’s "Charon". The demo material is very raw, aggressive, heavily Celtic Frost-influenced black metal, with a highly energetic assault. The vocals are gravel, the guitar and bass riffs are catchy and, unlike most black metal bands, the drumming is varied, although very mechanical sounding, which is most likely due to the poor production. It was only just a demo, afterall. My only complaint is a few extremely cheesy percussion spots with what sounds like a cowbell, which I found to be annoying. Apart from that the demo is completely thrash worthy 80s black/thrash metal played with a much more aggressive and angry 90s attitude, which makes it instantly appealing. The re-recording of "Soulstalker", recorded a mere two years after the original, displays just how much the band improved and displays how good they can sound with better production and more time to work in the studio. The band’s cover of "Charon" is well done, with the band putting their own distinct mark on the song, however, I, not being a being fan of Mercyful Fate to begin with, didn’t find the track to be very appealing, although I must admit I did find Usurper’s cover to be much more appealing than the original, with the only high vocals being in the background with the majority of the vocals being deeper and more gravel in tone. "Bonefire", I believe is an original track, although it would not surprise me to find that it’s a cover song, as it’s much slower in tempo than the other songs and has a heavy 80s feel to it. As far as "Wolflord (Night Prowler Version)", I can’t compare it to the original, since I never heard the original, but the track itself is very down-tuned with the infamous fuzzy guitar sound and is actually oddly captivating. The final track, "Blood Passion (Live ‘98)", isn’t overly impressive, however what I did find to be rather funny was vocalist Diabolical Slaughter’s Tom Araya-impression while speaking to the audience. The production of this track is absolutely horrid, and the drum sound is pretty awful. For those of you into aggressive metal, this is definitely an album you’d want to pick up for the demo tracks alone, if you already own a copy of the demo it’s not really worth picking up this CD, since the bonus footage really isn’t anything that interesting. This demo has once again rekindled my interest in the band, and I think I’ll try my luck at finding a copy of Threshold To The Usurper once again. Written By: Teufel