PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Welcome back Demon, as they unleash a brand new studio album and celebrate their 45th anniversary with the aptly titled Invincible on May 17th 2024 via Frontiers Music s.r.l
Formed in Leek, Staffordshire in 1979 by Dave Hill and Mal Spooner, they made their mark early on with three solid albums, 1981 debut Night Of The Demon, 1982 The Unexpected Guest and 1983 The Plague, as an iconic British heavy metal band, as well as one of the leading bands of the NWOBHM movement.
Fast forward to 2024 as opening track ‘Intro’ gives out prog rock earworms from keyboard swathes, punctuated by orchestral parts.
The bombastic intro to ‘In My Blood’ flows into heavy rock and melodic passages that veer to band fuelled choruses of AOR majesty and a guitar heavy outro.
‘Face The Master’, the first single lifted from Invincible puts the pedal to the metal with a twin axe attack to keep the air guitarists happy for an early album highlight, heavying up for mind boggling speaker rattling guitar prowess and a snare driven outro.
Dave takes the bull by the horns for ‘Ghost From The Past’, stealing the spotlight for a lungbusting performance with 100% conviction, but those big, fat juicy riffs are never far away, giving space for the sugar sweet choruses.
‘Beyond The Darkside’ is a snare driven turbocharger that takes no prisoners for this monolithic metal monster of a song see the vocals rise to stratospheric levels.
‘Hole In The Sky’, (not a Sabbath cover) has a lengthy, lumbering intro of melodic guitars and a spoken word piece strangely sounding like Sean Connery as this epic to end all epics has a six minute of a call to arms vibe.
A quirky vocal and keyboard intro for ‘Break The Spell’ strides to luscious soundscapes and stadium filling choruses of the highest order.
‘Rise Up’ is a bass heavy bruiser, seismically pinning down another snare dominated major rager!
The album title track has a spine tingling militaristic intro that heralds my favourite track here, as this chest beating rocker marches along on guitar heavy grooves and full on band bellowed backing vocals and headbanging outro.
An eerie child’s music box sample for ‘Cradle To The Grave’ intro morphs into a chugging rocker and yet another totally captivating chorus, ending on twin lead guitar breaks.
Their NWOBHM fire and fury nuances for ‘Breaking The Silence’ pound through another hairy headbanger that should grace any rock radio playlist.
This highly impressive album closes on the sumptuous ‘Forever Seventeen’, a power ballad with balls, containing very personal and thought provoking lyrics, ending on a whisper.
A pre-order/pre-save link to Invincible is here :- https://orcd.co/demoninvincible
Dave Hill adds about ‘Face The Master’, “The song was written by Neil Ogden and myself, who have always been fans of classic horror films, from Dracula to the Exorcist, Salems Lot to Nightmare On Elm Street, where there always seems to be an uncontrollable Power of the Master throughout”.
Demon band personnel :-
Dave Hill – Lead Vocals.
Neil Ogden – Drums.
Dave Cotterill -Guitar.
Paul Hume – Guitar.
Paul Fasker Johnson – Bass Guitar.
Karl Waye – Keyboards.
