Excrescent was a death metal band formed in 1991 in Virginia by brothers Mark and Mike Riddick. They then brought in drummer Eric Sayenga (who later performed for As The Sea Parts) and recorded two demos before breaking up in 1993. Judging by the band picture, they obviously recorded this while they were teenagers. Is it no surprise that it sucks?
First of all, the production is a load of ass. It's horribly muffled and it's really hard to hear anything. The musicianship is just as bad. The guitars mainly play simple, uninspired riffs that are sloppily played. Due to the bad production, the guitars sound more akin to distorted farts. Since they recorded this back when they were teenagers, they clearly could not perform proper growls, so they had to pitch-shift their growls. They're not menacing or evil at all; they just give me the impression that they couldn't perform proper growls. You can hear the bass on occasion, which rarely happens on demos like this, but their performance is nothing to write home about. The only good instrumental performance comes from the drums. Eric Sayenga wails on his kit with utmost precision. Unfortunately, due to the bad production, the toms sound strange, almost electronic in a way.
This is a bad demo, a very bad demo. The only good thing I can say about it is that these kids learned from their mistakes and went on to form bands that could perform better music. Seriously, the Riddick brothers are involved in about a dozen different bands.
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