MUTILATED, PSYCHODEATH LUNATICS (1988, demo)

The skull:
A screaming torsoless head. This is a good “face of the damned” kind of image, but of course the demo is titled “Psychodeath Lunatics” and really that doesn’t make any god damned sense. It’s a nice cover, and it makes good use of the two color format, but it feels like the image and the title were chosen without any consideration for the other. Par for the course, I suppose, but this was clearly a band who felt they were pushing the envelope of decency in 1988, so they really could have done a whole lot more here. Still, a good skull is a good skull. I shouldn’t complain. And yet…

The music:
Speedy but very precise thrash bordering on death metal. Like Propeller from a few days ago, this would surely have been called death metal when it was released, and it does bear a certain similarity to early Death, but Mutilated seem to have had a much better command of their instruments, even if they aren’t quite as good at writing riffs. I find this to be a little too one-dimensional, especially in the drumming department, but I wouldn’t say that Mutilated weren’t good at what they were doing, and frankly I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t really make it past the demo stage, because they were quite good compared to a lot of their peers. If you’re an oldschool death metal maven, then you should look for Mutilated, whose entire demo output was reissued on CD last year (itself with a BDS cover, to boot!)
— Friar Johnsen