Sometimes things get lost here around me. Bobby, the keyboardist from Outworld gave me this demo back in February but it wasn’t until just recently that I was afforded some time to give this disc a full attentive spin around my stereo. As you can see by the award I’m giving this I am liking this demo a lot, a whole hell of a lot if you want me to be Texan about it. This is some of the heaviest Prog metal I’ve heard and one of the more interesting bands in a genre filled with wank filled foolery. The best part of Outworld is that these guys are intense, and by that I mean they have rapid fire machine gun riffs that assault you at every corner along with strange and unique keyboard settings that add a feel of calculated chaos to the atmosphere. Raise Hell is a terrific opener with those aforementioned riffs being fired at me with both barrels before the vocal’s shrill banshee wail assaults my ears. While he isn’t smooth or sleek in terms of delivery, his rough and gritty tone fits like a glove with the rest of the bands coarse approach. I really like the dark aura that the music gives off to the listener every time I pop this disc in. Oppression, subjugation, and anger are all adjectives that I would use to describe the feelings that these particular songs conjure inside of me and this takes me back to the same feelings that are aroused when I play The Towers of Avarice.

Outworld is not a happy band. These guys aren’t your rote, run of the mill Power / Prog bands they don’t give you anything to cheer about. As a reviewer I am frustrated by the fact that I cannot come up with enough descriptive terms to use when talking about this band but then again shouldn’t that make them special in their own right if I for one can’t pigeonhole them into a genre or think of five other bands that sound exactly like them? Continuing with the song by song review, Prelude to Madness is a nice guitar solo intro to the third track, Concentration Camp. A song about history, (the title should be obvious as to what this songs lyrical content deals with) this particular piece has also gotten the band into some hot water with its taped Hitler speech in the middle. Before I get into a lengthy rant, I must point out that this band is trying to show people the atrocities of said person and do not support him in any way. I don’t see why a band who wants to open the masses eye’s to histories tragedies gets shot down when you have other groups singing about smacking ho’s and pulling gats on bitches. A very forceful song, Concentration Camp is a monster with many time changes and switches from raging fury to mid tempo spots and then throws in a couple of pieces of serene acoustics. City of the Dead rounds out this short but incredibly sweet demo. Here the band opts for a soft intro to build the tension before letting it explode all over the listener with a delightful harmonious guitar lick and soaring vocals. The climax comes however during the blazingly fast keyboard and guitar solo duel, superb.

Perhaps what I like most about Outworld is that they are playing as if they have something to prove. This wasn’t some band that was slapped together to crap out a cd this is a gang of talented musicians that poured their combined efforts into making three great songs and one intro song. I’ve been converted, now let’s see what the rest of the world will think.