Disfigured was a NY death metal band, back in the 90’s and I was friends with the fellas, especially Ryan Schimmenti, the founding member.  Russia’s Lord of the Sick Recordings have just issued, in limited pressing, Anthology of Dementia, which puts all of Disfigured’s recordings on a cd.  I was a huge fan of this band, but the problem is this record label went out and put this compilation out without the bands input.  Yes I am a stickler for reissues and such, and I should be.  I’m the consumer, but I also want to see the band get the proper recognition and respect they deserve, when reissues are put out.

Disfigured, played a death metal style similar to a lot of the east coast bands, like Suffocation, Internal Bleeding and Pyrexia.  Unpolished at times, but no less aggressive, Disfigured had a knack for creating memorable and catchy 90’s brutal death metal.  Brutal blast beats, coupled with pit heaving grooves to smash the bejesus out of people in the pit.

The comp puts together the Paroxysm ’97 demo, the ’97 split 7” with Repudilation, and ’99 Prelude to Dementia ep.  To have all these releases on cd is excellent, since the 7” and demo were never cd pressed.  The sound overall has been tweaked ever so slightly.  The demo sounds fantastic, on cd.  Loud, brutal and you can hear Ryan’s bass plucks beautifully.  The cd insert does contain pictures of all 3 releases-which is great.  But there are quite a lot of things missing, that if the band was in on this release, could have made this so much more special.  The ep lyrics are the only lyrics included in this, as well as the liners to the ep.  Liner notes to the demo and 7” are no where to be found.  Hell I did a pretty large vocal piece on the 7” tune, “Defuse”, but that is not mentioned and neither are the recording line-ups for the demo and 7”.

There is no biography and no scans of flyers or old band photos, except for one on the cd tray.  Don’t even get me started on the album cover, or lack of one.  You can see the picture for yourself, pretty bad.    Also the cd spine incorrectly spells Anthology, by spelling it Antology.  Crap like this gets under my skin.  This could have been a much better reissue, had the label done their homework and contacted members of the defunct band, hell look them up on social media, that’s how all this shit is done now.  Probably had something to do with not wanting to pay royalties or something like that.  And when you do something like that, you end up putting out something like this.

At the end of the day, I am happy to have Disfigured’s material on the 1 cd, so that is a plus.  I still encourage you to pick this up if you were a fan of their material or style.

[Visit the band's website]

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