• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Heir Apparent is another one of those bands that split too early and has made a comeback (a couple of them), with scattered releases along the way. Before changing their name, they were known as Nemesis and Foundations I includes their two demos, 1983's The Nemesis Demo and 1984's Inception Day. Once again, leave it to Vic Records to unearth the good stuff.

This is about as "1983 and 1984" as it gets, unsurprisingly, though the band did mix things up quite a bit. There are traces of barebones heavy metal, speed metal and even some of the more '70s-ish heavy rock sound at times, all complemented with clean, high-pitched soaring vocals that keep the whole thing upbeat and really bring that '80s feel-good, fist in the air metal vibe that marked the era. I hear quite the Maiden influence here, especially the early stuff, but Heir Apparent (well, Nemesis) are a bit looser and more straightforward—don't read that as being a bad thing. On these demos we can see that the band experimented with their song while keeping it all coherent. Between the Maiden-esque heavy metal and the all-out speed metal parts you'll find some much slower, ballad-style songs like "Improviso" and "Mysteria" that kind of stick out and take you back even further than the '80s with their entrancing '70s vibe. The sound quality is really good, a little rough on the edges as you can expect from a demo, but anyone who enjoys early '80s metal should get a kick out of this stuff.