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A lavish promo package from a band I never heard of: CD, sticker, flyers and a bumper sticker that reads WHAT WOULD JESUS FUCK? Fortunately, this is actually a good demo. You out there probably think it's all fun having bands send you promos and demos, but let me tell you, a lot of times you have to supress the urge to rip the CD from your player and hurl it out a window. Not this time though.

Funeral Age claim a whole slew of influences including Death, Possessed, Angel Corpse and Dissection, among others. Fortunately these influences have led them to record some pretty fucking cool Death Metal. There is a basic early Death/ Morbid Angel style at work here, but Funeral Age are nowhere near that technical. Their enthusiasm far outstrips their musicianship, or their budget and so they do sound quite a bit like the endearingly chaotic Angel Corpse, and anyone who knows how much I loved that band will know I mean that in a very good way. But these guys don't stick with the basic Florida style 100%, adding in some Dissection-style harmonic riffs – most notably on the album highlight "Upon The Grave Of Angel's Wing", and even coming up with some Entombed-y riffs here and there. The major flaw here is the obviously limited budget of the recording, but it sounds OK- it just lacks punch. Fortunately the music here is interesting enough to overcome this flaw. Funeral Age keep things exciting with acoustic breaks, time changes, slower-riff breakdown bits, and an infectious enthusiasm for their music – it's hard to pin down, but they just have that something, you know? An energy that makes this cool despite the fact that they aren't always that tight.

The package is minimal. They have a cool logo, but the cover art is dreadfully boring. The lyrics are actually pretty good, even though I find the anti-xtian obsession a bit stale. I think it's much cooler to write about gnarly evil stuff instead of ranting about how you hate jesus. I hate the album title, but thankfully the lyrics are better than you would expect: "Devil may I have this dance?/ Upon the grave of angel's wing/ Where the burning witches laugh/ Where the murdured children sing". See? Pretty cool actually.

The only thing holding this back is a lack of good production, and with a record deal I can see this band going places. Fans of underground death metal should certainly check this out.