Channeling some serious Life Of Agony, Only Living Witness, Age Of Apocalypse, and Twitching Tongues vibes, the debut demo from Belgrade, Serbia based band RECKONING (members of Bronze, Tibia, Unison, The Bridge, Jain, Hitman) delivers a sonically imposing performance, characterized by thick, heavy riffs and a distinct metal influence, heard both in music and vocals. The seismic nature of their guitar work is matched by a palpable sludgy vibe, evocative of the aforementioned bands, and the final vibe is very natural.
The band’s “MMXXII demo” brings a lot of good memories from the past and refreshes the old school take on the genre with a unique twist. We sat down with the band to talk about each and every song from this release and here’s what we’ve got – a complete track by track rundown below.
RECKONING are in the process of making new songs, so keep your eyes peeled. More stuff and live shows is coming up very soon.
The initial idea for Reckonings‘ sound is quite different from the band’s sound today and I think that the breaking point in that evolution was this particular song – “I’ve Foreseen The End”.
One song before this one was finished in the same vein but this continuation of this sound was the breaking point and from this day I think that we pretty much had a formed sound to move forward. Regarding the lyrics, it’s just me pouring my darkest thoughts over aggressive music. I have that privilege to use the music I make with my friends for a negative energy outlet, and I will always cherish that fact.
“Darkness & Patience” is the last song we’ve made for this recording. We wanted to release a 4 song demo, but 2 rehearsals before the recording we’ve made this absolute beast of a song and we just knew that we had to record it. We were even discussing excluding some of the songs we’d made before this one but in the end we were stubborn enough to record every song we had.
“Reek Of Silence” was the first song we’ve made after we made that switch of styles. It was pretty much an obvious choice for us that if we incorporate more melodic vocals that we’ll go in that Life Of Agony, Only Living Witness direction because we grew up on that sound. Lyrically it covers the topic of closure. There comes the point in life when you stop looking for closure after ending a relationship with friends or loved ones. Life goes on, there’s no point looking back when something is definitely part of the past.
“Soul Cadence” the song we’ve made a video for, is as the title says song about the soul and it’s rhythm. There are times when we question our choices, the things we’ve done or could have done. I know I have my share of times like that. The energy of this song is really amazing, when it comes for us to play it it’s like we get a boost of energy. It’s aggressive, it’s melodic, it has a good hook and even though the lyrics are introspective, kinda sad and dark it makes us smile every time.
“Unafraid” is maybe the most anthemic out of all 5 songs on this demo. Its structure is very simple but still very effective. I really love to play this one live, especially when Vojin and Rajko cover the melodic vocals in the last part of the song so I could sing some of the additional vocals from the recording. Like most of the songs on this demo, lyrically it’s pretty much me talking to myself and surviving my inner battle.
