Pray to Be Saved: demo cassette

Pray to Be Saved: demo cassette (Sex Fiend Abomination) Not to be overshadowed by last week’s Record of the Week by System Maintains, Sex Fiend Abomination also dropped this scorcher from Washington, DC’s Pray to Be Saved. While the band’s name might seem strange, once you know it’s a song from Extreme Noise Terror’s Phonophobia, it makes perfect sense. I didn’t get the reference at first, but ENT was the first band I thought of when I heard this demo. In other words, this is blistering fast and noisy d-beat hardcore with a harsh, almost industrial edge to it. The drummer feels like they’re playing as fast as they can, constantly on the verge of losing control, yet always landing perfectly on the tight, Gauze-esque punches that punctuate the songs. I love it when bands burst out of the gate intense as fuck, yet continuously find new ways to up the ante, and that’s precisely what Pray to Be Saved does here. The songs always feel like they’re at maximum intensity, but then a blistering solo will come out of nowhere and make things even crazier. The vocals are also strong, occasionally breaking out wild screams (like the beginning of “Guillotine”), but primarily using a slightly guttural shout that works great when it’s time to deliver a big vocal hook (see, once again, “Guillotine,” particularly the chorus, when the singer screams “Guillotine!”). While this is Pray to Be Saved’s M.O. for the first three tracks, on the back half of the demo they get a little weirder. A phaser-drenched guitar grows more prominent over the last few songs, then the demo climaxes with the five-minute closing track “When Will We Learn?,” a mid-paced song that leans into that quasi-industrial, post-Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing thing I mentioned above. This is a bruising demo, and honestly it seems like a shame that it’s just a tape. If someone wants to press this on vinyl, I’ll be your first customer.