2nd press of 250 copies on green marble vinyl.
-Updated layout with green accents.
-3mm jacket, 12? insert.
-Tracks 1-7: “Fire Turns Everything Black” demo 1995.
-Tracks 8-13: “Devourer of Souls” demo 1992.
-Track 14: Live 1991.
These demos are a bookend to a wild time in the ’90s when I was first introduced to underground extreme metal. In the summer of 1991, my friend Chaz “Necromodeus” Shoals and I were inseparable—hanging out, trading tapes, and diving deep into extreme metal. We went to shows and saw bands like Sinister Black, Fatal, Zombified, Lucifer’s Hammer—just some of the names tearing up the Michigan scene. Inspired, we decided to start our own extreme metal band.
Chaz was already playing in a band called Black Mercenary at the time, but he wanted to push further into death metal. I remember hearing a track they were working on called Hell’s Furnace—and I was instantly hooked. That summer we wrote several songs and even dreamed about moving to Florida to join the death metal explosion there. We managed to play our first (and only) show in Lansing with Lucifer’s Hammer. What felt like the beginning, though, ended up being the end.
Necro soon connected with Jeff (a.k.a. Thsort), guitarist of Lucifer’s Hammer, to start Masochist. Around then, I stepped in as a fill-in guitarist for Hammer, and the following summer I recorded the Burning Church demo. But the band was starting to unravel—missed practices, missed shows—and I grew tired of the lack of progress. By late 1993, I joined Masochist. That summer we recorded a 7" for Moribund Records along with a four-track demo, Nocturnal Practices.
Things came crashing down when Jeff abruptly left Masochist due to drug issues. Left at a crossroads, we decided to resurrect Summon and push forward with the Fire Turns Everything Black demo. For me, this release feels like a bookend to that crazy chapter in U.S. black metal history, when everything was moving at breakneck speed and so much happened in just a few years.
In that time, I was also involved with Winds of the Black Mountains, Jeff’s project, and began laying the groundwork for my own side project, Dark Psychosis. Looking back, this release encapsulates both an ending and a new beginning—a snapshot of chaos, transformation, and the relentless drive to create extreme metal.
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