Review Summary: A listenable release with both a lot to love and some stuff that drags it down
Those familiar with the underground hip hop scene will no doubt have come across the notorious names Necro and Ill Bill, the brothers who created the Death Rap sub-genre, which is really little more than a more extreme version of Horrorcore with a little more emphasis on having slightly heavier instrumentals. Both of their later careers should prove to be more than enough to display their passion and love for extreme metal through the various references to bands such as Slayer and Obituary they place in their lyrics and through the use of electric guitars and blast beats on some of Necro's songs. What the people who have heard of these two men will not be aware of is that the brothers used to be part of a death/thrash band by the name of Injustice that recorded two demos before splitting up and that the band were actually quite good.
The line-up on the Inhuman Conditions demo consisted of 17 year old William "Ill Bill" Braunstein as the vocalist and drummer of the band, 13 year old Ron "Necro" Braunstein on rhythm guitar, drummer Mike Palmeri (who went on to join Life Of Agony) and lead guitarist Mike Nabatov. The overall sound of the band was one that fused a varied tempo style of thrash metal with elements of death metal insanity such as the Deicide-sounding demonic vocals from William. The riffing consisted of a lot of low end chugging riffs with some fun tempo changes and manages to avoid the cliches of the two genres that this could potentially fall under by refraining from overly using tremolo picking. Scattered throughout the three songs on this demo are some interesting features such as the use of a clean guitar in Necrosphere to create a dark and morbid atmosphere.
The main selling points of this demo would be the vocals and lead playing which is very quick and quite typical of extreme metal with the solos resorting to being complete shred-fests but still being listenable and adding to the constant feeling of intensity that is found on here. The vocals are completely possessed and it sounds surprising for those who are familiar with William Braunstein's later work. He has a raspy shrieking style of growl that really works alongside the low-end chunky riffs that Ron busts out and he frantically delivers his lyrics at times sounding akin to a Hell-Spawned demon. Unfortunately this demo is not all brilliant with the production standing out as a problem with a rather bad tone to the drums that sound flat. Also the drumming and bass work on here are not of a high standard with many of the beats sounding the samey and repetitive and the bass guitar thudding in the background never really diverting away from the path laid down by the guitars.
Overall, Injustice's demo tape Inhuman Conditions is a solid release and is certainly essential listening for those who would call themselves fans of either Necro or Ill Bill's later works despite the completely different style. What works about this release is that it seamlessly blends both death metal and thrash metal elements to create an intense roller coaster of a ride across its sub-eleven minute running time, despite the fact that the production and some of the instrumental work is not of the absolute highest caliber possible.
