Plagiarism is rightfully deemed taboo in all musical genres due to its obvious and blatant wrongdoing, yet America's Demiricous still thought robbing Slayer's thrash riffs would make them cool, and thus came the dreadful Hellbound. Their debut's consequences ranged from Tom Araya's half-kidding copyright infringement accusation to becoming thrash's momentary laughingstock, but such negativity could only be brief, because Demiricous was destined to avoid that laughable approach with a better follow-up. Entitled Poverty, the record trailing a very bad start actually stitches up previously opened wounds and directs Indiana's thrash group on a singular-based track. The road can be rough; however, Demiricous shows how much they can repair with a good metal release just like this.Those expecting another plagiarism ordeal will be shocked to know Demiricous' sophomore release actually bends toward an original direction rather than mindlessly copying Slayer like their debut did. Instead, there is a frequent visitation featuring several instances of mid-paced sections, technical percussion, crossover attributes, and even some grind influence that's shown from short songs demonstrating many instrumental changes in quick durations along with a keen blastbeat usage when found. Nate Olp's vocals have left his growling/screaming field for a gruffer singing approach much like Slayer's Tom Araya (go figure), yet he actually comes off nicely in that regard because he involves himself in these vast styles without going overboard. Is there anything else? Not really, but the listed morphs are quite beneficial to Demiricous on many levels.
After realizing how Poverty is formatted, one can conclude such transformations were desperately needed for a better overall sound. When pressed against a lack of ideas, Demiricous starred each questionable issue in the face and worked from there to find more accepting options, because what they were doing before wasn't working; this isn't simple adaptation, but genetic evolution. Areas that once were bad are now widely upgraded: the riffs, drums, vocals, and everything else has noticeably added girth in all possible forms. Demiricous realized where errors hid, and they corrected a decent portion of those issues appropriately without venturing into some unnecessary extreme.
But as alteration takes place, flaws will typically sprout up in scarce moments, and that's really no exception here. Although unlikely, repetition taints some of the album's longer tracks with single mid-paced structures occupying too much time and too few variations for anyone to seriously adore. Overall, there'll come parts when these guys have trouble depositing their cash-ins, yet it's not seriously conflicting in essence to this record's core. On another universe, Poverty occasionally dips back into that watered-down thrash joint they glorified so much on Hellbound, and nothing really changed from that perspective in terms of substance as dopey thrash riffs consume all around. I wouldn't call this botheration an enjoyment killer because it's a lot less common than Demiricous' debut, but everyone still needs to be aware of a few contaminated sections in which individualism is scrapped for stupid Reign in Blood worship.
Our thrashing buddies have wiggled through redundancy by simply focusing less on sounding like their favorite bands, and more so on themselves; they've done well despite slipping at certain intervals. Improvement took place after Hellbound, and the differences are crystal clear as this CD mixes more things into the picture rather than following classic thrash groups for the sake of sounding like a pseudo-Exodus squad; a lesson only time could teach. You might keep Poverty in rotation for a little bit if thrash is your oxygen, but be aware it probably won't become your favorite album ever as it's still a bit flawed by Demiricous' usual woes.