Hexxed's 2001 demo opens with a brief intro before launching into five tracks of straightforward death metal shaped by the Morbid Angel template. Guitars alternate between tremolo-picked riffs and slower, chunkier passages, while blast beats give way to mid-tempo grooves that recall early Sepultura. The production, captured at Best Cellars Studio and Doghouse Studios in Belfast, has the raw clarity typical of late-nineties underground metal — vocals sit forward in the mix, drums crack through without polish, and the bass locks in with the rhythm guitar rather than seeking independent lines. Tracks like Vitruvian and Nails That Pierce The Soul demonstrate the band's comfort with classic death metal architecture: verse-chorus structures punctuated by breakdowns, solos that stick to pentatonic shapes, and vocals that remain intelligible even at speed.
The demo places Hexxed firmly within the Irish metal underground of the early 2000s, a scene documented by the Irish Metal Archive and represented on compilations like Sentinel Records' In Unison. The lineup — Owen Boden and Ciarán Tracey on guitars, Gerard Bentley on drums, Gerard Ritchie on bass — draws members from other Belfast acts including Condemned, Waylander, and Abbattoir. The band would later shift toward more technical and atmospheric territory, but Perish The Sacred captures them at their most direct.
This demo suits listeners who value historical documentation of regional scenes and those who prefer death metal before it splintered into subgenres. The recording quality is strong enough to appreciate the performances without the sterility that would come later in the decade.
