Written by Ellis
Shout out Demo 2025 – gotta be one of the best demos of 2025… No but for real, demos are awesome and there’s been a bunch of great ones this year already so it is a pleasure to welcome you to the first ever edition of Demolicious Derby. If you’ve been tracking with Noob Heavy for a while you may remember our classic Please Sir, I Want Some Core series from around 2021-2022. This is basically that, but just demos, because of some good old fashioned time poverty. Anyway, enjoy!
Dead On Your Feet – D.O.Y.F.
Starting strong with this straight edge rager from Dead On Your Feet, who claim to be based out of “Philly (kinda)” and feature at least one member of the world/ass-beating Gridiron. Six tracks, seven minutes and a load of lyrics about turning your back on traitors and fakes and edge breakers. This is the Good StuffTM.
Direct Order – Demo 2025
Not loads to say about this one other than that it just absolutely rips. Proper proper hardcore from Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg, Canada, and apparently all the instruments and vocals were recorded on the same SM-57 microphone. Legit.
Fixed Game – Demo ’25
Bands on Triple B Records don’t tend to pass anyone by, but Tampa’s Fixed Game are too good not to include here. This fast and furious demo has a cool melodic streak (mainly in “Collateral Damage”) and a fair bit of swagger (“Illumination Rounds”) and it doesn’t even hit six minutes which means you can (and should) tear through it ten times in the space of an hour.
xforever warx – Demonstration
xforever warx are 1) obviously straight edge, 2) obviously Kickback fans and 3) somehow not a lost European edge metal band from the 90s, no matter how much their music might suggest otherwise. They’re from Salt Lake City and Demonstration is the first of two savage demos they’ve released this year already (the other one fucks too, obviously).
No Known Weakness – Demo 2025
The Glasgow hardcore scene is one of the most exciting in the world right now and No Known Weakness defo fit right in among the esteemed likes of Despize and Demonstration of Power and Nothin’ but Enemies and co. They’re basically influenced by all the bands HardLore are always banging on about, so expect big riffs and even bigger breakdowns.
xSeraphx – Demo
UK label The Coming Strife has cemented its place as the finest purveyor of proper metalcore over the past few years and this demo from Twin Cities outfit xSeraphx is exactly the sort of thing it does best. Big chugs, emotive melodies, talky vocal breaks—glorious stuff from a band whose members weren’t even twinkles in their parents’ eyes at the time this release harks back to.
Strikeforce – Demo
Strikeforce’s label Fortress Records put it best when they described the Pensacola-based outfit as “wearing the No Warning/Death Threat/early Terror vibes on their sleeve, Fast ‘core that doesn’t forget to be HARD”. More than enough to sell you on it immediately right?
Turn of Phrase – Finish Just to Begin
Can’t even explain it but it should be illegal for bands this new to be this good. Sounds like Praise and early Title Fight and bits of Have Heart and feels like having a nice crisp glass of water and going for a run in perfect weather as long as you understand that that’s meant as a huge compliment. Melodic hardcore from London will have to suffice if not.
Unmoved – Demonstration
Vancouver’s Unmoved play a shifty and abrasive brand of metalcore that evokes the likes of Coalesce and Disembodied and maybe even a bit of Pig Destroyer—all panic chords and odd-time signatures and just a proper dark and menacing vibe that their label North Bluff Katalogue is bang on in describing as “the aural equivalent of a Saw trap”.
Wretched Rite – Demo ’25
One for the death metal gang. This Wretched Rite demo has a guest feature from Mike Shaw of everybody’s favourite new band Fatal Realm, which makes sense given the brutality contained within. Rebirth Records are another one of those labels where you should just listen to everything they put out, and this one especially is mean af. Band are from New York and Philadelphia.
You can listen to all these demos in a single playlist here (the whole thing is just over an hour long).