Cyclone Temple: Land of the Greed Home of the Depraved (Divebomb)

Released to coincide with their reissue of Cyclone Temple’s debut I Hate Therefore I Am, Divebomb’s 2017 collection, titled Land of the Greed Home of the Depraved, gives fans a host of rare demo recordings from this underrated thrash band.

If you’re familiar with Cyclone Temple, you know that they formed from the ashes of Znowhite. In 1989, while they were still operating as Znowhite and just after Brian Troch joined on vocals, they recorded the 8-song Land of the Greed Home of the Depraved demo. It’s a much rawer and more aggressive sounding band, but you can hear the foundations of what would become I Hate Therefore I Am. After that, we get the three-song Cyclone Temple demo, which gives fans a glimpse of what later Cyclone Temple material might have sounded like had Troch stuck around. The final two tracks are live recordings from 1993.

Since the master recordings for these demos have since been lost, Land of the Greed Home of the Depraved was put together from cassette copies, newly digitized and newly remastered by Jamie King, who did such a fantastic job on the I Hate Therefore I Am and My Friend Lonely reissues. Given the source material, you can’t expect audio perfection, but this set sounds pretty freaking fantastic for what it is.

Given the fact that almost no one outside the band has ever heard these tracks, Land of the Greed Home of the Depraved is a real treat for Cyclone Temple fans. We get a rare look at their earliest days as well as a measure of their progression as a band, and beside that it’s just a killer collection of raw vintage thrash recordings.