Not For The Faint Of Heart

feeling kind of blue lately. working, thinking, working, thinking. i did get to help Mark with liner notes for a CD being released soon of his old band Fatal. it’s a death metal band he was in when he was 17 or so that managed to gain a following both locally (in Detroit) and in other areas of the world. in fact, just a year or so ago, he received a fan letter from Scotland. the guy was wondering what the band members were doing nowadays and whether they still played music. it was really cool. and now Necroharmonic (i said it was death metal!) is releasing a CD of their demos. it was fun to look through his old pictures and to edit the liner copy.

if you’re interested in the liner copy, read on.

Formed in the winter of 1985 in Detroit, MI, the original lineup of Fatal consisted of Mark Nowakowski – Bass/Vocals, Tony Hamera – Guitar and Allen Czarnecki – drums. Over the span of five years, Fatal would record three demos and a 7”, achieve recognition outside the states and play countless shows alongside established metal bands.

The Guts For Dinner demo was recorded and released in early 1988. It was a two track live recording that, in retrospect, lacks the heaviness of our later releases. The songs themselves had been written a year prior and by the time the demo was released, the band had already moved onto a much heavier sound. Guts For Dinner attracted little attention and went largely unnoticed. Although it may not have been the best quality recording, we felt that even in the early stages the songwriting was promising. Though still rough, the ambition and excitement were definitely there.

The music moved swiftly towards a more brutal sound. Heavily involved in the underground thrash/metal tape-trading scene, the songs reflected the influence of a faster and more ferocious din. The Fatal demo was recorded the summer of 1988. Two new songs, Molested Slaughter and Power Of Destruction, were included on the recording. Both songs had been written only a few weeks before they were recorded. They embodied the more viciously aggressive sound we desired and also introduced our growing fan base to a newly acquired demand for speed. Songs like Living Death and Raped In The Grave were clearly written earlier while songs like Blood Frenzy gave a hint of what was to come. We really began to immerse ourselves into writing increasingly technical songs with many parts and difficult changes. Opening for national acts like Death, Pestilence, Sacrifice and Death Angel would begin to give us exposure to a larger audience. Thanks to the underground scene and a loyal network of fanzines, fans and other bands, Fatal’s popularity became more far reaching. Interest was sparked outside the states as fan mail and requests for the demo began to arrive from Europe and other countries. Regular airplay on college and public radio stations helped in staking a place on the local scene. Although we were beginning to experience success in reaching and gaining more fans, the band would actually split before the Fatal Demo was released at the end of the year.

Musical tastes and direction shifted, causing Allen to leave the band before years end. By the early part of 1989, positive responses and reviews of the demo started to come in. Through friends we met Bill King and in the spring he became our new drummer. We immediately went to work on the release of the Soul Burns Demo, containing three new songs and an updated version of Guts For Dinner. We actively labeled our sound as brutal, technical, death metal and proved it through songs like Soul Burns. Our style was well received by new and loyal fans. The new demo earned many rave reviews and in 1990 caught the attention of French label Thrash records who asked us to record a 7” EP. A Somber Evocation Of Nihilism featured four new songs; only three would appear on the 7”. The EP conveyed a more somber, funereal kind of style. The element of speed was still there, on tracks like Malevolence, but songs like Anguish were much more bleak. We spent 1990 busy and having a great time. We secured a spot on the Michigan Death Fest that summer on a bill that featured Morbid Angel, Sacrifice, Deceased and many more. Taking a break from headlining shows in Detroit, we left for a trip to the east coast and a show in New Jersey.

In September of that year, we unknowingly played our last gig sharing the bill with Death and Pestilence. We had no idea at the time it would be our final show and the end of five exciting years of playing music we loved and meeting really great people. The individual band members were moving in different directions. Fatal would briefly expand to a four piece and remain together until early 1991 before finally calling it quits. - Mark