BURNING INSIDE's 1995 Demo Is Criminally Underrated — And RICHARD CHRISTY's Launchpad

Are you a giant death metal nerd? Then you need to hear this very obscure demo from a great death metal band that never really got the recognition that they deserve… and then check out my full series on exactly this topic right here.

I hate to be the "I liked their first demo best" guy, but I genuinely think that Burning Inside's 1995 demo is the best thing they ever did. And if I had to sum up why in three words, they'd be drummer Richard Christy.

This demo feels like ground zero for Christy's rise as one of death metal's most recognizable and respected drummers. A couple years after this tape dropped, Christy would go on to join Death and Control Denied in 1997, Iced Earth in 2000, and then eventually he'd go on to form the criminally underrated band Charred Walls of the Damned in 2009.

But in 1995 he was just totally tearing it up in Burning Inside, and the guy was a freak behind the kit. He's relentless, he's technical, he's brimming with energy — and you know if you listened to Death and Control Denied and Iced Earth and Charred Walls of the Damned, you would know that.

This 1995 demo from Burning Inside feels like early tech-death with a deeply human feel. There's nothing sterilized, there's nothing over-edited (if edited at all). It sounds like a band trying to keep pace with the drummer who's about to outgrow the scene entirely. It's loose and frenzied but still sharp where it counts.

Burning Inside went on to release two full lengths — The Eve of Entities in 1999 and Apparition of the Beast in 2001 — and an EP in 2007 before ultimately calling it quits. And let me be clear, that stuff is still really good. It's well-written, it's well-produced, it's well-performed, and it's definitely worth your time. But nothing after that demo really captured the wild, unrefined intensity of the band, in my opinion.

The demo just feels different. This 1995 tape sounds like a band pushing itself to the limit in real time. It's not trying to be clean or polished — it's trying to survive itself. And that tension is what makes it so incredibly gripping to listen to.

The real tragedy here is that you can't find the original demo anywhere. It's not on streaming, it's never been reissued, it was never bonus tracks on any of the records or anything like that. The only way for you to hear this is to dig up a tape rip from the depths of the internet. Same goes for their 2007 EP — that one's also nowhere. Somebody really needs to put together a proper Burning Inside compilation because all of this material deserves to be heard.

And while Richard Christy rightfully gets most of the spotlight on the demo, the rest of the band definitely held their own. Guitarists Steve Childers and Michael Estes brought tight, inventive riffing, and Jamie Prim — handling both bass and vocals — kept the whole thing very grounded, which is no small task when Christy is going full-on octopus mode behind the kit.

Sadly, Prim didn't really show up at all in the metal world after Burning Inside. Estes continued playing until his death in 2020, and Childers stayed active in the metal world as well until his passing in 2016. All of that is to say — go find Burning Inside's 1995 demo. It never quite got the recognition it deserved, but it's still really, really good.