Sabre’s Edge – Demo / Acceptance

Sabre’s Edge
Demo  / Acceptance
1989 / 199? (no label)
Detroit, Michigan, USA

Side 1 (Demo):

1. Stand & Deliver
2. Runnin’ Scared
3. Rock Soldier
4. Rock n’ Roll Preacher
5. True Romance

Side 2 (Acceptance):

1. Dreamin’
2. Knockin’
3. Fire

To be honest, I am not sure if this is two demos by the same band on the same tape, or two demos by two different bands on one tape. There is no case or j-card, so I don’t know how the two sides are or aren’t connected. But it seems that most sources online say this is two demos by the same band. The tape itself is in a bit of a rough shape – the first track gets a bit garbled and there are drop-outs in several songs. But overall you can still hear well enough to tell that these are two good to really good metal demos. The “Sabre’s Edge” side (usually labeled as Demo on most websites) starts off with a commercial metal sound that has some bite to the guitars along with some subdued keyboards. It sometimes drifts into hard rock category, but always brings it back to metal. The Acceptance side has a better recording quality, and has dropped the keyboards and commercial metal for a more traditional metal sound with some almost Savatage-esque influences. The lead singer sounds like it could maybe be the same person on both – maybe? Hard to tell because they do go in a much heavier direction if so. I guess for now, I will go with the Internets position and consider this two demos by one band on one tape, with the second side being the band getting a better recording situation and deciding to go heavier (and better IMHO). I would also guess that sie 2 was also te later recording as well.

Missing Information: Who played on these? What year were they released? Are both sides by the same band?