Matryx – Studio Junkie

Matryx
Studio Junkie
1985 Independent
West Point, Kentucky, USA

Dale Thompson
Troy Thompson
(others?)

Side 1:

1. Evil That Men Do
2. Show No Mercy
3. I Will Be with You
4. I Can Fly Now

Side 2:

1. Child of Hell
2. Butterfly
3. Studio Junkie
4. Good Rock and Roll

So Matrix briefly changes their name to Matryx before getting signed to Pure Metal Records and finally changing names to Bride. If you are a Bride fan, you have probably heard all of the songs on this demo, although in different forms. “Evil That Men Do,” “Show No Mercy,” and “I Will Be With You” were all re-recorded for Bride’s first album Show No Mercy. Here they are a bit rawer, and possibly even a tad heavier. The remaining songs have been released as bonus tracks on various Bride re-issues. “I Can Fly Now” was released as a bonus track on the 2000 M8 re-issue of Show No Mercy, as well as the Into the Matix compilation – but that track is a different version than the one on this demo. Not sure where the other one came from. The rest of the songs were released on the Silence is Madness M8 2000 re-issue except for “Good Rock-n-Roll,” which was on the Into the Matrix compilation. Oh, and the military chant intro to “Child of Hell” was given its own name of “Military Halo” on the re-issues. This was released the same year as Silent Madness, but probably afterwards from what I can find online.

Missing Information: Who played on this?

Matrix – Live 1983

Matrix
Live 1983
1983 Independent
West Point, Kentucky, USA

Dale Thompson
Troy Thompson
(others?)

Side 1:

1. Old Man Sneed (reprise)
2. Get Away
3. To You My Love
4. Bring You Back
5. Man of Straw

Side 2:

1. Following Me
2. Old Man Sneed
3. Fright
4. Paper Boy
5. White Room

So this may be the earliest recordings by Matrix. It is basically a collection of live songs – I think from different concerts. There are stops between each song that shows how these were compiled from different shows.  I’m not sure why they started off with a reprise of a song later on the tape, but it doesn’t feel like a reprise. Anyways, most of the songs are exclusive to this release. “Get Away” was also on PG-13 from the same year, while “Fright” was later recorded for Silent Madness. This is more hard rock than the early metal leanings of the later demos. But considering the date, these were probably still seen as metal back then.

Missing Information: Who exactly was a part of the band for these recordings?

Matrix – Monkey See Monkey Do

Matrix
Monkey See Monkey Do
1984 (no label)
West Point, Kentucky, USA

Dale Thompson
Troy Thompson
(others?)

Side 1:

1. Hero’s
2. Now He is Gone
3. Remember Me
4. Now You See Me (Now You Don’t)
5. All Hallow’s Eve

Side 2:

1. Slipin’ Into the Light
2. We are Going to Make It
3. Forever in Darkness
4. He’s a Flyer
5. Follow Your Heart

This is a well-known demo of band that was signed and changed their name to Bride. Since they have released all these songs on various demo collections, why include it here? Because a lot of the information out there is wrong. Some of those collections claimed to have all of the songs on two of the Matrix demos when they really didn’t. Some websites made song lists from those collections assuming they were correct when they really weren’t. The song list above is the correct song order. Some earlier compilations replaced “Now He is Gone” with “Fright,” “Forever in Darkness” with “Look at Me Now,” and “Follow Your Heart” with “What Must I Do.” The three songs used to replace the original ones were from the Matrix demo Silent Madness. Several of the songs here made it on to later Bride albums. “Now He is Gone,” “Forever in Darkness,” and “Follow Your Heart” were re-recorded for Show No Mercy in 1986. “Heroes” was re-recorded for Live to Die in 1988. “All Hallow’s Eve” was re-recorded for Silence is Madness in 1989. After saying all of that, I would still say this is a great early 80s metal demo – you can see why they were signed back in the day.

Missing Information: Who all played on this demo?

Matrix – Silent Madness

Matrix
Silent Madness
1985 (no label)
West Point, Kentucky, USA

Dale Thompson
Troy Thompson
(others?)

Side 1:

1. What Must I Do?
2. Fright
3. Rebel on the Run
4. Song Master
5. Look at Me Now

Side 2:

1. Mirror, Mirror
2. Child of Dreams
3. Fly Away
4. Melissa
5. The First Will Be Last

This was the third of the four Matrix demos that they released before signing to Pure Metal records and changing names to Bride. There has been a lot of confusion over these demos, as several CDs have been released claiming to be the “complete” collection of Matrix demos… when they were not. I finally got my hands on the actual tape and made a rip myself, since all of the collections out there tend to be wrong in some ways. The style is early 80s heavy metal, not too far from what they recorded on the debut Bride album. The cover for this is actually a standard picture from a normal camera that was cropped down to size – and no liner notes. It seems they might have used different images for different copies. “Fly Away” and “The First Will Be Last” were re-recorded for Show No Mercy. “Fright” and “Look at Me Now” were both released as bonus tracks on the Silence is Madness re-issue from 2000, while “What Must I Do?” and “Fright” made it on to the M8 release The Matrix Years. “Melissa” was also on the 2014 collection The Matrix Years by Retroactive Records – but it was a different version that sounded more like late-80s Bride than Matrix. This was released the same year as Studio Junkie, but I believe it was released first.

Missing Information: Who all played on this demo?