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Norway's Amputation is the death metal predecessor to Immortal and I never knew about them until I got this compilation, unsurprisingly released by Nuclear War Now! Productions, a label that often releases lost underground gems. This contains two demos (1989 and 1990) and one rehearsal (1989)—the band never had a studio release—and, as you can expect, this is far from polished. The recordings are very crude and they do have that "charm" of the old demo sounds, and if you've ever checked out a band in their rehearsal space, the canned, messy, kind of cozy sound of that environment is in there as well. The sound quality doesn't do the songs justice and it takes a lot of attention on the listener's part to really appreciate what these guys were doing. It's messy, chaotic, crude, raw and really aimed at the completist who wants to hear what was going on before Immortal hit the scene, the result of Amputation calling it quits. If you're willing to put in the extra listening effort, there's some good stuff to hear on Slaughtered in the Arms of God.