In 1985, GOATLORD emerged from beneath the desolate sands of the Mojave desert and released their first demo two years later, following the replacement of their original bassist. Though the band would ultimately become best known for their first full-length album, Reflections of the Solstice, it was on this first recording, known succinctly as Demo '87, that they established the prototype for the primeval sound that would eventually come to characterize them as one of the most unique bands to ever emerge, not only from the depraved setting of Las Vegas, but also from the U.S. metal underground as a whole. The tracks on Demo '87, which most obviously reflect the band's primary influences from the revered likes of entities such as Hellhammer and Sodom, were clearly a necessary stepping stone in the descent towards the black doom death rituals that would later become further explored on subsequent recordings. In comparison to the later versions of the same four songs, the Demo '87 tracks are relatively shorter, more concise, and noticeably faster, thus serving as a testament to a band that was still working to define its own sound.
In the months that followed the original release of Demo '87, the band revisited this same material and accentuated its more doom-laden aspects, which effectively lengthened the songs and augmented the thrashier original versions with elements derived from other musical influences such as PENTAGRAM and ST. VITUS. In addition to the reworked tracks from Demo '87, the band also wrote and rehearsed a significant number of new songs, which were also to follow in the same new vein.
