Dies Irae - The Day of Wrath - Half an Hour Attack!!! demo 1987

Dies Irae (fin) - The Day of Wrath - Half an Hour Attack!!! demo 1987
1) Liberation from the False Power
2) Dwarf of the Court
3) The Road Goes Ever on
4) (You Are) the Victim of D.I.'s Force
5) Farewell
6) Carried by the Wind


Reuploaded (and corrected)


Today's post is a bit unusual one and a step away from the Coven's usual timeline of operations, this time however a little further into past. Dies Irae was a name used by more than enough bands (over a dozen in Metal Archives only) and back in the 80's a Finnish band had picked the monicker too. Contributed by brother Suuret Muinaiset, thank you, this is their apparently only release from 1987 and like the title tells, roughly half an hour of power/heavy metal. A cover scan is included and apparently there are no titles anywhere on the release, the M.A. pic of the tape shows it only having the title written on it and the cover has extremely minimal information. So if someone, somehow happens to know the tracklisting please get in touch!
UPDATE: I was provided a tracklisting! Oh joy! I've fixed, titled and reuploaded the demo so you might want to download it again if you have the old version.

The music here is power metal or simply heavy metal for my uneducated self as I've never been able to make much distinctions on the subgenres in the more traditional heavy metal front. I don't really listen much to this sort of metal except for the nostalgic oldies but this is ok. Sound is quite typical but good and clear demo quality and song writing and musicianship are decent enough. I suppose I'll recommend this if you're a retro enthusiast hit by the power/heavy metal boom of recent years or just in general interested in old Finnish demo tapes.

Thorns (por) - Promo '94

Thorns (por) - Promo '94
1) Welcome to Your Doom
2) The Kingdom Beyond

Mediafire / RGhost

Something different today, here's (again?!) some heavy metal from Portugal. I got this tape from one of my tape traders and yes, you probably guessed the band name got me to pick it. I wasn't too excited when I listened to it as basic heavy metal was not really something of interest to me back then. Listening to it now after a long break... it's still not really my shot of vodka. I'm really, really picky when it comes to "ordinary" heavy metal, power metal and whatever. Though it does have certain crude charm to it, much better than overpolished Helloween pastiches. I'd warm up even more to this were I drunk. Sound is a bit on the quiet side, might have to do with the unknown generation dub, but otherwise good enough and is the reason for much of the appeal. I better try listening to this while drinking.

No covers or much anything, being made from a dub and apparently the band changed their name to Please Remember quite soon after releasing this tape (Metal Archives actually lists this under that monicker but I'll go with my trader's info here!) and made another promo in 1997 as well as appearing on a compilation (or few). Not much else to say, give it a shot, it's not bad after all.

Norseman - Advance Tape 1995

Norseman - Advance Tape for Demo 1995
1) Pathos of Life
2) Rugged Prayer
3) The Healer
4) Aurora Borealis
5) Peter Pan Theme (bonus track)

Reuploaded

Something (not completely) different this time, here's some heavy metal in the vein of Manowar and company from Norseman. The actual monicker they chose to use is fantasy metal and you probably are wondering why am I posting this here as usually traditional metal, thrash and such are left to comrades at Lockjaw and other places. Well, I just am, exceptions happen. I remember seeing this tape in a couple of tape trader lists back in the 90's and idly wondered about it, never actually getting around to have it dubbed for me. Fast forward to last year or year before that and me spotting this in brother Grev's collection, finally deciding to get around to listen to it. Epic backstory. Probably had no cover, if the demo 1995 was actually released it might have one.

Enough of the background babble and the Manowar reference aside, what is it like? It's heavy metal with fantasy themes, moving mostly at epic midtempo paces and sounds actually quite good. I like the voice too, it's a bit more on the raspy side of the scale rather than high pitched banshee wailing. The sound is as expected of demo quality but I kind of like it, it sounds kind of dark and well, heavy. The band's 1996 & 1997 studio sessions were released on a CD, probably remastered and re-somethinged, by Korso records in 2007. This is probably not going to interest the average reader but give it a chance.