Ecclesia Satani - Antichrist

Ecclesia Satani - Antichrist demo 1996 + promo track 1998
1) Only Satan Can Kill Your Soul...
2) Death Is Silence...
3) Schizophrenic Life... And God
4) The Evil Corner (Promo track 1998)

Reuploaded

Some more less-known Polish black metal, "monumental black metal with NS ideology" as the cover advices us so you've been warned. I bought this tape from one of the various distros I used in the end of the 90's. I'm not sure if a version with only the 1996 demo exists or was it always released with the 1998 promo track "The Evil Corner" as bonus. Another uncertain thing is the titles of the tracks. Those used for track titles could just as well be excerpts from the lyrics printed on the covers or bits of phrases. I decided to take the same approach as the person who provided the MA info and pretended these are track titles.

Enough about that, how is the music you ask? Well, it is more orientated towards the atmospheric end but the demo 1996 part suffers from a bad sound quality and very murky production. The last track, 1998 recording, sounds much, much better. The first song actually has a lot in common with the depressive black metal sound popular these days. I guess the description "monumental" on the covers isn't too inaccurate.

Chained And Desperate - Heliopolis promo 1997

Chained And Desperate - Heliopolis promo 1997
1) The Sign Of The Sun
2) Aten
Reuploaded

Another tape from the Greeks and the ones who have visited their website might wonder why am I uploading this here since they provide a download of this and the previous tape "Oracles of the Neitherworld" - answer would be because that folder contains "Heliopolis" in wav format, I simply converted it into mp3, added the infos and packed up. So all the credit for the rip & stuff to Panos & co. Most unfortunately the download package they provided did not contain the "Oracles..." demo in full, it's missing "A Thousand Stars" and has "Dancing..." twice. I'll need to inform the band about it.

When I received this on tape back in the day it was from one of my traders and he didn't have the cover so no copy of that. Have to do with the not-too-good one from MA again. This tape contains two tracks of good pagan Greek metal, morea aggressive than the previous tape I posted and closer to the style of their album. Part of the difference might be due the session members Lethe (drums) and Merkaal (vocals), both from Order Of The Ebon Hand.

Alghazanth - Dim Is The Moon's Light demo 1997

Alghazanth - Dim Is The Moon's Light demo II 1997
1) Lailla Mustien Myrskyjen
2) Reaping Winds Of Damnation
3) When Spirits Dance In Grief
4) Mighty As The Silverlike Moon
5) A Dismal Empire

Reuploaded

Next Alghazanth tape in line is their 2nd demo which I mentioned on the post of the Promo 1997. The vocals are still the weakest link on this demo, but not as bad as I remembered. Musically and soundwise this might be the best of Alghazanth's tapes. Nice covers too. Not much to add really, Finnish melodic black metal done quite well, recommended.

Opacity - Universum aus Fleisch demo 1994

Opacity (ger) - Universum aus Fleisch demo 1994
1) Universum aus Fleisch
2) Die Erreichung von Harmonie
3) Armee der Psychopathen

Reuploaded

German black metal was an expression dreaded by many in the 90's. I actually enjoyed quite a few Deutsche bands and still do, including this demo, which more correctly is dark metal due the lyrical content rather than black metal. This was a project by an Eminenz member if I remember right and a German friend of mine recorded it to me. He didn't copy the covers so the charming image from MA is used.

The sound is clear, somewhat mechanical sounding but that's mostly due to the drum machine which also gives a slight industrial vibe to the demo. There's some synth used as well, but it's not excessive. Vocals were done by Zwerg from Belmez & Eminenz. Somehow I like this more than I should, especially the first two tracks. See for yourself, it's not the greatest or most original demo around but enjoyable enough.

UPDATE: It appears like the project has resurrected and if I figured out correctly from their German MySpace this demo will be released on CD so the links are now obsolete! Get it on proper version on CD and forget my crappy rip!

UPDATE II: Well, it was released only on vinyl and limited to 111 copies, sold out so I restored the download link. Getting the vinyl is still a better option as it featured four new tracks.

Thornfrost - Upon The Faustian Throne demo 1997

Thornfrost - Upon The Faustian Throne demo 1997
1) Shores Of Black Dawn
2) Sister Winter
3) Veiled In Crimson Skies
4) Thornfrost

Available here

This seems to be a pretty rare item, the only released recording of Henri & Ville Sorvali's (Moonsorrow) black metal project, featuring also Sami Heikura from Kharadrai. It was released in 1997 through the Sorvali cousins' Meat Hook Productions and that's where I ordered it from, I think. I vaguely remember buying this, Moonsorrow's "Tämä Ikuinen Talvi", 2nd issue of their 'zine and possibly some other tape or two.

But back to item at hand, this was supposed to be straight-forward black metal, but it's not of the raw & rough school, rather what we have here is Nordic black metal supported by synth. It sounds less sugary than the average synth-bm product of the era though. Unfortunately the sound was very weak and a bit fuzzy, not much more I could do. It's easy listening compared to LLN-items still. There are 4 tracks but the 1st and 4th are more like an intro and outro in my opinion, so it is a quite short release overall. Definitely worth a listen, especially to Moonsorrow fans.

Throes Of Dawn - Promo 1996

Throes Of Dawn - Pakkasherra Promo 1996 (a.k.a. Promo III 1996)
1) The Night Belongs To Us
2) Pakkasherra
3) My Eternity
4) Kaamos

From here

Another Throes Of Dawn tape, this one an official release by Woodcut Records. I'm not sure where I bought my copy, from Woodcut or another Finnish distro, but it's a nice and pro-looking tape. It's just a bit confusing, the printing on the cassette identifies it as "Throes Of Dawn Promo III/96" - I think the Enochian Crescent promo released around the same time was titled "Promo III" so could this be an error or some odd thing of theirs? Anyways, the cover print calls it "Pakkasherra" promo 1996 and I recall it was commonly called such everywhere so I picked that as the title. Long and almost pointless story there.

The four songs on this tape were recorded in two sessions, July and December 1995 and total of seven tracks were done, I read somewhere, leaves me wondering if they left the rest unreleased and where are they now? The first two were rerecorded on their debut album "Pakkasherra" released by Woodcut in 1997. The two unreleased ones are similar in style to the album material.

EDIT: Badongo link expired and removed. Will not be replaced unless requested.

Lamentation - Fullmoon Over Faerhaaven

Lamentation - Fullmoon Over Faerhaaven demo II 1995
1) Fullmoon Over Faerhaaven
2) Visions Of A Dark Dominion
3) Transylvania (Land Beyond The Eternal Black Forests)
4) Winds Sweep Zachtonia
5) Dungeons Of The Carpathian Tower
6) Mist Hides My Land

Reuploaded

Warning! Caution! Achtung! This is not metal at all. Now that's been dealt with, we'll move on. This is another request, the 2nd demo of Lamentation, a Greek project by Jarl von Hagall & Hjarulv, of Der Stürmer (in-)fame. Dark ambient music performed with synth and piano only. Politically correct people need not be alarmed by the members' connections, this project is more concerned with funereal atmospheres, Transilvanian romanticism, medieval darkness and whatnot.

I got this demo from my Greek tape trader comrade and he also provided me with a xerox of the covers, which I dutifully scanned and included in the archive. The quality is not exactly superb, but it'll do. Rip is okayish, I started to make another as this was in mono, but then I noticed that it comes as mono (or more correctly same stuff on either speaker) from the tape too so it'd been pretty pointless. I prefer this Lamentation tape to the third one as this is purely instrumental whereas "As Shadowkingdom..." features narrations that, to put it bluntly, suck. I haven't (unfortunately) heard the first tape, so if you have it please notify me.

UPDATE: The first upload apparently got corrupted (track 4) so I've reuploaded the damn thing! Sorry about that to those who already downloaded it and thanks to Goatsemen for reporting the issue.