Hermh - Rehearsal 1996

Hermh - Rehearsal 1996
1) Wolfish Flower
2) Years of Dying
3) The Silent Touch of Bloody Rain
4) Winged Emptiness

Mediafire / Rusfolder

Here's a rip I had (again) forgotten lying in another folder on my desktop. A 1996 rehearsal tape by the Polish band Hermh who were sort of almost black metal band. But not quite! In the early stages the music was somewhere between atmospheric black metal and gothic metal, but I don't think they ever referred to themselves as black metal. The second demo cover had "grim misanthropic metal" as the definition and that might've not been so much off. Started in 1994 Hermh could be seen a project of Bart, the owner of Witching Hour Productions , though always with a full line-up. Anyways, throughout the years he's remained as the sole constant member. I haven't really heard much of the later releases but I believe they're more in the "extreme gothic metal" vein. This rehearsal tape had, as usual, no cover or a tracklisting but it was pretty easy to identify them as tracks from the second album "Angeldemon" and I made yet another placeholder cover from a stock pic of an angel statue and the old logo.

I have somewhere also the 1996 promo tape which has two of these tracks and a Tiamat cover, those tracks were released as bonuses to new editions of the demo compilation "Echo" and the debut "Taran" so I don't think I'll be posting it. But if we would finally concentrate on this item here, the sound is the usual rough-and-tumble of a rehearsal recording, a bit messy, little uneven and all that but myself I like the rawness it gives to these tracks even if the mixture gets really muddled at places. The first two tracks, which were also on the aforementioned promo, are the catchiest and best in my opinion, both quite fast and melodic. There's quite a bit of synth used here but it works here with the rawness, what I don't like is the drums at fastest points as they mash everything into a thick porridge of sound which is troublesome to digest. Even the thankfully sparingly used cleaner vocals are ok. You want some name dropping? Ok, the first tracks remind me at places of old Arcturus, you know before they went all nuts and I stopped even looking at their albums, not "My Angel" old though, more like MCD/debut old. Pagan Records mentioned Monumentum, The 3rd And The Mortal, Ved Buens Ende and early Opeth when advertising the re-release of "Echo" but I wouldn't say this material would be really comparable to any of them. But I bet that made you curious, or completely turned you off, so it's about time you listen to it yourself and I make breakfast.