Golden Dawn / Apeiron - Split demo 1995

Golden Dawn / Apeiron - Split demo 1995
Golden Dawn:
1) The Spirit Lives One
2) Until We Meet Again
3) Leben in Nebel
4) The Revelation
5) The Seven Gates of Dreaming
6) Enigma
7) As Above so Below (Act I)
Apeiron:
8) Where Mountains Touch the Sky
9) My Realm Is Not of This World
10) Hymn to the Glorious Dead

Bandcamp

I haven't had much time to attend to the Coven recently so here's a bit bigger post to make up, the 1995 split demo by Austrian projects Golden Dawn and Apeiron mentioned in this post here. Soon after the post I actually got two separate rips of this and I decided to post the one brother Grev's acquaintance had made for him. Thanks to all involved! A scan of the cover sheet is included.

I said a bigger post and this sure is quite a lot for one sitting, the demo takes up a whole 90 minute tape (children, back when we used cassette tapes the most common ones sold in shops were either 60 or 90 minute ones) with GD on side A and the three Apeiron tracks filling side B. And yes, two of them are very long while the third one narrowly missing three minute mark. No, it's not a radio friendly pop song. Golden Dawn continues pretty much from "Lullaby" though with less viking black metal tendencies and lyrics as well as a generic feel closer to the debut album's esoteric black and dark metal experiments. Production is slightly better than on the debut demo, if you've heard the tracks on the A.B.M.S. compilation it's comparable to that. The third track "Leben in Nebel" sounds somewhat awkward compared to others around it, possibly having to do with the vocal style chosen as well as the songwriting. "The Revelation" picks things up again and the GD part maintains a reasonable momentum to its end, even if there are some odd side steps in every other track none stumble as much again.

Apeiron's part opens up sounding very much like an intro to Golden Dawn song would except that it just goes on and on. Ambient y'know. "Where Mountains Touch the Sky" has a running time of almost 19 minutes and sounds for much of its duration more spacey, cosmic and astral sort of ambient than dark, ritualistic or occult. Keyboards and some sound effects are the main components but some electric guitars eventually make an appearence approximately half way into song. Things take, in my opinion, a more dungeon synth-esque turn from there on. Vocals enter the mix and with the quickened tempo and the guitars the song basically becomes metal which is a little confusing when you were expecting ambient. Especially after the drums entered the mix. Quite an odd epos. "My Realm..." starts again with tingling keys, all ambiance which is slightly more dungeon than astral this time, but now you're already cautious and won't be fooled by Dreamlord's shenanigans. Except he doesn't repeat the previous formula. This time the ambient soars into cosmos around third of the track in and strongly effected vocals are added, reminding me of the Black Orchid demo. Or that was the first thing that came to mind. Eventually some guitars are again added in, but they seem to fit better this time and it doesn't sound "just" metal. There are several fade outs and restarts in the latter part of the track with the parts differing a bit from each other while maintaining a uniform overall feel. Unfortunately towards the very end he somehow slips into full on metal again which I really think isn't appropriate here. The contrast is jarring especially for being such a short part in an epic length track. The last short track features so-and-so cleanish vocals and sounds really more like it should've been an outro part for a Golden Dawn demo. I understand Stefan is working on remixing and possibly doing something else to some of the Apeiron material which will be interesting to hear. Recommended to check out if you've enjoyed his other work and for the novelty of me wishing something to be less metal for the Apeiron bits.

UPDATE: Has been released on vinyl (hmph!) by Seed Stock and on Stefan's Bandcamp (yay!) so get it ...somewhere!