Mjölnir - The Hour of Lemegeton demo I 1995
1) Darklands
2) The Hour of Lemegeton
3) Hexentanz
4) The Great Destroyer
5) In the Grave
6) Jenseits der Mauer des Wahnsinns
7) The Robber
8) Morbid
Mega / 4shared
It is time for some more German black metal. This is again Mjölnir, remember the third demo I posted here? This is the first demo, which Metal Archives for some reason makes to seem like third or something, it's very clearly referred as first on the cover of the split with Antichrist and differs clearly enough from the following ones in appearance if not so much in content. Which, apparently a tradition, is a pain in the ass to figure out. I got this rip from a contributor and a copy of the cover from another person and was about to post this already when I noticed the tracklisting didn't match, the title track which reappeared on the aforementioned split was wrong length and more importantly sounded different, while the next song matched the track from the split. So it was back to the drawing board and re-dividing the tracks.
How did I succeed? I honestly can't be certain, this is pretty nightmarish as the only song I could be sure was the title one and right at the start there seems to be an untitled intro which clearly has a break before the part I decipher being "Darkland" and there are more odd instrumental bits that may be part of this song or maybe not or could be separate tracks and aaaargh I hate recordings like this! So this is just my educated guesses, I couldn't even be sure which part was the damned first side and which second. It's probably best to listen to this as a full half an hour trip instead of separate tracks as it clearly is a whole instead of a collection of single tracks.
But uncle, what is the music like, other than confusing and stress-inducing? Well, it's really quite fascinating and unorthodox, much of the metal is rather slow and ponderous rather than fast and messy like the initial burst of Darkland (once we finally get past the intro parts) tries to have you believe. The vocals are completely unintelligible croaks and rasps, which really doesn't help figuring out the songs but let's not go there again. Not that dissimilar to the third demo already posted here, to be honest. No clean vocal experiments though and everything is slightly cruder, sloppier and even less bound by common sense than the later material. If you got anything out of the previous Mjölnir post chances are you might enjoy or at least be puzzled by this one too. But if you end up hating it, hey, at least the playing time is only a third of the third demo!
6 kommenttia:
:) Thank you.
@Borderline:
You're welcome, hope you enjoyed it. Damn this one was frustrating trying to sort out! I almost wish I hadn't noticed something was amiss. ;)
Then again, I would've been even more pissed off had I noted it after posting.
Enjoy a vodka on me for taking time to suss this one out, Sir Velkaarn. Haven't listened/compared yet. I'm still savoring the notion that it's "less bound by common sense". Apply that description to anything and I'm in.
Hartelijk dank.
@kingpossum:
You know, I might just do that, haven't had a drink since February something and my liver might be getting a little too cozy. Might settle for beer though.
Anyways, you're welcome and there is one obvious error (besides the possible over-selling) in my description: there are some clean vocals in what I decided to be second part of "The Robber" - very sloppy, mr. Velkaarn.
Black metal performance art? This is a curious beast indeed. Or maybe the guys in Hawkwind got hold of some particularly bad (or good, depending on one's perspective) acid and decided a psychedelic BM concept album was what the world needed.
Fun nonetheless and thanks for the post.
@kingpossum:
I am glad the demo at least somewhat fulfilled the expectations my careless wording set! You might be happy to know I have still more Mjölnir to post. Though not quite as trippy.
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