Damaq - Whisper of the Night Winds demo 1998

Damaq - Whisper of the Night Winds demo 1998
1) Whisper of the Night Winds
2) Astaruti Azla Nian
3) The Last Wrath
4) Upon Us Beyond the Red Dawn
5) Outro

REUPLOADED

Enough Finland for now, I have a craving for something more exotic! Enter Damaq, hailing from (West) Malaysia with their sole '98 demo sent to me with various other items by Nefarious. Thanks for your contributions! We're still in need of several old demos of the region, see the side panel, as well as 'zines which I added there. Personally I'm interested in all old 'zines from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and so on so feel free to offer 'em. Written in English, though. A cover scan is enclosed and I have to say it doesn't look very black metal to me. I'm more reminded of a slightly older book cover, perhaps in the genre of romance with just a touch of adventure, enough to titillate a maiden heart?

Despite the feelings evoked it is black metal the guys play here. Their music is moderately fast and melodic and despite being recorded in a studio (that's what the cover says) the sound is quite uneven, with the vocals very high on the mix and due the rip being just a bit too loud they overpower and drown out the rest while sounding broken, especially noticeable on the first track. They're less intrusive on the second song and actually at times drown in the music. Perhaps they recorded it live and the vocalist is inexperienced. The music isn't bad at all but the unevenness makes the experience more troublesome than it should be. As an interesting detail the "outro" here is an instrumental version of the second song. It appears the band has reactivated recently and put out an album in 2014. I should get that. Meanwhile, recommended to people into melodic black metal, fans of Malaysian scene and consumers of romance novels who are probably going to be very surprised if they're gullible enough to fall for this recommendation.