Tristitia - Reminiscences of the Mourner demo II January 1994
1) Envy the Dead
2) Reminiscences of the Mourner
3) Ashes of the Witch
4) Mark My Words
4shared / Mediafire
I was going to post another Finnish item but ran into a minor problem which I need to tackle first. So instead let's do some Swedish doom and a contribution that had also waited a while to be finished - not that there was much to do than slightly adjust volume and convert it to mp3. This is Tristitia and the second demo from the very beginning of '94. If you're acquainted with the earlier releases of the French label Holy Records you've probably encountered Tristitia, the '95 debut got a fair bit of attention back then for the blend of Candlemass-style classic doom, gothic elements and (very slight) black metal influence. To be honest, the black metal influence was really just some vocals used here and there in addition to the deeper, traditional doom singing. But I'd label this more directly under traditional or possibly gothic doom. Not an expert, feel free to argue if necessary. A large cover scan was also sent, thanks again to the contributor!
Four songs that run for almost 25 minutes, the two middle ones re-recorded for the debut album and the other two appeared on the second so nothing new really if you're familiar with both albums. If not, this is not a bad place to start. Very good sound, pretty covers and melancholic, in places sinister even, doom metal performed at appropriatele speeds. I'm not really sure what to say about the vocals, I'm notoriously picky with clean voices but on the other hand I've gotten accustomed to this fellow's voice in the last twenty years so I'm hard pressed to say how good a singer he actually might be. The Swedish accent still occasionally jars in my ears but otherwise he does fine I suppose. Can't really come up with anything sensible to write, if you dig doom metal in the classic vein try this and don't buy that "blackened doom" crap at M-A! Unholy was black doom, this is barely grey!
3 kommenttia:
Digging this, thanks for the post. You sure this wasn't an Ian Curtis side project? The clean vocals sound like Mr. Joy Division dropped in to take his depressive style to the land of doom. Oh wait, he'd have to have recorded it from the dead. Ok, never mind. Frivolity aside, the chugging guitar parts really add heft to this, though as you note it doesn't near anything black. Good stuff to these ears.
@kinpossum:
It is and don't you agree the cover is nice? It calms me somehow. Though right now anything NOT related to work seems to have that effect.
Check out at least the '95 album "One with Darkness" and '97... no '96 "Crucidiction" too, though it does not sound that different as this has a very good production for a demo, at least in my humble opinion. I haven't actually listened to "One..." for years now that I mentioned it!
Indeed the cover is delightfully restful. Thanks for the tip on the other releases.
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