Bathagor - Die Spuren des Krieges demo '02

Bathagor - Die Spuren des Krieges demo 2002
1) Leidenträger
2) Schattenzorn
3) Blutsturm
4) Die Spuren des Krieges
5) Nachtgedanken
6) Wege die Misanthropie
7) Rosetränen
8) Bathagor (Kaltes Licht)

Mega / RGhost

I decided to stick to black metal contributions for now. Sort of, for this tape by Germany's Bathagor is quite unusual after all. Rip and scans sent by LKS, thanks as always, and further processed (I think I just separated it into tracks) by me. What is so special about this then? Is it the cool sword-stuck-in-snow cover? No, though I like the neat simplicity of it, it's the line-up of the band. Or more like what they do, as this consists of a fellow doing vocals and lyrics who calls himself Daron and another guy called Dima who does guitar. And that's it. They're not using any other instrumentation besides the aforementioned guitar and (mainly harsh) vocals. And this tape runs for more than 45 minutes! It's pretty much since this is essentially stripped down raw black metal. Of course you can imagine a steady lifeless cold ticking of a cheap drum machine to back this up but it's just not the same thing as actually having it there!

Sound is decent for what it is, the guitar tone is pretty strong and rough, not thin razor sharp or cold and wispy like some forms of raw black metal prefer it. The primary black metal voice is a hoarse croak, not too dissimilar from Abbath's actually. There are attempts at melody so it's not just monotonous raspy gargling. Only mostly. The riffing is varied enough to not bore listener to tears but album length is still too much. I can't help missing a bit more ingredients, but it works better than I remembered and does not lead to scurvy, merely slight malnourishment. Pack something more well-rounded for your ocean voyages but feel free to sample this while on port. Minimalists and eccentrics rejoice, as well as gatherers of German obscurities.

Maniac Butcher - Live in Annaberg '97

Maniac Butcher - Live in Annaberg 22nd March 1997
1) Zrada / Treachery
2) Půlnočni říše / Midnight Empire
3) Lučané / Lučans
4) Žatecký hrad / Castle of Saaz
5) Poslední bitva / The Last Battle
6) Soudný den / The Judgement Day
7) Jáma pekel (cover from Master's Hammer)

Depositfiles / Zippyshare

A black metal sending this time, courtesy of our reader PaganiusI, thanks for the rip and cover scan! This is the venerable Maniac Butcher from Czech Republic and their performance from Annaberg one month (and twenty years) ago which was released as official live cassette on Barbarüd's Pussy God Records. It's not at all hard to acquire, as at least recently B. was selling copies of the covers with a master CDr to underground distros so you should be able to get a copy cheaply should you feel like wanting one after listening.

The sound on this live is quite violent and in your face, the rather loud rip further enforcing the fact. Then again, Maniac Butcher isn't exactly subtle and gentle kind of music to start with so it's appropriate enough. The recording, which I assume to be the full show, runs for a bit under 40 minutes which is above average for Maniac Butcher albums and features all the songs from "Lučan - antikrist" album, the most recent release that time, including a cover version of Master's Hammer classic Jáma pekel. Not much more to say here, it's raw no frills, bells whistles keyboards or female vocals black metal, but by no means mindless dull warlike pounding like too many "stripped down" raw war hordes tend to be. Next might be about time to do some non-metal music again, what do you think?

In My Veins - Demo & Rehearsal '95

In My Veins - The Red Sky at Dawn demo 1995
1) Shrouded in Darkness and Despair
2) Black Vault of Heaven
3) The Red Sky at Dawn
4) Snow in My Hand

In My Veins - Rehearsal Track 1995
1) Black Vault of Heaven

In My Veins - Rehearsal 1995
1) Flaring Ground
2) Enwrapped in Thought

Sampo / Sendspace

Another repost?!? Yes, but this was also somewhat justified, seeing that I originally managed to mistitle the first track and the rips themselves were a little lackluster. So once again here's In My Veins, hailing from Pirkkala and they played melodic death metal, ripped anew in... '15 summer already? What have I been doing? For consistency's sake I kept the dark metal tag I had assigned them back in '09 when these were originally posted but I'm not quite sure it's really that relevant as it's essentially very basic Finnish melodeath of the era. The old cover scan included, it's a very simple affair anyways.

I crammed all the material into one folder and added one previously unreleased item, the rehearsal track which wasn't a new one at all, it was the second song off the demo as you may see. There was no date for it but obviously the rehearsal version is rawer and noisier than the studio take, sounds more aggressive too. I'm thinking it was recorded later but cannot really say that for certain. The rehearsal with the two new songs is the roughest and most in-your-face of the selection. A little unfair, the subdued sound of the demo makes it seem more lethargic than it really is when compared to the rehearsal songs. Nothing groundbreaking here but pretty good, melodic dark/death metal so if you're into that and missed this before grab it now and if you picked it up earlier I still advice to check the new rips out.

Blood Chalice - Journey Through Shadowlands demo '00

Blood Chalice - Journey Through Shadowlands demo 2000
1) I Am... The Adversarial One
2) In Hunt for the Blood of Jesus (Christ Hunting)
3) Mesmerizing Zephyr, Tantalising Death
4) The Dagger and the Chalice of Blood

Mediafire / 4shared

Here's something more from the exotic side of the globe and probably one of the worst sounding demos/rips featured on the blog. Blood Chalice of Singapore, who seem to be obscure enough to not be on Metal Archives (though I trust they soon will be) with their 2000 demo which may or may not be also their only one, sent by comrade Nefarious back with other items already long ago. Thanks again for contributing! A cover scan is enclosed.

Four songs but they are quite long so the playing time is a challenging 25+ minutes. Challenge mostly due the unpleasant sound I already mentioned on the first paragraph. How bad can it be then, to irk me? Well, you see the main issue is the weird bass drum sound much of the time burying almost everything else underneath. Like suffocating someone with a pillow while they try to recite The Oath, you can make out what it's supposed to be but it's kinda hard to enjoy it. Or like poor Shouta-kun sleeping in the 8th episode of Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon ...now I'm starting to digress so far I won't be able to find my way back if I'm not careful. Let's see, it's worst in the very beginning (of course, the all-important first impression!) but gets less drastic eventually and with enough exposure I guess one would get used to it. A pity since the music isn't that bad by itself, kind of raw and old schoolish black metal. I'm not really associating it with their own slogan of cold nihilistic ultra black metal, the warm, asphyxiating mass of wobbly bass marshmallow hell contradicts coldness pretty severely. If anyone can provide me with a better rip (assuming the problem is with that) I'd be very happy to receive it, no matter the bitrate. For sound extremists, seekers of endless obscurity and the purely perverted. Feel free to enjoy if you can, I won't judge!

Key of Alocer #7

Key of Alocer 'zine, issue 7 (1996)
Features:
Queen of Zamagard
Helish Magick and Race
Martial Arts, Ethos and the West
Survival of the Fittest
Diamanda Galás (interview taken from The Greenwich Village Press)
...Memor...
Delusion and Homophobia
Gtum-Mo: A Dharmic Heresy
Into the Final Frontier
Transcendence
Spider
Prince of Darkness - A Heretical Topography
Music and the Satanic Aesthetic
In the Shadows of the Talmud
New Science, Old Soul
Hitler as Avatar
The Black Order - of Pan-Europa -
The Political and Racial Views of H.P. Lovecraft
The Metaphysics of the Discworld
+ reviews divided to literature & music

Mega

A 'zine contribution today, sent by a reader of ours whom we'll call here simply A. Thank you for supporting the cause! This is the seventh issue of the notorious Key of Alocer, you may remember I posted the fourth one roughly five years ago.

I mentioned the older issues on the write up there, to recapitulate they were essentially traditional metal fanzines with articles on occult and such themes on the side while the fourth one was the turning point; music (especially metal) was put to sidelines in favour of the other sorts of stuff. Master Fenrirsson discussed the later issues briefly in the comments section, writing: "...I have all 9 issues of Key of Alocer (last one was called "Koaxial"). They steadily went downhill in terms of content (eg more tedious and self indulgent on behalf of the editor), and became more of a mouthpiece for homosexuality and transgenderism... I knew the editor for quite a while, because he lived not far from me, but I moved away and severed contact..." F was also planning to scan the missing issues to me before handing them forward, but things happened and that did not come to pass. I can't say I'd be really heartbroken, I've since read scans of older issues (I have at least #2 at hand and am pretty sure I should have either #1 or #3 as well) and while they are clearly more interesting to me as well as quite entertaining they can't be called top-notch classics or anything. Which leads us finally to this, the seventh incarnation.

I think I've tried navigating through this three or four times by now, unsuccessfully. It really is quite tedious as Fenrirsson put it and I always seem to think of better uses for my time and stop reading. As you may notice from above, this issue does not feature a single interview made by Abaaner (or A°A°I apparently at that time) - the sole interview (Diamanda Galás) is taken from elsewhere. Originally I was going to list the contributors after the articles but skipped the idea as not all were credited and it would've been a pain anyways. Let's just settle with a mention there is a lot of contributed material on this issue and at least two of the articles were responses to another from a previous issue. Touchy one I suppose. The reviews which I eyed through were actually quite entertaining and pretty interesting. Right, if you liked/were intrigued (or offended) by KoA#4 be sure to check this out too. Even more so if the subjects of the articles and featurettes interest you.

Acheron - Rehearsal '89

Acheron - Rehearsal 1989
1) Jaws of Satan (Sathanas cover)
2) Dethroned Emperor (Celtic Frost cover)
3) Raise the Dead (Bathory cover)

Sampo / Depositfiles

Here's an early Acheron rehearsal, featuring three tracks which are all in essence covers, though the first one is Jaws of Satan by Sathanas, which split into Acheron and Bathym back in '88 (and reformed around '91/'92 again), so it's essentially their own song performed by their new band. In case you don't know, Acheron was and/or is a well-known and quite influential US Satanic death metal band. Or black/death, depending on the era. Ripped from a tape I traded back in the 90's, I don't think it ever had a cover as it was most likely just dubbed to some contacts.

At slightly over ten minutes this is a compact package of vintage black/death/thrash metal. The two "proper" covers are of course classic picks and they play them with vigor and enthusiasm. Quite a poor release to get to know Acheron, admittedly, as their own material does not resemble this recording much. It's still a fun listen, the sound is okay for rehearsal and packs even a bit of punch. Not much to add really, except that I actually wish it was longer, maybe add a few Death, Venom, 'Fate, Slayer etc. numbers. Now I feel like listening to old 'Frost or maybe Hellhammer.

Throes of Dawn - With the Northern Wind demo '94 [new rip]

Throes of Dawn - With the Northern Wind demo I 1994
1) Autumn Winds
2) Outburning Sun
3) Silent Throes

Reuploaded - 2022

Looks like I really did a repost today. Let's go back to December 2008 when I first posted a rip of the debut demo of Throes of Dawn, "With the Northern Wind" released in 1994. Or let's not really since that rip was not very good. The bitrate was so-and-so, the rip was a bit too loud and brickwalled and worst of all I managed to do it in mono unintentionally. Well, that is the price of self-taught things. Especially with people who don't bother to read instructions.

I've made the rip from the same tape as last time and yeah, it is little worn but nothing drastic. To elaborate a bit from the old entry, the three tracks presented here are quite long and pretty ambitious for such a young band they were back then. Melodic, at best moments very catchy stuff with fairly complex song structures. You know, plenty of tempo changes and different parts that just barely connect to each other. Like a Lego structure built by an ambitious child, it just narrowly stays together and does not collapse into a mess of caltrops. Well, the clean vocals are still very, very cringeworthy, especially in the last song which altogether feels like least fluent of the constructions with its I'm-gonna-fall-I-can't-stop-now-oh-jesus-why-am-I-going-this-fast-I'm-gonna-die sort of fast, death metally parts and other clunky bits. The first song, which they re-recorded for the debut album "Pakkasherra" is the best of the crop while the rest follow conveniently in descending order.

Throes of Dawn are still active and have released albums in slow and steady pace while changing to a more mellow, atmospheric and somewhat progressive direction, with the most recent one out last August. To my surprise I found myself enjoying the more recent works better than the late 90's/millennium period where I stopped following them. I'm listening to the 2010 album as I type this and it's more like (new) Tiamat than any sort of meloblack or dark metal of their past and at least initially much better than I recall "Binding of the Spirit" was. The clean singing sounding finally good helps a lot I guess. This really had nothing to do with the demo here. If you liked this before, this is a bit better rip so get it. If you haven't heard them before this is a natural starting point. Let's see if next post would be more death/black or something totally different. It won't be a repost. Probably.

Curse - Rehearsal 14/05/94

Curse (fin) - Rehearsal 14th May 1994
1) Infant Jesus Dead
2) Blasphemous Incantation
3) Demons Appear
4) Blasphemy
5) Ferocia Animi

4shared / Yandex

Aaaand here's the rest of the botched Curse entry, the last five tracks which actually date to 1994. This way the tracklisting starts to make sense, there are now three "new" (for the time) tracks and two familiar from the "Satanic Dominion" demo. But I've already discussed these too in the old entry so I don't feel like repeating myself all over again. Took the opportunity to adjust/update the white-on-black alternative cover I did for the '93 rehearsal to serve as placeholder for this one.

Next post should probably be something different. Or more black/death... then again I could make a few more reposts with better rips of old things?

Curse - Rehearsal 09/08/93

Curse (fin) - Rehearsal 9th August 1993
1) Infant Jesus Dead
2) Satanic Dominion
3) Disciples of Mockery

RGhost / Mediafire

Let's do this again. See the previous entry for a long description of the music, source and all that crap.

Now this makes much more sense. Three tracks, two of which appear on the debut demo recorded two months later the same year and the last one apparently only here. Oh yeah, I checked and could not find a song of that name at least on the M-A so I guess it's not a cover. Still sounds a lot like Deicide. That is all, please either download again or adjust your tags thank you~

Curse - Rehearsal 09/08/93 [incorrect!]

Curse (fin) - Rehearsal 9th August 1993
1) Infant Jesus Dead
2) Satanic Dominion
3) Disciples of Mockery
4) Infant Jesus Dead
5) Blasphemous Incantation
6) Demons Appear
7) Blasphemy
8) Ferocia Animi

Links removed as entry is incorrect.

More vintage Finnish black/death metal, or brutal black metal if you prefer, this is Curse of Finland and a rehearsal recording predating the first demo "Satanic Dominion" sent by brother Baldemar years ago, finally laid on the altar as black candles glow and the shadows crawl. I suppose he got it via trading back in the day and it has probably travelled through several decks and dwelt on multiple cassettes before ending up in B's hands. Yeah, there is tape wear and other associated flaws, but it's not too bad. There was no proper cover, or I so I think, yet I felt like whipping up a placeholder in the vein of the first demo. And then I could not decide if I should have it black on white or reversed. Went with first option to follow the look of the demos.

At first I wanted to go with this so it'd look better on the blog.

As I mentioned earlier there is wear and tear here, most notably present on the first track. It gets a bit better and generally it's a pretty good rehearsal sound. I can't help thinking this is actually two separate sessions instead of one as the sound changes quite a bit at the fourth track. Would explain why they do Infant Jesus Dead twice. Though it was something of a signature song. Maybe they took a break and adjusted the stuff to make the sound heavier and decided to re-do that song and then proceed? Anyways, this contains all three songs from "Satanic Dominion", Blasphemous Incantation which would appear on the split tape and two songs out of four from "The Black Horde" cassette EP. Disciples of Mockery would seem to be unreleased, maybe they dropped it because it sounds so much like Deicide? I think I've written enough about Curse here over the years so I'll cut this here. Recommended for fans of Curse (obviously) and old Finnish deathly black metal in general.

UPDATE: Well, brother Grev informed me that this is actually two separate rehearsals, which I kind of suspected already. First three tracks are the '93 session and the rest are from May '94. I'll make a repost with the corrected information. Yay.

Nocturnal Feast - Hymn to Darkness demo '92

Nocturnal Feast - Hymn to Darkness demo I 1992
1) Intro: Live Eva
2) Ave Satanas
3) Enter the Eternal Night
4) Ancient Gods
5) Gates of Wisdom
6) The Gathering
7) Outro: The Waves of Acheron

Mega / Sampo

I'm behind schedule due unexpected "sick leave" but let's not dwell on that and rather push onward, to more old and moldy Finnish metal. This is Nocturnal Feast's only demo from '92, the band would gain much more notoriety under the banner of Black Dawn and survives today calling themselves (The) True Black Dawn with an album out on World Terror Committee. I know rips of this demo have been circulating around before but after having read their entry on Pirunkehto and recalling seeing this tape among the cassettes donated by Jukka from Curse ...wow, over six years ago?! Shit, I've even kept them in the same plastic bag all this time. Where was I? Yeah, so, remembered had the tape and decided to rip it. Here we go. I think his copy is original, sure the cover is somewhat sloppily xeroxed, but that hardly was uncommon at the time and the tape is a blackened-with-marker-pen type of affair with program repeating on both sides and something else dubbed after the demo as people were wont to do. I've discovered many a strange thing that way. More relevant than the authenticity is the content which we discuss next.

So if you're not familiar with old Black Dawn stuff, it was black/death metal hybrid, or Satanic death metal or evil milk metal as their old flyer described it (true story). Now that I checked, I've posted that flyer earlier. How convenient! Actually, seeing that I've posted pretty much all of old Black Dawn material you'd sort of had to either consciously avoid it or have jumped on board recently in which case welcome and please start from here and then proceed to other items in proper order.

The sound of the demo is very good, which is not really surprising if you consider this was recorded in a proper grown ups' studio and not one of those 4-tracker-in-rehearsal-room/garage-hey-lets-call-this-necrocatacomb-studio-awesome-idea-you-guys -things. Music leans more heavily on death metal here so the ratio might be like 75% death 25% black... or perhaps even more? Voice varies between deeper death growls and hoarse, raspy half-shriek half-yells with the growling being slightly more dominant of the two elements. Ever so slightly. There's also some whispers and generally good variation on the main forms. All five actual songs are quite short and simple affairs though tempos do alternate between faster, intense bursts of aggression and heavier, slower, bludgeoning passages. Enter the Eternal Night is the shortest of the lot at just over 1½ minutes while Ave Satanas almost makes it to three minutes. I also like the intro and outro bits. Ok, I think that's enough text for this time, coming up next even more black/death metal. Let's make this a black/death month!