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!

Black Dawn - Rehearsal Track 1993

Black Dawn (fin) - Rehearsal Track 1993
1) The Mother of All Whores

Mediafire

Here is the last B.D. rehearsal item I got from Grev and it is a single rehearsal track recorded in 1993. It sounds a little more brutal and death metallish than the previous rehearsal posted. It has a nice'n'clear rehearsal sound quality, but unfortunately G. had received the track untitled and I'm too retarded to figure out what song it could be. If you identify the track, get in touch with the track title! Not really much to add, if you've enjoyed the related posts so far, you'll pick this up too.

UPDATE: Wrath has identified the track as "The Mother of All Whores" - if he recalls the title right! Well, he's the best source for this really so I'm using this title & reuploaded the links! Thanks for the info!

Black Dawn - Dead Metal rehearsal 1996

Black Dawn (fin) - Dead Metal Rehearsal Tape 1996
1) Cursed Mother
2) Scythe Swinging Blues
3) I Vomit on You
4) Deathdance
5) Finale: The Hammer of Misanthropy Has Spoken

Reuploaded

The rehearsal tape madness never stops! This is again an item I received from comrade Grev and the band should be pretty familiar by now. So let us not waste more time with introductions but move onto the item at hand.

The dub I received from Grev was of quite good quality and I didn't fuck up the rip so the end result ought to be as good as a rehearsal tape can be expected to be. I don't think this ever had a proper cover art (I think the old pic of Wrath on B.D. site for this release is just a placeholder) so I slapped the last band logo there. Black Dawn's music on this recording has already evolved a bit, adding some synth to their black/death metal hybrid. I'm thinking I might hear some influence of that other band on these songs but that could be just me. Anyways, it's not as brutal as "Blood for Satan" and of course not as outlandish as the later developments. If you enjoy the other Black Dawn material, I'm pretty sure you'll like this one too. If you don't like other Black Dawn material, there's still a chance you might like this recording so give it a try in any case. And if you don't like black/death metal at all, why the hell are you reading this blog?

Black Dawn - Rehearsal 1993

Black Dawn (fin) - Eläköön Saatana! Rehearsal Tape 1993
1) Gates of Wisdom
2) Eläköön Saatana!
3) Enter the Eternal Night
4) Forever Rotting Nazarene
5) Ave Satanas
6) 13 Candles (Bathory cover)

Reuploaded

Here's an old rehearsal tape of Finnish Black Dawn, known these days as The True Black Dawn. But I've told you about them before, so let's get to the point. I got a dub of this tape, for which "Eläköön Saatana!" is an unofficial title, from comrade Grev so thanks to him again. This rehearsal tape dates somewhere between the name change (from Nocturnal Feast, not the "The True..." edit) and the "War Against Christians" demo, from which songs are present too. Style is obviously same as on the demos, sound naturally rougher as it is a rehearsal tape and some of the tracks are played differently. Interestingly a cover of Bathory's 13 Candles is included - the vocalist Cindergrin (aka Wrath)'s better known other band would also do this cover later.

Grev was worried about the sound quality of his ancient, moldy and cobweb-covered tape but I think it turned out fine. Rehearsal tapes aren't famed for crystal clear sounds in the first place and there isn't much blemish on the tape so I'd say it sounds quite good. Recommended for fans, collectors and all not too wimpy to listen to rehearsal tapes.

Black Dawn - War Against Christians demo 1993

Black Dawn (fin) - War Against Christians demo II 1993
1) Introrgasm
2) Eläköön Saatana!
3) Sodanjulistus
4) Forever Rotting Nazarene
5) Whore Of The Night
6) In Manus Tuas Satanas

Reuploaded

I was surprised to not find this demo when I was looking for it on the inter nets. Happily I have an ok dub of it which I've now ripped and uploaded. Known first as Nocturnal Feast and later changed their name to The True Black Dawn after some dispute with US sue-happy wimps using the same name, this is the original band Wrath of Enochian Cresent was known for in the UG. Black Dawn was often in odds with pretty much rest of the Finnish black metal scene and made 'zine editors happy with the various feuds and quarrels they had with both domestic and foreign black metal bands and individuals. Just see the flyer I scanned and uploaded (another case of no covers - I'd like a scan so get in touch if you got 'em) down there.


Anyways all that is in the past and music remains: despite vehemently denying the black metal tag themselves, that's exactly what I choose to call them. Well, actually black/death metal to be more accurate. The intros and music remind me of old Impaled Nazarene at times and the whole sounds more Finnish than Scandinavian. It's about 50% death 50% black. Much more in the mid-speeds than the later material. Good, clear sound even if I wasn't 100% satisfied with my rip, the result should be ok - the "new" version is better (2012). Recommendable demo to all into old Finnish black/death metal, E.C. fans, demo collectors and the usual suspects.

UPDATE: I received word the Mediafire upload was corrupt (again, seems to happen often with Mf) so link removed. Use Megaupload. I'll re-upload when I feel like that.
UPDATE II: Megaupload was taken down and this rip lost when my external HD broke. Fortunately, I had made another rip of this in hopes of a better result. That one is now uploaded there.

Wings - Live in Lappeenranta 20.11.1995

Wings - Live in Lappeenranta, Finland 20th November 1995
1) Cast Asunder
2) Equidistant
3) Unwind
4) Sunburnt
5) Deus Ex Machina
6) Refuse/Resist (Sepultura cover)

Re-reuploaded

Here's a live tape from Finland's Wings, familiar from a few other posts and main man Gabriel's involvement with Enochian Crescent as Victor. I was going to post this sooner but I had cleverly hidden this recording from myself and it took this long for me to see through my cunning ploys.

This gig was recorded at an unknown (for me, or maybe I just didn't write it on the tape) venue in Lappeenranta and features songs from the album "Diatribe" plus Refuse/Resist as encore. I'm not sure if this is the complete set, it could be missing a song or two ("Thus Far" and "Austere" come to mind) and he does say "The next song is Cast Asunder" in the beginning. Or on the other hand it could've been just that and the person started recording the gig after intros and such. Who cares, what we've here are 6 complete songs with a quite good sound. Dig into them already if you like Wings or technical and atmospheric metal.

It's really a good quality live so if you even remotely enjoy the other Wings posts you should try it.

Wings - Rehearsal 01.1995

Wings - Rehearsal January 1995
1) Thus Far
2) Day Of Suffering (Morbid Angel cover)
3) Sunburnt

Reuploaded

This short rehearsal was on the same tape Gabriel kindly recorded the Wings 1994 demo for me and contains different versions of two songs found on the "Diatribe" album and a Morbid Angel cover. Rehearsal sound quality as you can expect and all that jazz so you have been warned.

Wings - The Sun promo 1994 + cover track 1994

Wings - The Sun promo 1994
1) Equidistant
2) Austere

Wings - Cover track 1994
1) Refuse/Resist (Sepultura cover)

Reuploaded, both in same folder

Remember when I long ago (that'd be November, see here) wrote about Victor's old project Wings? Well, here's finally the promo tape I mentioned in that post. I included a cover track recorded probably at the same sessions in the .rar - I don't either know where or if it was released, or have forgotten any such knowledge. The music could probably be described as atmospheric death metal, quite quirky and darkened. The rip came out ok, but the cover scan is not very good as I could've taken better care of it, it's a little torn and has an annoying greasy finger print. Like anyone else cared.

I'll probably upload the rest of the things Gabriel kindly recorded on my tapes (assuming he's got nothing against it) soon, as I found myself enjoying the Wings material more than I remembered. Recommended to all into melodic deathly metal and of course Enochian Crescent-fans. Almost forgot to mention that mr. Kai Hahto, quite well-known these days, plays the drums here.

Enochian Crescent - Rehearsal 1995

Enochian Crescent - Rehearsal 1995
1. The Cold Harvest
2. When Tears Run Dry
3. Under Autumn Trees (Wings cover)
4. (Tranced Into) A Dream Of Basaltic Submarine Towers Of Titanic Proportions And Nightmare Angles
5. Afar

Depositfiles

Enochian Crescent should be a familiar name to most reading this blog by now. It wasn't that yet when I wrote with Gabriel (Victor) in 1995. My letter concerned his other band, Wings, a solo project from his Cartilage-days, resurrected in 1994. I wanted a copy of the 1994 demo "The Sun" and got that too. He also recorded me some advance tracks of new material and a rehearsal tape of the new project he seemed pretty excited about, Enochian Crescent, described curiously as black leather metal. No cover, obviously, as it's not an official release, so I slapped the EC logo there.

Four of the songs were later recorded on the debut album "Telocvovim" released by Woodcut Records and the third one is a cover of the first track from Wings' 1993 7"EP. The sound is what you may expect from a rehearsal tape, so don't say you haven't been warned. Anyways, I think it has it's own rough charm and certainly historical value.

Grimm (Fin) - Soulraper demo 1998

Grimm - Soulraper demo 1998
1. Soulraper
2. Kun Taivas Kylvi Pimeyden
3. Tulkoon Hänen Valtakuntansa
4. Closed Gates Of Tomorrow (The Cold Harvest) - Enochian Crescent cover
5. Bonedancer - Enochian Crescent cover

Mediafire

The only release of the Finnish Grimm, a black/death metal band from Kuusamo. I got this demo from... a distro back in 1998. In all honesty, I bought it just for the EC covers, although I was still keen on hearing all new black metal bands I came across and demo tapes were cheap. Back then the summers were also warmer, there was more snow in the winter time, beer was cheap, girls looked less plastic, colours were more vibrant, food tasted better etc.