Torech Ungol / Gates of Azharia - Split 2004

Torech Ungol / Gates of Azharia - Split ...CD(-r?) 2004
Torech Ungol:
1) Le Désastre des Champs d'Iris
2) Le Torture de Hurin
3) Le Serment de Feanor
Gates of Azharia:
4) I
5) II
6) III
7) IV
8) V

Mediafire / 4shared

Let's do a split today. This one was sent to me by brother Emptiness Cycle who had scoured it from somewhere in the murky depths of the inter nets, thanks! From France, Torech Ungol and Gates of Azharia. It's not quite the '04 demo "Nirnaeth Arnoediad" that one of my readers requested a few... damn it, over five years ago! Yeah, but it did sate my curiosity about the band at least and perhaps it'll help unearth that tape too. I'm not sure if this should be considered a split album or rather a split demo released on CDr (I'm guessing the format by the cover, real sharp). Whatever, it was released by Inspire Hate Records, as was the demo too, generally better known for their NS-oriented bands in the early 00's.

Torech Ungol's part is wandering in the misty, ill-mapped realms of "ambient black metal" which generally tends to mean black metal vocals and some (usually artificial) percussion over what otherwise might pass as dungeon synth or dark ambient, perhaps with stringed instruments sitting quietly on the backseat while the keyboards drive and vocals make ruckus on the front seat. Must... not... namedrop... Summoning... oh damn it! Besides the raspy default voice we also have spoken parts on the second song, some silly effect-laden growly spoken parts, all in French and this one is actually more driven by acoustics, said voices and wind-effects. Can't forget the winds, no sir. It's very barely metal, I must say. Third one has more spoken words, synth and drum machines. As the band's name and song titles give away, this is very Tolkien-inspired stuff.

Gates of Azharia's segment is slightly longer and divided into five untitled parts which I insist on labeling with the ol' Roman numerals. How I love those! Their part is clearly more ambient of the two and has somewhat pagan vibe to it, even slightly martial what with the first track's drumming and chanted vocals. Reminds me vaguely of the Emglev stuff I posted earlier. II is folky and somewhat upbeat, III in similar vein but moodier, IV is a melancholic piece characterized by acoustic strumming and features some whispery voices. Last part is similar to the first. I must say I prefer Gates on this split, easily. Grab this if the names dropped ring any bells other than alarm ones.

Druadan Forest - Mirkwood demo 1998

Druadan Forest - Mirkwood demo I 1998
1) Boromir
2) Misty Mountains
3) Mirkwood
4) Ered Gorgoroth
5) Leaping Stars
6) Rivendell

Depositfiles / Yandex

It's been some time since I've last name-dropped Summoning, hasn't it? I thought so! Ok, here's a domestic act, rip and scans courtesy of mr. Sorvali again, who will help me remedy the situation. Druadan Forest was a side-project of mr. Kalma, at the time a member of Azaghal (and various projects of that band) and presently drummer of Oath (who recently put out a debut full-length album). DF released two demo tapes and this is the first of them.

I used to have a pretty low quality dub of this back in the tape trading days of my youth and I remember being quite unimpressed with it. Now that I listen to this I wonder how come I disliked it so in the past, the start of "Boromir" is like Summoning circa "Minas Morgul"/"Dol Guldur" with a rougher overall demo sound, even cheaper synth, clumsier drum machine and less competent vocals. Well, there's that. Despite how negative that description seems, I find this quite charming and if I want to listen to poor man's Summoning I'll pick this over polished, modern junk like Caladan Brood any day! I had recollections this would've been more ambient/dungeon synth than it turned out to be, I suppose I was thinking about some other project, Nan Dungortheb perhaps? Too bad Henri didn't have the second demo as well, would like a quality rip of that as well. You might be surprised that only one of the songs is a long epic (Misty Mountains, 9+minutes) and the others are practically in pop song durations. The last track is very... surprising and different, I'll give it that. But enough of this, I want to get back to playing Baldur's Gate (no, not the enhanced edition) instead of typing crap so have at thee!

Holocaust - The Towers of Isengard reh II 1994

Holocaust (pol) - The Towers of Isengard rehearsal tape II 02.12.1994
1) Intro
2) Minas Morgul
3) Isengard
4) The Forgotten Old Forest
5) Outro

Yandex / RGhost

Holocaust (still Poland) - Our Kingdom demo III 1997
see here for more details

new rip!

Ok, more black metal contributions and a rare special double feature slash reupload, a few months ago (time passes damn quickly!) I was contacted again by an old contributor to the Coven who sent me his rips of these two Holocaust tapes, made from first generation tapes sent by Lord Thoth himself to our conspirator. As this rip of "Our Kingdom" is superior to mine I decided to upload it here at the same post so more people might notice it. And it was third demo, by the way. I'll update the old post which has more text about what I thought about it to refer to this entry too. Unfortunately he had no cover scan for me, but one cannot have everything. The main course here is the second rehearsal tape "The Towers of Isengard" which I had actually received a rip of not long before this one was sent to me! Both contributions are greatly appreciated but I'm going to go with this one, seeing how it is pretty much made from original. Sadly no cover scan for this either so we'll use Metal Archives pic.

This is a short tape, all but one track last less than two minutes and the longest one barely makes three. A spooky intro reminiscent of old B/W horror films opens the recording, followed by the obviously rehearsal-sounding yet clear (much cleaner than the '93 tapes) first track. Similar to the later demo the elements are again guitar (stronger and better here), drums and the extreme shrieking vocals. They're not quite as shrill as on the demo III and overall this works better for me. The compact playtime might be partially responsible for the effect. Recommeded listen to people into raw black metal, rehearsal recordings and basically mandatory for collectors of old Polish stuff. I'm hungry so this ends up a bit short, download away! It's probably good for hangover too.

Ewigkeit - Beyond Realms Unknown demo 1996

Ewigkeit - Beyond Realms Unknown demo 1996
1) The Enchantment...
2) Christendom Falls
3) Jewel of My Empire
4) O Elbereth

Mediafire / Depositfiles

Inspired by the recent discussion of oddities in the comments, today's post is Ewigkeit from the UK with their '96 demo. Though this isn't that odd yet really, the project would turn stranger a bit later. I got this dubbed from one of my traders who sent me a xerox of the cover as well which I've scanned and included in the download. The dub is of unknown generation and some tape wear and hiss is present, consider yourself fairly warned. Otherwise the demo has a pretty standard not-pro-studio sound of the era.

At this point Ewigkeit's music had not yet turned to the more experimental paths, this second demo (and I presume first one too - haven't heard it) is more in the vein of atmospheric (black) metal with synths and drum machine... well it sounds a lot like Summoning. Not as epic though, this is a quite short demo at roughly eleven minutes. Actually due that comparison some of the songs feel like they end up too soon, without proper build up. Well, to be honest it's not so alike as this is more guitar-oriented, in the end of the day I suppose it sounds like a cross between some German demo band doing atmospheric bm crossed with an early 90's Greek sound... and a little bit of Summoning. Ugh, listen for yourself and come up with a better description. I'm not going to compare this with the albums and other later stuff as I haven't heard anything more recent for years - I vaguely recall disliking whatever one it was that I heard and avoided the rest. But this one is okay, maybe I should give them another go.

Minas Morgul - Demo 1996

Minas Morgul (gre) - Demo 1996
1) Intro - Valley of the Vaulted Tombs
2) Dark Realms
3) Lusting for Salvation

Mediafire

Another tape traded item today, this one from Greece and for change I had a copy of the xeroxed cover so a scan is enclosed. One of the many bands to pick the same monicker, the Greeks here released this demo and then either changed name or vanished into obscurity.

The demo features a pretty bad sound, some of which may be blamed on being an unknown generation dub but surely not all. The sound is muffled and murky, wavering from left to right every now and then, drum machine handles the percussion - it is quite obvious but not of the worst sort. Overall it sounds very, very Greek and though it's nothing original I've always enjoyed the Greek sound of the first half of 90's. The intro bit has a very different sound to the rest of the demo so I'm guessing they just borrowed it from somewhere, which was very typical at the time and the first short track "Dark Realms" is an instrumental which feels a bit like another intro before the main course, third and only "proper" track. There were many, many short demos and promos like this recorded in Greece around mid-90's, I wonder what was up with that? Anyways, vocals are pretty good black metal shrieks, I like many of the guitar bits and the sound isn't that bad so I suppose this ends up positive. Check it out if you're into 90's Greek bm or just need to hear everything I post here.

Elfen - To Eldamar from Minas Morgul CassEP 1999

Elfen - To Eldamar from Minas Morgul Cassette EP 1999
Eldamar - The House of the Trolls
1) Mirkwood
2) Lothlórien
3) Minas Morgul
4) Isengard
5) Moria
6) Uruk-Hai
Minas Morgul demo 1997 (bonus)
7) Lothlórien
8) Moria
9) Isengard
10) Minas Morgul

Mediafire / Depositfiles

Tolkien related material today, this tape EP/compilation was released by Elven Witchcraft back in 1999 and I was thinking I'd be getting Summoning-style metal as I ordered this tape. That's not the case even if there are some slightly metal-esque parts, this is more correctly black/ambient and/or dungeon synth. You know, lots of keyboards, some percussion here and there, vocals ranging from whispers to narration to almost black metal style rasping. Not to forget assorted sound effects. Some people apparently manage to see this as a nationalistic or Hellenistic project. Well, whatever you say, the lyrics are included and they are quite standard Tolkien fare. I'm not sure if their later texts could be different? Probably the connections of the project make people go for that assumption.

So how's it like then? Well it's really an uneven sort of affair, ranging from ridiculous to cool parts. I refuse to call it metal even if some tracks partially resemble it. I'd put it somewhere in between black/ambient and dungeon synth categories. The sound of the cassette EP portion is supposedly better than on the demo bit but what it gains in clarity it loses in atmosphere. Both are firmly in the plastic, cheap synth sound department which is not necessarily a bad thing. The demo versions of the tracks are longer, slightly more ponderous and clumsier yet somehow I seem to enjoy them more. I guess their poor-man's-Summoning feeling is enough to amuse me. But enough of my long-winded babbling, download it and listen for yourself.

Equitant - The Great Lands of Minas Ithil demo 1994

Equitant - The Great Lands of Minas Ithil (City of Isildur) demo 1994
1) The Fallen Walls of Agurak (A Time of Misery) Part I
2) The Fallen Walls of Agurak (A New Beginning) Part II
3) Love Song for Elizabeth Bathory
4) When the Istari Wizards Appeared in Middle Earth (The Days of the King Had Come to an End)

UPDATED: Depositfiles

Here's the second Equitant demo I promised to upload. Like I told you on the earlier post, these two old tapes differ very much from his later works and are dark ambient/dungeon music. The copy I found is of the version Equitant had self-released and sold himself, so the cover and other stuff is different from the DAP release. Scans are included.

UPDATE: Brother Fenrirsson sent me scans of his copy of this demo - it is different from both mine and the DAP version so I presume it would be a second edition released by Equitant himself as it has more decoration to it and quite obviously the picture of the lady is just slapped over the old cover. The DAP version appears to have another castle/fortified city image, from what I can tell from the tiny pic on Discogs. See below for cropped version of this second cover version which is now included in the new download link.

The second version sent by Fenrirsson

The sound quality is quite good even though the tape hisses quite a bit. That can't be helped I'm afraid. At least the tape wasn't worn otherwise. This demo consists of only four tracks which are quite lenghty each, with durations between 6:26 and 9:47. The lyrics are again fantasy oriented with the first two tracks dealing with Equitant's Agurak which seems to be influenced by Celtic, Nordic and Howard-school fantasy mythos. The rest are about countess Bathory (S/M flavour this time) and Tolkien mythos, like the title of the demo hinted. Music is mainly dark ambient/dungeon synth and this time the almost omnipresent spoken vocals are more dominant which I'm not very happy about. They worked better when more in the background I think. The first two tracks form a clear whole with their more bombastic yet solemn approach (and of course the lyrics) while the third one is more minimalistic in its dark ambient, with voice a little more in the background (thankfully, he sounds sillier than ever on this one) and the fourth one is instrumental and most "dark dungeon music" of the tracks. It's also my preferred track here. Check this out if you liked the first Equitant demo and these sort of synth projects in general. Personally I prefer the first demo but this is quite good too. If someone has the CDR re-release, I'd be interested to hear that for improved sound.

Nargothrond - Moria C-LP 1999

Nargothrond (Portugal) - Moria Cassette LP 1999
1) Middle-Earth's 13th Age
2) Ungolianth
3) Black Realm Of Morgoth
4) Orcish Steel
5) Golden Wyrm Of Angband
6) In The Ruins Of Nargothrond
7) Under The Red-Eye's Banner
8) The Fires Of Gorgoroth
9) Moria
10) The Witch-King Of Angmar
11) The One Ring (Interlude)
12) Return Of The Black Foe
13) Pussywhipped (bonus track - S.O.D. cover)

Depositfiles

Something a little different this time - the cassette album of Portugal's Nargothrond, side project of Firstborn Evil, later known as The Firstborn, members. As you can see from the titles above, this is very Tolkien-influenced material and based on black metal. However, don't dive in expecting material in the vein of Summoning, like the bonus cover track might hint the approach is quite different.

I remember it being referred to as "orcish battle metal" or something on similar lines - it's noisy, chaotic, brutal and warlike on first take and I must admit I was far from overjoyed when I got the tape in 1999. I was (and still am) a big fan of Summoning and Tolkien too and was at least checking out just about anything so themed. Now as I listen to it after a long time I find myself enjoying the punkish yet still very metal racket. There is more than at first assaults the ear so this was a nice re-discovery. Not trve but fun listen, why not give it a try?