Macabre Omen / Godblood - Split 7"1997

Macabre Omen / Godblood - Split 7" EP 1997
Macabre Omen:
1) The Waltz of the Nereids, of the Dryads, of the Nymphs
Godblood:
2) A Funeral

Reuploaded

Today I decided to post another EP which in a way is also waste of time as it's been already available on the internet for quite some time. But nevermind that, I ripped a dub of this recently and as it came out ok I decided to share it here anyways. I also get to tag something "cypriot" again. This split 7" was released by Greek Daimonion Productions in 1997 and side A features the great Macabre Omen, from Greece and side B has Godblood from Cyprus, remember the demo posted earlier? Be warned that this is again a cassette rip, but if I remember right I was dubbed this by a guy who had the vinyl. Cover image is from Metal Archives, just rearranged sideways and additional images seen below from Macabre Omen fanpage on MySpace.

This is what it actually looks like. I have them the other way around.

Both bands have a quite typical 90's Greek style sound on this recording, MO working more in the atmospheric black metal realm with quite a lot of synths added and with a rather epic feel to the track. His screaming is also quite distinct, almost hysteric and high pitched whereas many of his Greek peers would go for a growlier style. Godblood continues straight from where they left on their demo, the riffing on this is very dynamic and obviously Hellenic with some heavy metal thrown in. The vocalist does a half screaming, half barking raspy growl, the bass is very audible and at times even prominent and all said it's a catchy number. Memorable enough to be re-recorded for their debut album it seems. Unfortunately it seems the dub is authentic enough to a vinyl experience to have the needle jump in a few places, this happened either twice or three times. I forgot already.

Here's the inside of the cover.

Enough babbling, download it if you enjoy 90's Hellenic sound and don't forget to check out the other Macabre Omen material, the album is available at criminally low prices the last time I checked so get that at least. The Godblood album should be quite readily found as well, for example at Primitive Reaction.

Godblood - Flowers demo 1994

Godblood - Flowers demo 1994
1) Twilight
2) Witch
3) Godblood
4) Howling
5) Deceiver
6) Necrosynousia / σιωπή


Reuploaded

Exotic cuisine for today, the 1994 demo by Godblood from Cyprus. First time I get to use the word "cypriot" - I'll want to do that again so I guess I better get to study the other bands from the island... anyways back to this item, I already got a dub of it from brother Grev, but alas! his tape was screwed at the start ruining the sound of the first two tracks. I naturally despaired greatly and lamented until I noticed a copy of this on a small distro's list whom I then immediately contacted and ordered the tape which quickly arrived. Rejoice! Here then is the rip of that tape and scan of the xeroxed cover. Quickest of you have probably already checked out their Metal Archives page which has a cool colour image instead of the rather drab xerox my (and Grev's) tape has. I assume the first bunch of tapes had a colour cover and then the rest had to make do with xeroxed copies of that. Oh well, content counts not the packaging and all that.

About time to get to the content, which is a bit over 25 minutes of black metal in the early Greek vein, except this time it's Cypriot not Greek. I had some trouble with figuring out how to match the tracklisting to the content and as a bonus I had to decipher what the hell was the last title, my knowlegde of Greek being extremely limited and the cover hand written. It'd appear to be "ςιωπη" which I manage to translate to "siopi" which I've no clue what it means... "σιωπή" would make more sense though, as it means "silence" and there is no seventh track, only silence which would make this a witty trick played on the listeners. Naturally, I did not bother to add extra silence after "Necrosynousla" as I'm not at all a fan of silent tracks. Someone fluent with the language could take a look at the cover scan enclosed and confirm my little theory for me, pretty please? - UPDATE: It is "σιωπή" and should be "-synousia" - updated and reuploaded the demo. Thanks for the info!

I seem to have hard time getting properly to the music itself here, ok so it sounds Greek, first track is intro and then the first proper song isn't really that special but the two following ones are, with cool rhythms, riffs and some unusual ideas. Especially the self-titled track manages to work for me even while being over six minutes long, quite simple and repetitive. "Deceiver" stumbles a bit but it's good parts overcome the less fluent bits still leaving it on my good side. Last real song is a lenghty instrumental. A charmingly rough, recommendable release for people into Mediterranean black metal.