Clayforge - Kult Release demo '98

Clayforge - Kult Release demo I 1998
1) Le Acteur de la Mort
2) Nightblade
3) Hell Parade
4) Blood Opera
5) The Flesh I Eat

Yandex / Sampo

Settling into a pattern here if I'm not careful, here's again a Finnish demo to follow Aussie madness and slightly similar actually to the previous one, though where Grimm's Journey was Swedish-tinged melodeath Clayforge, better(?) known as Murder In Art, plays what I guess is best described as death'n'roll. You know, groovy and rockin' sort of melodeath variation, think Entombed after "Wolverine Blues" as the probably easiest example. Well, quite a few death metal bands actually went and wimped out this way now that you think back. This is ripped from an original tape that was in the bag of cassettes brother Pörrö bestowed upon be the other year. Thanks mate and see you on Thursday!

Being made from an original, cover scans are naturally enclosed, as is a scan of the Murder In Art biosheet that was included with the demo when my comrade got it. Recorded at Kansashouse-studios, which some of you may remember from various Morningstar recordings, this has a pretty good kind of full demo sound, reasonably well balanced without being too polished. All five tracks are leaning to the compact radio-friendly pop song length, circling around the three minute running time each. I don't know if it's the summer or whatever but I seem to be enjoying this now much more than last time I checked it out, or the style in general. Perhaps I should give the MIA album a listen too. Give it a listen if you're into this kind of stuff at all. Otherwise wait for hopefully another post before this year's Nummirock.

Mörkö - Paluu demo II '00

Mörkö - Paluu demo II 2000
1) Mörköperkele
2) Musta surma
3) Totuuden henki

Zippy / Mega

I am late and so decided to further change my schedule. Of which no-one but me knows so it is really irrelevant to you, isn't it? Anyways, here is as promised the Return of the Groke or in case you don't get it the second Mörkö demo discussed back in March. Thank you, once again, to brother Grev for sharing the rip of unknown source (BERC?) he has kept for years. This naturally means we have no cover except for the small Metal Archives image. A proper scan would be neat.

How fares the second coming of Mörkö compared to the quirky first demo? It's a bit more "normal" but by no means polished and nice music. Just not as unhinged and barbaric as its predecessor. The drumming, sadly, isn't as wild either... it sounds a lot like a rehearsal demo so I suppose they recorded everything together this time. First song has riffs that are annoyingly familiar but not quite directly stolen. Second thing you notice is the dual vocal approach, main voice for this being a low bellowing sort of grunt, supported by the high-pitched shrieks in a few places. The second song, which is a slower, ponderous affair, has more of the screamy voice and kind of heralds the change in style to come in later years. Generally this sounds heavier than the grim coldness of the first demo; if that one brought visions of a bleak, wintry landscape this reminds me of trudging through perilous marshlands. Last song, the longest of the bunch, is also on the slow side and features an atmospheric acoustic break. Despite its roughness the first demo did have more such elements and even synths.

I used to favour the debut tape over this on initial listens but it seems to be a grower now that I have it play on repeat and focus better. Well, in the end of the day the debut still wins but by a much smaller margin than before. I assume fans of album-era Mörkö will find this more to their liking than "Mörön maa".

Storm - Wintermoon demo '93

Storm - Wintermoon demo I 1993
1) Underworld
2) Desecrator
3) Encomium

Sendspace / 4shared

I was going to post something utterly different but then a comment left yesterday caught my attention; it simply said "Happy Syttende Mai!" and I thought to myself: "Damn it you old fool, had you noticed this before it would've been a great time to post Norwegian... something". That kept nagging in the back of my skull which is really exasperating so I gave in and decided to upload this. Yeah, it's pretty old hat and most of you have probably encountered this debut and only demo by Stavanger's Storm while looking for the better-known but equally short-lived Oslo Storm (Fenriz, Kari & Satyr if you manage not to know). Done from a dubbed tape, no surprise there, so it's also rather poor quality soundwise but at least I got it to slightly more listenable levels than the extremely muffled rips I've encountered online before. Can't help but wonder how all copies, both dub and rip I've encountered managed to have such a terrible sound seeing how it was recorded in Soundsuite studio with Terje Refnes. Did they lose the master and dubbed everything from a copy accidentally made to a cheap, worn old tape?

Alright, in the rare case you might not actually be familiar with this demo I'll start by saying it's short. Slightly less than eight minutes and last, short instrumental song probably qualifies as outro. For such a brief demonstation, however, it manages to be remarkably all over the place. First track, which is also the longest, plods away at slow midtempo at first before sweeping synths speed it up to a temporary flight. Some of the riffs sound like they were borrowed directly from (old) Thorns and the vocals remind me of old Ancient and Gehenna, hoarse, growly sort instead of screams, shrieks or screeches. It's later, but the Kvist album actually comes to mind as well. Nice and atmospheric, curious piece. Then the second track kics in and what the hell, it's full HD old school black metal worship, first album Bathord meets Venom sort of thing that every other band would start to do a few years later when the mid-90's retro boom hit. So I guess they were really ahead of their peers and time. And last song is an instrumental, calling back the first proper track. Would have been interesting to hear another recording by these fellows but they split up and went to various other bands. So, happy, late syttende mai I suppose!

Orion Nightfall - Eye of the Snowstorm demo '07

Orion Nightfall - Eye of the Snowstorm demo V 2007
1) Mankindslayer
2) Hail the Old Hate
3) Wolf of the Wrathmoon
4) Spiritual War
5) Eye of the Snowstorm

Yandex / Zippyshare

I decided to post more Finnish material but cut the re-runs to the previous post for now. This is an unusually fresh cadaver to examine, mere decade old. Fifth demo of the Finnish band Orion Nightfall, released as a CD-R and recorded in August '07. I was handed a copy at the Mayhem gig in Kuopio, same year November I think? They did a little tour of three shows back then, which I recall was a bit challenging experience to the fellow organizing it. Odd venue at Kuopio too, very unusual but sort of nice if you don't mind it being kind of far away from the centre. Our adventuring party fortunately included a driver so it was ok. It was an enjoyable evening though I spent most of it outside smoking and chatting with more or less random people. And didn't really see shit when Mayhem played, barely the top of Attila's head. I'm digressing like crazy. Anyways, ripped from an original copy, covers scanned and included within.

Five tracks for seventeen minutes here, moderately melodic "black" metal (well, I suppose the themes and lyrics are vaguely black metalesque enough if you're lenient but I'd say it falls in dark metal region - then again it's not too dissimilar to various popular Poles who still get counted as black metal) with hints to the bands roots as dark melodeath unit still audible. Quite heavy and dominant guitar sound, though it all blends into an aggressive wall if walls could steamroll all over you - wait, they can and will do that, Final Fantasy VII Demons Gate (Demon Wall) never forget! Back to this, it's not all just in your face aggression, they can slow down a bit too. Vocals are hoarse screams and yells and quite good, at least when set snugly within the fluffy grim dogpile of other instrumentation. I kind of like this now, second time playing through while typing and again wonder how I keep forgetting to dig up their other demos to check out. I noticed some of them have really, really long songs and wonder how they pull those off. That's it for now, next something older again and probably a contribution.

Perkele - Saatanalliset himot reh/demo '94

Perkele - Saatanalliset himot rehearsal demo I 1994
1) Kalevala (Morningstar cover)
2) Pagan Fire
3) Nainen pimeydestä
4) Seductive Eyes of a Wolf
5) It Will End...
6) Eternal Moonfog
7) Witchcraft (Morningstar cover)

"raw" version: Mediafire / RGhost
"edited" version: Depositfiles / Sendspace

Ok, I said I'd do some reposts of old stuff I've ripped again with hopefully better results than the first time around. This time we return to December 2008 and the first demo by Finland's Perkele. The old write-up actually does decent job giving background so I'm not repeating that. Instead let's move to what's different this time: generally a superior rip (original was in mono) and just in case new scans as well. Except that I just could not make it that simple so there are two rips. Or rather the other one is a slightly more "produced" version while the first is the raw rip with minimal meddling.

The edited version is basically tidied up, I cut out the various clicks, snaps and pops in between the songs and... did something else I already forgot! Maybe I adjusted the levels a little? It's very marginal whatever it was. The end result is 15:11 while the so-called raw version has all the tape recorded noises and such in place for the hopeless romantics to gush about and lasts a whopping 15:15 so I guess you get four seconds more for your money. Except that it costs nothing.

Other observations: listening to the improved rip I noticed that this actually has quite a decent rehearsal sound, sure it's a little on the messy and raw side but at least it has certain amount of balls to it. Vocals are a little buried and to be honest you really have to know the songs to be able to make out the lyrics. I don't even want to start guessing how many times I've heard the songs Pagan Fire and Nainen pimeydestä that reappeared on the second demo "Pohjola" so obviously I've no problem following them. I'm starting to get a feeling I'm just typing now for the sake of it so better stop here

Endoki Forest - Demo '95 + Rehearsal '96

Endoki Forest - An Evil of Nordic Frost demo 1995
1) I
2) II
3) III
4) IV
5) V
6) VI
7) VI
Rehearsal for Upcoming Album '96
1) Advance I
2) Advance II

Mediafire / Depositfiles

More non metal, this is a contribution I actually received quite long ago but it has been a bit troublesome, delaying its time to appear on the altar. This is Endoki Forest from the United States and the (only) demo from 1995 plus a bonus of two rehearsal/advance tracks that were planned to appear on a full length album scheduled for 1996. As far as I know, it was not completed after all. Endoki Forest remains active to this day, or possibly more accurately re-activated a few years ago releasing a compilation also named "An Evil of Nordic Frost" in digital format (only, I think) which was not this demo redone but rather a compilation of material from different years and more recently a full length album "Black Sorcerers Fortress" on Darker Than Black. Unfortunately I can't check the details on the compilation anymore since it appears Bandcamp has either purged Faunus Amadeus Loki out or he has chosen to diminish his online presence. Whatever the case, his former email is not working either so I could not get hold of him to check facts. I could've probably pestered DTB with it but decided against that and just went with what I got.

Why would Bandcamp give master Loki the boot you wonder? Well, he was and is somewhat notorious for his NS associated projects like Berzerker and label of old Black Sorcerers which released tapes around mid-90s... I should actually have a flyer or maybe two somewhere but I didn't find them on my admittedly hasty and careless search. I probably find them the next time I look for something else. DTB has released also a CD from his other, more recent project Herrenvolk which I believe is slightly better known and from what I've heard more in the martial industrial/ambient vein while Endoki Forest falls, in my humble opinion, into the dungeon synth category on the old material and more in dark ambient vein on the new album.

Cover image from Discogs entry!

So much text and quite little on this actual item so far! Right, to the issues I mentioned right in the beginning: first off, no cover or tracklisting. Apparently my contributor had gotten this tape dubbed by F.A.L. and instead of a cover he had sent the pic seen cropped way up there decorating the post and slightly reduced down below in its whole while Discogs entry gives a different sort of cover which you may see above this paragraph but fails to deliver a tracklisting either. So I went with good old Roman numerals, as usual, and divided the rip into what I believe to be seven tracks. Most have easy to spot breaks between them but the last one was a little tricky. Secondly, the rip was unfortunately not very good, being done slightly too loud and then converted to low bitrate as coup de grâce. This leads to a major thing to point out in the download; there are two folders within, one labeled "Scott" and one "Velkaarn" which contain two versions of the demo. Mine is practically unedited, just chopped up into tracks and slightly adjusted the volume while "Scott" is more heavily reworked, courtesy of master Scott, formerly known from December Wolves, later Serpent Eclipse and nowadays an audio editor and a fine sportsman. Thanks for taking time to fiddle with this and the other thing! Scott's version... well, I'll just quote him: "I cleaned up some of the noise where it was distracting from the music, balanced the L/R channels, restored some of the low frequencies, and most importantly I added back some of the dynamics so that the synth has room to breathe." So yes, it has notably less of the brickwall effect of a too loud rip, less hiss and generally sounds more "airy" while retaining the necesssary desolation. Unfortunately the tradeoff is the usual issue with noise reduction causing certain "fraying" of the sound especially on the high end, most audible on the storm sound effects on track... was it 4? You'll notice. But it can't be helped, it's the best we could manage with the material for now.

The full picture scaled down, original scan is huge.

To the music itself, half an hour of somewhat cold and grim dungeon synth with that slightly crude sound that fits the music perfectly. It's not fully instrumental, II features some appropriately sinister hisses, whispers and shrieks that actually fit very well so for once I'm not complaining. V has more vocals, this time odd echoing, almost moany "singing" that again sounds surprisingly suitable before metamorphosing to the form familiar from second part. Among top 3 dungeon synth vocals! Aside from that there's the storm and rain samples and if you listen to the unpurified version you can think of the hiss as additional sound effect? The moods the tracks paint vary from witnessing clandestine rituals under the cold full moon to carefully navigating old dungeonscapes of stone, cobwebs and dust to picnic in the Carpathians with the Lamentation crew. Think whatever you will of master Loki's other works, politics, belief systems, orientation and favourite foods, I don't care, this is a good demo and I'd really like to find an original copy of it! Or a good dub would do. I forgot to talk about the bonus tracks! Well, they're similar to the demo material. Recommended for all into old school dungeon synth sounds.

The Shadow Dance - Stormy Visions demo '95

The Shadow Dance - Stormy Visions demo I 1995
1) Temple
2) Sea-Horse
3) Hologram Song

Sendspace / Yandex

Ok, time to do something non-metal for change and it's an accidental discovery, sort of, found among the tapes I borrowed from brother Grev some months ago. This is The Shadow Dance from Finland, Helsinki to be more precise. Check out their old school late 90s/early 00s webpage! No, really, you have to see it! Takes one back, that does. And yes children, back in the day pretty much all webpages looked like that. Or worse. Now that's been taken care off let's return to music. This is their first demo recorded in the fall '95. No cover I'm afraid, their site didn't have an image either. But it did have the band photo seen above which I decided to use to decorate the post. That's about as goth as you can get!

Three songs in roughly thirteen minutes, the first one "Temple" was also featured on a few compilations and a 1998 MCD of the same title. It's a slow building, moody and atmospheric piece with slightly ethereal quality and a bit more intense middle part. Main voice is clearly amateurish female singer who comes across borderline awkward but pleasant enough to swing the performance more to "innocent" side rather than "annoying" - that really sounds (reads, you old fool) vague, doesn't it? Second song is more upbeat, almost busy even. It almost brings some new wave song I've long forgotten to mind, almost but not quite! The final song, shortest of the lot, resembles the first one more but generally sticks to the same vein. Maybe a bit catchier, in the end. Reminds me a little of the Finnish Neverwood, less trippy and polished though. But simple is good sometimes and I actually enjoy this on occasion. Check it out, but bear in mind it is neither dark nor grim. Next one will be. Unless I decide to do another re-run, which I actually thought would've been a hilarious post after a hiatus but then wimped out.

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.

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!

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.

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!

Kraina Wiecznego Mrozu - Ziemia ojców demo I '98

Kraina Wiecznego Mrozu - Ziemia ojców demo I 1998
1) Pruskie leśne królestwo
2) Nigdy mu się nie poddam
3) Wojna
4) Ziemia ojców

RGhost / Yandex

I think I owe you folks some black metal and this item is a bit overdue, I was supposed to post it pretty much right after me and sister Borderline finished the discussion over at her blog. If you actually took time to skim through the conversation in the comments and the update note on the write up, excellent - you know what's going on and why! If not, I suppose I'll tl;dr even though I really don't want to: this is an early version/first edition of Polish pagan black metal band Kraina Wiecznego Mrozu's demo "Ziemia ojców" which was re-released, possibly remastered or mixed or something but at least expanded (sound effects, acoustics et all added) by Reakcjonista Magazine in 1999. That is the version you see on M-A and has also been ripped and posted on Dorosłe Dzieci blog. The split by Werewolf Promotion was also based on this version of the recording but he messed the tracklisting up as told by sis B. I've not added a cover image for this since I do not have it and I'm not sure if it had one different from the '99 version. Would obviously appreciate a scan. Interestingly the title of the second track comes in two variations: Nigdy mu się nie poddam and Nigdy mu się nie poddać and both can be correct as first one translates "I will never give up" and second flavour "Never give up" so one is more of a statement while second one would be advice. I went with the version on the tracklisting I got.

Ok, so if you're already familiar with the other version it's the same four tracks but in different order and slightly more stripped down, the interludes and special effects are missing as well as some acoustics. This is roughly two minutes shorter in all. If you are new to the band, good since it's probably better to first hear this rougher take and then the extended one. Generally the sound here is rawer and somewhat more clear and audible than on the split. Music is Polish pagan black metal, of the slightly crude and almost primitive sort with patriotic flair. It's quite METAL too, just check out the very heavy metal break on the second song, halfway through or a little later. It's one of those things that on certain days you dislike and on others adore. Today is strongly the latter. I like the honest enthusiasm you can clearly feel (especially on this version) complimenting the earnest and frantic playing style. Recommended for folks into Polish black metal, pagan black metal and raw screaming coupled with youthfully eager musicianship. Next time again something Finnish. Unless you absolutely want something else, then it will probably be old US stuff. Or a 'zine.

Lamented Souls - Demo '95

Lamented Souls - Demo 1995
1) Var
2) Eternal Existence
3) Nemesis
4) Hybris

Yandex / Sendspace

Bandcamp (compilation)

Did you think it would be something non-metal today? Too bad, it's more doom as we traverse from one land of Vikings to another. And it's also another item that's been sitting idle for five years. This is Lamented Souls fra Norge and to be honest kind of pointless entry as this demo '95 was released as part of the compilation CD 2004 "The Origins of Misery" on Duplicate Records, a label run by Einar Sjursjø whom you may remember from Beyond Dawn, a few other bands and his Dawnrazor 'zine. Hmm, now I kind of want to see issues of that, I don't think I've ever read one? I was thinking about ordering a copy back in the dark ages but didn't as I recall it was pretty expensive like Norwegian 'zines tended to be. I guess they printed those on baby seal skin with oil or something like that. Anyways, the CD version at least has this too, not sure about the digital version on Bandcamp as it looks like it's missing 4 tracks? You may consider this a preview, the CD can be ordered via the Bandcamp page. /commercial messages

Ok back to topic, Lamented Souls is probably mostly known as the former band of Simen Hestnæs aka ICS Vortex whom you might recognize from a bunch of Norwegian bands like Penthouse Petz (I'd really like to hear that) and Artisan as well as being married to the cartoonist Lise Myhre whom I presume to be the "Lise" credited for the cover art on this demo. The line-up also included Ole Jørgen Moe aka Apollyon of Aura Noir and Dødheimsgard fame, among others, and finally Olav Knutsen aka Bestial Tormentor of Infernö who shared the bass duties with Hestnæs here. As an aside, Sjursjø joined later to play drums while Apollyon switched to guitar which has really nothing to do with this demo. Or sort of does, as that line-up re-recorded two of the songs here on their 1997 session which was finally released as the first half of the compilation.

Good demo sound, recorded in some sort of studio in two days, usual doomy slow tempo that speeds up a little but never goes beyond careful mid pace. Well, maybe a little on the groovy ending track Hybris. Their doom is of very traditional sort, even moreso than Tristitia featured recently. Closer to Black Sabbath, Godsend and say Saint Vitus than anything deathly. I must say due to vocals it brings flashbacks of certain grungy stuff to mind like Alice in Chains. Poorly qualified to discuss that so let's not go further. I think that's enough for now, I strongly suggest getting the compilation if you enjoyed this and if you were here for dungeon synth or black metal I guess you were dissappointed. Next time, probably.

Blazing Eternity - Over sorte heder demo '96

Blazing Eternity - Over sorte heder demo I 1996
1) Over sorte heder
2) Towards the Thorns of Melancholy
3) Da håbet blev borte for altid...
4) Enthralled by Sorrow
5) The Romantic Forest Is Darker Than Sadness

Sampo / Zippyshare

Sometimes it really takes me ridiculously long to do things. Like today's item; I ripped the tape this was on five years ago. I wasn't actually going to post it but somehow the previous entry inspired me so here we are. It's been a while since our last visit to Denmark so about time we return to those shores with Blazing Eternity's first demo. Called black metal by some careless individuals this is probably as close as they got to that, doing a few years later a full-Katatonia wimp out. Or so I've been told, I actually never heard the second album but the development certainly seemed to lead to that path. Anyways, on this debut they play dark metal with harsh main vocals (primary reason people labeled this black metal I suppose), plenty of atmospheric breaks and generally quite mellow mood.

The title track is actually the most aggressive of the songs and gives a bit misleading idea of the release. Personally, I think it's the best of the bunch as well. It does have a slow part in the middle too so perhaps not as misleading as I implied. Interestingly, the other song with Danish lyrics, the short middle track When Hope Was Gone Forever is quite aggressive too while the English tracks tend towards slower, even doomy tempos and generally more... oh hell, look at the damned titles! Melancholy thorns, enthrally sorrow, romantic forest sadness!!! Need I really elaborate? I'm for some reason starting to get really annoyed, this demo has an odd habit of being "oh nice, why don't I listen to this more often" on every other listen and "isn't this girly crap going to ever end" on those less favourable moods. I don't really like the clean vocals, he sounds more like a kid trying his hardest which I suppose will appeal to some folks with strong parental instincts but it's not at all having the effect I'm sure he was striving for. Curiously, years ago I liked this demo better than their second one.

Right, enough of content, I'll just mention this is made from a dub and has generally decent quality but it really could be better. And there are no scans, unfortunately, just a cover image I think I picked up from Discogs. It's a pretty nice cover. That font though. This is all for now, if you like romantic sort of dark metal by cute *I don't know if they're really cute, they do wear corpsepaint on the pic!* young Danes pick this up. If you want manly, harsh war black metal stay at least 10' (~3 meters) away from this!

Tristitia - Reminiscences of a Mourner demo '94

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!

Mörkö - Mörön maa demo I '00

Mörkö - Mörön maa demo I 2000
1) Prologi
2) Syvälle Pohjolan maille
3) Kurjan tuomio
4) Raivo ei kuole
5) Epilogi

Mega / RGhost

I thought I'd do some more Finnish items. This is a freshly dug corpse, dubbed among the tapes I borrowed and ripped from brother Grev the other week, thanks again! Mörkö was and is a Finnish... I'm not going to call them a black metal band, nowadays they do some sort of experimental / psychedelic post-black metal whatever thing and here they played somewhat crude and straight in-your-face "black" metal or more accurately dark metal, maybe even fantasy metal? See the lyrics at M-A to see what I mean. I've been aware of the band for the longest time but didn't bother to check them out back in the early 00's as I thought they'd be some sort of joke. See, the name Mörkö translates as "boogeyman" (which is not exactly the most kvlt thing ever) as well as being the Finnish name for Tove Jansson's The Groke (who is obviously mvch more kvlt). Then when I finally listened to the 2013 album "Itsensänimeävä" I didn't like it one bit.

Ok, so I was not enthusiastic with the band, why post this demo? Well, I was quite surprised how rough and listenable it was, enjoyable even! The sound is somewhat barbaric, especially the drums and also cold, grim and other such delightful things. The lyrics were entertaining as well (in Finnish, sorry) so even if it were a jest it was a pretty good one. I am actually interested in hearing both the "Paluu" demo, also '00 and the first album "III" ...which is easy to do as it's on their Bandcamp page... I'll be back in a moment... ok seems like they were more black/doom at that phase, quite neatly in the middle ground between the two extremities of this demo and the last album. Instant judgement; this is the best release. Standout track: Raivo ei kuole. Give it a try, it's not as ridiculous as you might think. No really, it's not!

One more thing: cover scans would be nice. Assuming it had a cover in the first place.

Jääportit - Halki lumisen metsän demo '98

Jääportit - Halki lumisen metsän demo I 1998
1) Kulkue varjojen
2) Vaellus porteille Tuonelan
3) Läpi lumimyrskyn
4) Yömustaa
5) Jään kirous
6) Sade lumen mustan
7) Hänen jäätävä katseensa

Sendspace / Sampo

Alright, let us for change fulfill a request practically immediately, without (much) extra tarrying. Here are some more ambient sounds for you, the debut demo CD-R of Finnish Jääportit who are at least moderately well-known ...I think? It was a request by comrade pagan made a few days ago and as expected, our reliable frater Grev sent me a link to a rip he had burned on a disc before I could even ask him about it! Thank you for you vigilance and generosity. There was a cover image as well, but no full scans which as always are welcome so get in touch if you can provide one.

The rip has a low bitrate (CBR 128) but with this sort of music it's not a big issue. Later Jääportit material sees the sound expanded to various dimensions while this debut is pretty much in the dungeon synth camp though of course with a wintry flair. It still feels more appropriate for the DS label than the tape album that followed in 1999. Suitably down-to-tomb yet grandiose synth sounds, plenty of variation without going overboard, atmospheres ranging from very dark and menacing to almost tribal sleigh ride-esque (more somber than the xmas piece you probably now think of!) and generally that wandering in nocturnal winter forest-feeling. Just add a black robe and some corpse paint. Warm underwear is recommended too. I really really enjoy this but am horribly distracted right now so I can't really come up with more witty banter. Go on and download it already!

Drunemeton - Recital to the Shinning Moon demo '96

Drunemeton - Recital to the Shinning Moon demo '96
1) The Wolves of Winter: Part 1: Chorus During Early Nigth
2) The Wolves of Winter: Part 2: Leaving the Forest
3) The Wolves of Winter: Part 3: The Hurting
4) The Wolves of Winter: Part 4: The Last Breath
5) The Dancing Fost
6) The Hand's Cuting
7) Triumph of the Ice

Zippyshare / Yandex

Today I wanted to do an item that has been bothering me for almost twenty years but finally some weeks ago the matter was lain to rest, thanks to the contribution by comrade Dead Christmas! The bothersome item in question was this '96 demo by "Polish" (so I was told back in the tape trading days) synth project Drunemeton of which I had a very questionable dub. Fortunately DC had acquired the demo during his quest for Nazgul Productions items and judging from the information on the covers I believe this too was a French artist after all. The rip also revealed how hopelessly lacking my dub was. Cover scan is enclosed and I have uploaded a very slightly edited version of the rip; I increased the volume just a notch and cut away a bit of noise after the first song that was not part of the demo.

At roughly 42½ minutes this easily reaches album length and is divided into two halves so to say, first twenty minutes consisting of the epic The Wolves of Winter parts 1-4. Instrumental, somewhat neoclassical sounding dungeon synth mixing (I'm taking this from the covers directly) Akai, Oberheim and Roland synthesizers with grand piano and some flutes. I've cut each part into individual tracks as the tracklisting gives them separate running times and they divided easily enough. The second half is made of three tracks with slightly more individual character to each of them. The Dancing Fost (I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be ...Frost but I didn't go and correct the titles, like I always say it is Necromansy and that's it!) starts almost harshly and proceeds to change to more introspective moods before slowly picking momentum again, only for it to drop while approaching the end. Synthesizer sounds rather than piano dominate The Hand's Cuting (again, should be ...Cutting but no correcsies!) giving it an aura of menace that changes to desolation as the instrumentation gets scarcer and more minimalistic, developing to a trippy dark ambient end. Last song Triumph of the Ice is the longest of the lot and reprises some of the moods from the first parts while featuring a very distinct classical guitar part in the middle before a long build up to a slow but triumphant ending with percussive elements and orchestra hits. Wintry, melancholic and rather nostalgic stuff, decent enough sound though not by any means polished. Reminds me at times of Emglev (again!) and in places even Lamentation. Few places. And just a little. But much more Emg than Lam. Recommended for fans of French synth projects, dungeon explorers and Nazgul Productions enthusiasts.

Demise - ...Thrashed!!! demo '96

Demise (grc) - ...Thrashed!!! demo 1996
1) God Forbid
2) You Can Lie (But Cannot Hide)
3) Maneating Warhorse
4) Never Coming Back
5) Demise

Mediafire / Sendspace

Let's kick this week off with something different from our usual fares. This is the Greek Demise (yeah there are again something like 6000-7000 bands with the same name and most seem to be death metal and I don't think I remember a single one of them), of which I know not much more than M-A and the covers tell. I think this is an earlier version of the '96 "...Thrashed..." tape which featured some songs from the '95 demo III "...Thrashed!!!" - yeah, this has the same name but tracklisting is same as on "...Thrashed..." tape. Confused yet? I am a little. Well, it is recorded in April '96 so that supports my theory. I don't recall where exactly I got this tape, but I'm pretty sure I got it from a trade with a bunch of other tapes not really falling into my field of expertise. Xerox cover which I scanned and a generic 46 min TDK cassette.

Ok so there are five songs here and three of them are re-recordings from the previous demo, while Demise and the amazingly named Maneating Warhorse are new for this version. Total playing time is 21 minutes and the sound is just a little stuffy, not really that good for a studio recording, in my humble opinion. Well, it's the cymbals that aggravate me, they sound sort of frayed, broken and keep distracting me from the rest of content. If I really, really force myself to ignore them it's otherwise fine. I guess. The high end generally seems to be slightly askew. And this whining from a man who generally prefers ancient primitive Teutonic thrash to any sort of technical prowess and polished sound. I can't claim to know much of thrash in general despite it being somewhat mandatory part of growing up in the 80's, like Iron Maiden and Kiss were practically part of elementary school curriculum, I like some of the elders but can't say I'd be qualified to judge entries to the genre properly. Still, this is pretty good, there are parts that remind me of Kreator, older Death Angel and uh... stuff. The aforementioned ....Warhorse has synths that are suitably spicy. Give up already, you're not going anywhere with this. True, so I recommend this if you like Greek metal and thrash in general and I should really acquire the compilation of Macabre Operetta demos, which was the black metal band some of these guys played in.