Amon Hen - Skeleton-Dances adv.tape 1995

Amon Hen - Skeleton-Dances advance tape 1995
1) Landscape 2.
2) Landscape 1.
3) Dream?
4) Brainstorm

Reuploaded

Ok, let's do something different again, here is Amon Hen from Hungary and an advance tape/promo they sent around in 1995. This might be a rough mix or something of the cassette EP/MLP of the same name, don't remember for sure and of course I don't have the other tape at hand to compare! Anyways, this tape was released some months before the rather professional looking real thing. Cover scan is included.

So what is the music like? Hard to put to a proper category, for sure. I saw the older tape G.L.A.S.S. being described as avantgarde cyber metal which I suppose wouldn't be too far off the mark as there are metal elements to this, especially the first track. But overall I suppose this is closer to industrial or gothic sound, perhaps EBM even. This is the field of music where I need to tread carefully so I don't think I can pull of very convincing name dropping or comparisons this time around. So we have synths, samples, distorted guitars, spoken voices, effected vocals (robot vocals on track 4!), beats, atmospheric parts and more going on here. It's quite weird, uneven and kind of interesting. I guess I could recommend it to both very open-minded readers and those who enjoyed stuff like Plastic Sampler, Neverwood (either, really) or maybe even Landfill among earlier posts. That is all, next time either metal, ambient or a 'zine... I guess I'll roll the dice to see.

Congestion - The Third Dimension demo 1992

Congestion - The Third Dimension demo II 1992
1) Intro / Unblessed
2) When I Ride to Beyond
3) A Gift from Heaven

Yandex / Rusfolder

As promised in the comments section of the previous post, here is the second demo by Congestion, later known as Let Me Dream and notoriously playing gothic slightly doomy metal as opposed to the slightly doomy death metal of these early years. Like the previous tape, this was sent by brother Grev and ripped by his comrade. Thanks to both of you! Apparently this one didn't have a cover either so I made an extremely low effort placeholder for it.

Much of what I wrote concerning the previous effort holds true here so I'm not going to repeat myself overtly here, the sound is quite similar as is the overall sound and feel... the musicianship is a bit sharper this time around but worry not, they still don't sound like professional, seasoned musicians. Which is obviously a selling point to some and a turn off to others. Not certain if it just feels like that or actually true, but the synth presence seems a bit more constant yet less intrusive this time around and the vocals are more uniform in their delivery which I like. "Unblessed" from the first tape makes a reappearance while the other two tracks are new. Not much else to add, if you liked the previous one you'll probably enjoy this one too.

Congestion - Promo/demo I 1992

Congestion - Promo/demo I 27.7.1992
1) Object of Palaentology
2) Unblessed
3) Dethroned Emperor (Celtic Frost cover)

Mediafire / RGhost

Almost a year ago I posted here the 1996 demo of Let Me Dream and in the comments section we had a little discussion about the pre-LMD Congestion. So here is finally a follow up to that chat and their first recording, a three song promo/demo which had no proper cover as long as brother Grev, who sent this to me, knows and he should seeing that he's been familiar with the band since the early days. Thanks as usual to Grev for sending me this and his German (was it?) trading comrade for the rip we feature here! I don't know if they already used the logo at that time seen on the placeholder cover but that's all I had to work with.

Like the discussion, and the cover choice, hinted the early Congestion was still death metal, influenced by Celtic Frost and with death/doom touches. Especially on the second track the groove is very much present. There's a considerable synth presence which I honestly would think work better if cut down a bit to be just a spicing. Vocals are recited deathly barks and rasps with some deeper support grunts, fortunately none of the awkward clean singing is present. Sound is quite good though it's clear to anyone that this is an amateur rehearsal place recording and not a "pro studio demo". The musicianship and playing in general isn't very tight either but it's kind of charming and expected of a young band's first demo. Whatever little flaws and mars it may have, I still prefer it to the LMD's gothic material.

Parade - Vieilles pierres demo 2009

Parade (fra) - Vieilles pierres demo 2009
1) Intro (dans sa demeure de R'lyeh la morte)
2) Ritual in Transfigured Times (Maya Deren)
3) L'acte écologiaque
4) Vieilles pierres
5) Outro

Yandex

I think I said I would upload the other demo, and project by Clément when I posted the Astral Underground demo here. This is his one-man project Parade where his "main concern was to create black-metal-rooted ambient music, suggesting the strange feeling that you can feel when you're deeply afraid of something that you can't see or apprehend" - mainly inspired at the time by Maya Daren filmography, ghost stories and Lovecraft. He's been working on the next piece for some months and it should be much more ambient-oriented with a particular emphasis on synth and electronics. Conceptually it'd be inspired by UFO-sightings and Twin Peaks folklore, which sounds very interesting to me, definitely looking forward to that. The rip he sent has different bitrates going on again but it sounds much more uniform than the Astral Underground one, though he wasn't very pleased with the bad (in wrong way) sound quality. I'm not that bothered by it.

The demo lasts a bit over 20 minutes and like already mentioned is ambient sort of black metal, based on the dsbm-sort of sound but expanding to different spheres. It's an interesting listen and if you liked the A.U. demo you'll probably want to hear this one as well. I would've prefered the ambient to have already more room here so I'm looking forward to the upcoming release.

Gorbalrog - Das Zepter demo 1996

Gorbalrog - Das Zepter demo III 1996
1) Triumphator / Das Böse
2) Pestengel
3) Schwingen des Donners
4) In Genio
5) Schafott der Zeit
6) Das Zepter

Mediafire

For today I decided to post some German black metal after a long break from that stuff, here's the third demo by Gorbalrog who played melodic sort of black metal and released an album in 1999. I know there have been at least two different rips around before but my extra sloppy and very quick search didn't yield any active links so I decided to post my rip. Which is again made from a dubbed copy I'm afraid and cover image is another less-than-stellar one from M.A. - a proper scan would be nice.

This demo has a rather raw yet still listenable enough sound which makes the melodic nature less obvious and gives the recording needed edge to keep it just out of the too-mellow field of synth-driven blackish metal so common back then. Nothing really amazing, just a pretty solid 30 min+ demo. Though I admit they tend to trip over their feet during the fastest passages which the sound helps further to mess up and the drum machine might annoy people who are annoyed by drum machines. So yeah... recommended mostly for people into German 90's bm demos and others into older demo sound might enjoy it too. That is all for now.

Astral Underground - Ratés demo 2011

Astral Underground - Ratés demo 2011
1) Bacchantes
2) Siècle d'angoisse
3) Violon
4) Ratés
5) Mes cris dans l'escalier
6) L'ère du valet
7) Nos rêves acharnés

Depositfiles 

As you have noticed, I usually post stuff from the 90's here, slowly branching into early 00's. But I do make some exceptions too and here's again one. Recorded in sessions between 2008 and 2010 this is the (so far only) 2011 demo "Ratés" by French project Astral Underground. "Why are you posting it?" someone might ask and that's certainly a justified question even though this is my blog and not that someone's, but to answer: the person behind this and another project, Clément, contacted me and sent these asking if I'd be interested in posting them here and I decided to humour his request. So there. The project went through a change in line-up and a new demo should be coming up pretty soon, with 2 additional musicians from a death metal band. Musical direction may "change from the classic "suicidal black metal" tones, but the concept beneath Astral Underground will remain the same: Description of emotional states, mental disorder, surrealistic poetry, antidepressant..."  Clément writes. We'll see soon as it's almost two months from this info (the delay is my fault, as usual) so the new release might be ready by now.

But let's return to this thing at hand for now, the demo runs over 34 minutes and seven tracks which, like mentioned in the start, were recorded during several rehearsal sessions over two years. You can hear this as the sound shifts from the raw and crispy coldness of the first two tracks (especially the second track, not so much the first instrumental one) to atmospheric, acoustic/ambient interlude with "Violon" to the slow and distant sounding desolate metal of the title track with a more voluminous sound. If you can ignore the "bedroom bm/dsbm"-associations this is actually interesting material. Next one is a shorter track and sort of minimal dark ambiance with piercing black metal shrieks, this is followed by slow paced black metal in the more suicidal vein that builds up nicely towards the end without a real release. I like the grating guitar there. Last track, which by the way is at 128kbps while the rest is 320, don't know why and unfortunately you can hear it... what was I going to write... yeah it starts a bit faster and has a bit more chaotic sound and more going on than the previous ones. It doesn't get messy, fortunately. But the lower bit rate is a little distracting. That's enough, pick this up if you got curious. If not, then wait for the next post which will be something old, dusty and possibly moldy again.

Vampira - Demo 1995

Vampira - Demo 1995
1) Bleed for Us
2) Darkened Eternity
3) Under a Crescent Moon

RGhost / Yandex

Here's a black metal demo again and I've been meaning to post this earlier, but an unfortunately fruitless hunt through a ton of dusty old papers delayed me. You see there is preciously little information and no pictures of any sort available of the US vampiric bm project Vampira who, as far as I know, released only this quite short demo in 1995. I know I have (or had?) a bio or info sheet of some sort which I think would've had at least a logo somewhere, but it's very well hidden. Being managed by "Hardman Entertainment" (the contact in M.A.) and having an European promoter making a fuss was slightly suspicious, to say the least, not to mention the whole "Romanian vampires making black metal" or whatever else the bio sheet implied the band to be. Whether an attempt to cash in the bm (and vampire) trend, a fun side project by people in some other sort of band, or actually serious black metal vampires we'll never know. That is unless someone there has more information. Cover and any sort of images would also be appreciated!

As for the music, this demo has a bit less than ten minutes of material, divided into two longer and one short track. There's a brief intro between the first and second track, but the tracks proper are metal. The sound is quite good for a demo but it gives me really more death than black metallish feel. Though it is obvious they're going for black metal here. Brisk mid tempo most of the time speeding up to actually fast parts occasionally. Now that I listen to it while typing I'm actually reminded quite a lot of old Greek bm at certain points. I guess the machine drums contribute to that feel a lot. There is a little bit of tape imperfection, nothing really drastic again. This leaves me still kind of divided, it's dodgy for sure but still I don't feel like completely trashing them. I guess you need to have a listen as I don't make that much sense today.