Lamentation - Prophecies demo 1991

Lamentation [bra] - Prophecies demo 1991
1) Intro
2) Dark Prophecy

RGhost / Mega

Did you come here hoping for something by the Greek Lamentation? Too bad, that's not on the menu today. This is the Brazilian Lamentation, mentioned here and apparently this demo was originally released in December '90 under the Bestial monicker and then again under the new name in '91. Besides this recording in two versions there is a Bestial live demo also dating to '90 and except for possible rehearsal tapes nothing else which is a bit of a bummer as I really dig Luis "Zoca or Apocalyptic Preacher" Fernando's sound. I'd really like to get my hands on that live demo so let me know if you have it. Not to mention the hypothetical rehearsal tapes. Cover scan taken from the Metal Archives.

I got this short demo dubbed with a bunch of other more-or-less exotic black metal items a few years ago and hesitated a long time to upload it as the dub quality was, to put it politely, shit. Low volume and absolutely massive hiss, you know the sort. Then, after finally just deciding to go with it, I discovered I had already picked up a vastly superior rip of this online. It'd appear to be the rip posted originally by user macchipazzi in '08 and re-posted '10 by user name Okkultis on the MetalArea forum. Well, good job wasting a surprisingly large amount of time on a very short tape, me. Idiot. Right, anyhow this might seem like a pointless repost then but since I really wanted to do this one, I've uploaded the MA rip and included for your listening displeasure the extremely poor quality rip I made of the billionth generation dub in my possession. Plus it kinda fits nicely after the Fiendish Nymph demo, they've a lot in common you know! Mainly the whispery vocals and slowish pace. Perhaps the sound too. Slightly. And both are very short. Come from warm climates. Recommended to people who liked the Abygor demo, (old) Black Crucifixion, Fiendish Nymph and "Drawing Down the Moon" ...wait everyone likes that, uh, let's day Darkstyle.

Fiendish Nymph - Demo '94

Fiendish Nymph - Demo I 1994
1) Into the Abyss of Eternity
2) The Blazing Shades of the Distant Moonlight
3) Katara

Sendspace / Yandex

This one has been in the limbo again for much longer than it should have been. Fiendish Nymph of Greece, whose '96 promo tape I posted two years ago here, and their first demo from '94. As became the trend in their later releases, this one has no proper name and is very short - one "real" song in the middle and an intro plus outro. I pondered for a while if I should title this "demo I" (discarded, it does not say so anywhere in the covers) or "demo 1994" (this one won) or yet again just "Fiendish Nymph" (I can't bear having multiple self-titled releases!) and even worse, which rip to use?

You see, initially around the time I posted the promo I had only found a really poor quality dub I had. Then brother Grev sent me a rip he had, decent quality and all, and Fenrirsson offered to scan and rip his copy and of course THEN I did finally stumble upon the better dub I had and didn't think I'd ever find. In the end I decided to use that one and Fenrirsson's scans, due to personal preferences of sound. But this certainly was a team effort, thanks to all involved!

Ok, like I said very short tape again and the proper song is in the vein of later FN stuff, midtempo black metal with whispery main voice and mystical pagan atmospheres. Neither the intro or outro are really that great, they're just there but main course is delish enough. Then again I've always been a fanboy. Recommended if you enjoy their other releases and/or the Daemonia Nymphe stuff!

Black Autumn - Grief demo 1993

Black Autumn - Grief demo 1993
1) Intro
2) Demonic Incantation
3) Gates of Hell
4) Temple of Grief
5) Outro

4shared / Depositfiles

Death metal, from Sweden. So 90's! This is Black Autumn who appear to be quite obscure and seem to have recorded only this demo which was dubbed among tapes I acquired some time ago, thanks to the sender! Metal Archives' limited info includes a sligthly different, possibly incomplete or incorrect, tracklisting than my tape, having the last track "Temple of Grief" and outro together as "Untitled..." and obviously I'm more inclined to trust my version here. No covers I'm afraid and nothing is found online.

The demo has a bit murky demo sound which is still clear enough to hear all instruments very clearly and has this cavernous feel to it. Sounds actually at times quite powerful. Music is old school Swedish death metal with a slower, doomy tempo. Would actually go as far as just call it doom/death. All three proper songs are quite long, over six minutes, while both intro and outro are short. Vocals are exclusively deathly roars bellowed in a rather convincing, powerful manner. Another recording I find myself enjoying more on repeated listens, it appears! Somewhat repetitive, though. Unfortunately the sound quality takes a dip to worse for the last track, a classical case of uneven dub quality on sides A and B, I guess. Despite the repetitiveness and flawed sound quality should go well over in today's retro-friendly death metal-revivalist environment, especially to people who like slower and doomy death metal. I should probably dig up a rip with the MA tracklisting to see if the quality dive occurs on their dub as well.

Confusion Corporation - Purify demo 1995

Confusion Corporation - Purify demo II 1995
1) As the Brass Turns the Wall Green
2) Industrial Intellect
3) World Corruption
4) Contained
5) Forward to Extinction
6) Chains of Simplicity
7) Inorganic Beings

RGhost / Zippyshare

One more UK contribution, this was sent by brother Grev to satify my curiosity sparked by the first Confusion Corporation demo posted here earlier. Thank you and whoever originally ripped this! He did not have cover scans but I found a pretty decent image on the Discogs entry and used that. Decent quality rip at old standard bitrate (192 if you really didn't know).

A piano opens the first track, giving way to strings a bit further in. Intro piece, nice and moody, touch of neoclassical feel here and there. The piano returns to finish and next piece is much heavier then and so seems to be the overall sound, the music continuing quite logically where they left off on the previous demo. Death metal and grindcore elements mix with (sparse) industrial metal tricks and even some punk, resulting in... uh, some sort of cyber punk grind metal? Much of what I wrote last time applies here though there's a bit more of everything, notably Fear Factoryesque clean backing vocals, but it seems somewhat more focused than the previous tape. I recall my initial listen to this after Grev had sent it was somewhat unenthusiastic but hearing it now, side-by-side with the older demo it sounds much better and I'm not sure why I thought the other tape superior and this dissappointing. Now the tables would appear to have been turned. Not that much to add, it'd still fit the old Earache roster, not a big fan of the cover art, slightly better than the first tape (at least right now).

Incubus Succubus / Screaming Dead - Sampler Tape 1992

Incubus Succubus / Screaming Dead - Sampler Tape promo (?) 1992
Incubus Succubus:
1) Samhain
2) Vampyres
3) All the Devil's Men
Screaming Dead:
4) Angel of Death
5) Necroaria
6) Western Front

Mediafire / RGhost

I was initially going to post some more black metal now that we got the old engine running, but then decided to bring it to a crashing, creaking, screaming, screeching halt with a quick turn to something different: this sending picked from the things comrade Emptiness Cycle delivered me the other month. Thank you and other choice morsels will be served later! Anyways, to the British shores again and this is a split sampler tape, possibly a label promo, from '92 featuring some more pagan gothic rock by Incubus Succubus aka Inkubus Sukkubus as they are presently known (and about to release a new album this month, see here), teaming up with the fellow UK group, horror/goth punks Screaming Dead whose heyday was already in the early 80's with a short comeback in the late 90's. They were not active around the time of this tape's release so I suppose it might've been in connection to the compilation released in '93. Or just the fact that this was, after all, Tony McKormack's old band. Duh, obvious connection is obvious. No covers so I felt compelled to whip up a placeholder with band logos from '93 and '83 releases and a bat skeleton image I googled.

First version, which looks "colder" but the second accidental one looks more macabre so it won.

Yeah so if you're an Inkubus Sukkubus devotee these three tracks offer you absolutely nothing new as they're from the debut record. Unless you've managed to miss that one somehow, in case you should really get one of the various re-releases. If you're not familiar with the band, these three tracks are not at all a bad place to start, especially one of them being an old fave of mine ("Vampyres" if you must know). I like the stripped down but very clean sound here. Screaming Dead I hadn't heard earlier but am now quite interested to hear more. They've a very vintage 80's sound here, sorta post punk/wave thing going. I think the third song is a bit older than the first two. Why don't I listen to more stuff like this? I think I'm going to get that compilation from somewhere. Recommended for vampires, witches, pagans and other wave creeps.

Striid - War 2000 demo '00

Striid - War 2000 demo 2000 (original version 1999)
1) Hans siste vinter
2) Episode of Centuries I
3) Episode of Centuries II
4) Episode of Centuries III
5) Episode of Centuries IV
6) Episode of Centuries V
7) ***

Yandex / Mega

Let's get a bit more serious with another black metal contribution, this one by brother Baldemar, thank you! Striid was the solo project of the Lugubre founding member, well, Striid who released three demos under his name and this was the first of them. Metal Archives informs us this was originally titled simply "War" and released in 1999 limited to 66 copies, then re-released by Legion productions again limited to 66 copies which would be the version at hand here. Though the scans B kindly included do not match with M.A. version which looks fake and the tracklisting given there for this version is wrong too. Like the original version, this starts with the Darkthrone cover, continues with the five parts of "Episode of Centuries" and ends with a track not listed for the original version "***" which I guess would be first track "War 2000" on the M.A. listing. Perhaps there were actually two versions released on Legion after all? Or perhaps the information is just incorrect. Whatever, this is correct. The other two Striid demos were re-released on a compilation CD called "Warmageddon" back in 2003. Not sure why this one wasn't included there.

Like the cover song choice possibly indicates, Striid played raw black metal and at this phase was a one-man band. "Hans siste vinter" is performed well enough and sticking to the original formula, voice is a raw rasp, not as deliciously over the top as Nocturno Culto's performance but good enough. The original songs are in similar vein, not quite as repetitive though. Part II of "Episode" adds silly shifted vocals and neat slow parts to contrast the quicker paces. All parts have some individual quirks but still sound uniform enough to be parts of a whole. I'm trying to discern a shift in sound and performance for the last track but it really sounds like being from the same session as the rest so I must again question the entry on the Archives. Anyways, it's a short and fast one, I wonder if it'd be properly titled "War" as that title appears remixed along with the Darkthorne cover on the second demo, yet the running time does not match at all. Must remain a mystery as I do not have the other Striid demos or the compilation at hand to compare. If you enjoy raw and lo-fi sort of demo sound solo black metal (naturally with a lifeless unholy drum machine) you might want to have a listen to this tape.

Succulento Borchia - Pure Hate & Madness demo 1998

Succulento Borchia - Pure Hate & Madness demo 1998
1) March of Sorrow (allegretto ma non troppo)
2) Nuclear Law
3) Cacca Cola
4) Jubileum
5) (Glorification of) Intestinal Torment
6) Immortal Song
7) Magri Notturni
8) Sadistik Ekstermination
9) Pure Hate & Madness
10) (Glorification of) True Italian Forests
11) Godcrusher
12) Impalato Everywhere
13) Liquefatto in un cumulo di merda (Per-Version)
14) Nerchia (Per-Version)
15) Dancing with Folletti (Outro)

Mediafire / Rusfolder

Cover scans (achtung! very large!)

Back to our contributors, here is one I've forgotten to post earlier though to my defense I had to do a little further work and research into the track division, with the convenient aid of the enclosed lyric sheets our contributor comrade Chris had included (once again, huge scans - I've included them as separate download this time). So thanks to Chris again and sorry for the lateness, this was sent over a year ago after all!

Lots of tracks here but all are very short, varying between 00:49 and 2:34 in time. One would probably expect the music to be fast, thrashing or grindy or whatever but surprisingly enough this is not really the case. It ranges between quite typical black metal fare and just down strange numbers. Well, seeing their thanks list include a section where they pay respects to Marduk, Cannibal Corpse, Dark Funeral, Impaled Nazarene, Brutal Truth, Satyricon, old Carcass, Bathory, Mayhem, Ildjarn, Desekrator, Gehennah & Infernö might be helpful reference. Overall not very serious stuff, I suppose this is one of those fun projects which I can't count among my favourites. See if you're amused by their antics.