Belphegor (us) - Blasphemous Prayers demo 1993

Belphegor (us) - Blasphemous Prayers demo 1993
1) Blessed By the Lord of Goat Excrement
2) Annoint in Jehovah Blood

Mediafire / Megaupload

Ok this one is kind of cheating. But on the other hand, so must have those poor sods felt who had ordered this demo with it's nearly three minutes of music. Well, depends how fond of you're of the genre I suppose, and how much the band asked for this demo not to mention the possibility it could've been dubbed on a 60 or 90 min tape. So how am I cheating here? I don't have this demo myself but I have a compilation tape which featured the whole (almost) three minutes of it. Even if the compilation maker only listed on of the tracks. Well, I'll get back to that once I post the tape. Cover seen above borrowed from Metal Archives.

This is music not really for me. Full speed ahead, noisy and brutal mixture of black metal and grindcore. More of the latter than the first one. The sound is pretty bad but that's partly thanks to the guy who dubbed the compilation. I like brutal shit like Blasphemy and so on but this isn't my gasmask filled with vomit at all. Check it out if you've three minutes to spare (well make it more since you need to download and extract it, maybe even over five minutes), or are a lunatic frothing from the mouth fanatic totally committed to this sort of stuff.

Inferus Vobiscum - In the Shadow of the Winter Trees demo 1994

Inferus Vobiscum - In the Shadow of the Winter Trees demo I 1994
1) Intro
2) Holocaust Storms
3) Thy Throne of Ice
4) Lord of Rising Snow
5) Funeral Path

Reuploaded

German black metal, one of the demos I got from J. Unfortunately he didn't have a cover so the poor quality image from the M.A. entry is enclosed in the download and even crappier edit is seen above. Sorry. As usual, better version of the cover is wanted. This was, as far as I've gathered, basically a one-man effort with session members... or two-man as I'm not sure deciphering the cover pic if it's Nocturnal on Dark Voice of Blasphemy and Deathcrush-guitar OR Nocturnal on Dark Voice & Deathcrush on guitar. Feel free to enlighten me if you know better.

Ok to music, this is a brief and stormy experience in 11+ mins. Things are started off with a very familiar intro ("Ave Satani" as heard in intro use for about the bazillionth time) but the music that followed caught me slightly off guard - it's brutal, fast black metal with rumbly, obscure rehearsal-quality sound with very prominent bass guitar sound (for change). The sound gets very murky at times and the tolling bells effect used in the middle of "Thy Throne of Ice" creates a hilarious contrast as it sounds suddenly crystal clear with no hint of the black metal and then it cuts back to the muddled blasting. The overall effect is more barbaric and bestial than raw and cold most of the time and the vocalist does use some death grunts in addition to his usual shrieking. I'm getting an impression this would be somewhere between Archgoat and Morke demos in the sound, so not recommended for the feint of heart (or ear). German underground demo maniacs will grab it happily as will others into obscure brutality. I'm curious to hear the second demo so let me know if you have it!

Enkil - Demo 1995

Enkil - Demo 1995
1) Annointed in Blood
2) ...And the Blood God Awaits...
3) Palace of the Vampire
4) Mine King and Queen are Dead
5) Akasha

Reuploaded

Some USBM this time, here is the only demo (and release, as far as I know) from Enkil which was a two-man project featuring Magnus Thorne and Mikai Tepesh, latter known to some from Anwyl and Nephilim. There were two pressings of this demo and my copy was of the first press which featured xeroxed covers and regular tapes. The second pressing had professional, glossy covers. Scans included. Like the song titles probably tell you, this, like about half of the USBM bands of the 90's seemed to be, is vampiric black metal. Vampires were a popular theme in the 90's everywhere, I guess the 1992 version of Dracula and the Anne Rice books were large part of the reason. The USBM interest in vampires might owe more to Michael Ford's aka Baron von Abaddon's influence. But that's enough about that.

What we got here is pretty raw black metal, in the quite typical 90's USBM sound. The tape was a little worn in places which leads to inevitable flaws, but fortunately nothing severe. I failed to mention that the US take on vampiric black metal tends to be less romantic and goth-fluffy than say CoF's version, if you've listened to Black Funeral you probably know this. So it's quite cold and cruel sounding, not as esoteric and sinister as Ford's stuff but not sparkly Twilighty shit either. I meant the girls' series, not the "all-star" band there. I'm not 100% sure what to make of this one-off, it's not bad and has much of that cool, easily recognizable 90's Stateside sound to it, yet on the other hand it leaves me wanting something more. The almost constant breakneck speed combined with the thin, razorsharp guitars makes me wish they'd slow down every now and then. Oh well, I've listened to worse. Grab this if you're into underground black metal, USBM or vampires.

Thromdarr - Pro-Mortal demo 2001

Thromdarr - Pro-Mortal demo 2001
1) Hornblower
2) Burn for the Eternity
3) An Old Oak Tree

Megaupload / Mediafire

Another lapse to the post-millennium side but don't worry, this won't become a habit. Here's the last of the Thromdarr demos Mika sent me, recorded & released after the their debut "NorthStorm Arrives" was finally put out by Solistitium in 2000. There's no cover art for this demo.

The debut album had been recorded already in 1998 so there was a three year silence between these recordings and the inevitable line-up changes. This demo would see Thromdarr's sound evolve towards what it is still today, as they describe themselves: melodic & powerful old school metal with 80's heavy metal and black/death nuances. This description is pretty accurate and the demo has a clear and powerful sound, for change, which serves this kind of metal very well. Vocals are a bit low in the mix, but this works as they now take a role similar to instrument rather than dominating the proceedings. All three songs are memorable in their own way, my personal favourite being the second track which was also re-recorded for the upcoming second album. It is catchy and quite simple, moderately fast-paced track which brings various older Thromdarr tracks to mind. The first song "Hornblower" displays stronger heavy metal influences and certain epic nature despite being a relatively fast paced song and the closing track is also the longest, has the slowest pace and the dubious honour of being the weakest link for yours truly. It's still pretty good, mind you. Recommended listening for fans of Thromdarr's other material, people into melodic black/death/thrash/heavy metal and collectors of Suomi demos.

The upcoming album "Electric Hellfire" can be preordered from Levykauppa Äx & Firebox. The release date is 6th April.

Thor's Hammer - Rehearsal 2001

Thor's Hammer (pol) - "Studio" Rehearsal 2001 for "The Fate Worse Than Death"
1) The Fate Worse Than Death
2) When the Towers Fall
3) Fuck Off And Die
4) Grand Isolation
5) Endless War
6) Young Blood

Depositfiles

Another item I received as a contribution, thanks to the person and I'm sorry I'm posting this so late. Thor's Hammer is another notorious, non-PC Polish cult band. We had slight problems at first identifying this tape correctly as my contributor had gotten this on the same tape with the Selbstmord rehearsal posted elsewhere and it did not contain a tracklisting - actually it didn't even mention that one side had Selbstmord and the other Thor's Hammer.

This time I've figured out the tracklisting all by myself. Which was not really that hard as this contains the whole "The Fate Worse Than Death" album minus the outro contributed by Darken and in different order. And these are again instrumental versions (they do feature synths in case you wondered) so you've been warned. This has a good rehearsal sound. The rip was quite low on volume when I got it so I upped it a little bit but there's not much else I could do to it, so it's not squicky clean sounding. However, much that was said of the Veles & Selbstmord rehearsals and their sound applies here. The material is very good and I find myself enjoying the instrumental versions quite a bit. I think you know by now if you want to download this or not.

Dark Funeral - Live in Manchester 29.04.1999

Dark Funeral (swe) - Live in Manchester UK 29th April 1999
1) Bloodfrozen
2) Thy Legions Come
3) Open the Gates
4) Ravenna Strigoi Morti
5) Secrets of the Black Arts
6) Dead Skin Mask (Slayer cover)
7) My Dark Desires
8) Vobiscum Satanas

Reuploaded

To celebrate two weekends with gigs I decided to upload some lives here as well. First some more Swedish black metal and this should be a pretty familiar name to most. Dark Funeral is a band I've had slight problems taking seriously, but they've done some decent material in the Swedish 90's melodic style and their blatantly Satanic lyrics are endearing so I find myself returning to their albums in regular basis.

This live show from England is an audience recording with a pretty good sound, though especially in the beginning it's kind of low and the performance occasionally drowns in the noises made by nearby humans. Other than that the sound quality is good and the setlist too. It's kind of brief at a little over 38 minutes so I guess they were not headlining that night. Enjoyable live recording, recommended if you don't hate DF (and/or black metal but why would you read this blog then) with all your might!

Immemoreal - The Age Nocturne demo 1998

Immemoreal - The Age Nocturne demo 1998
1) Lh-won
2) Blazing Glory
3) The Age Nocturne

Megaupload

Swedish black metal. I think this is their 2nd demo. Received from a trader comrade and it has a little bit muffled yet good sound - I don't think it was a crystal clear recording to begin with. No covers so I've enclosed the M.A. image in the upload (see below).


Three tracks of which the title track appeared again on their 1999 demo and 2nd one on their sole 2001 album "Temple of Retribution" as an instrumental version. At least M.A. says so, I haven't heard it. This is quite typically Swedish black metal, it's melodic and has some melodeath elements here and there, tempo varies between fast (first & third track) and mid (appropriate enough, the middle track) and the sound is a little bit off muffled but not at all bad if you know what I mean. Since I'm not making much sense today I'll quit trying and instead urge you to try it for yourselves.