Anatomy - Live 14-04-1995

Anatomy - Live in Australia, 14th April 1995
1) Last Pleasures for Those of the Apocalypse
2) Twisting Depths of Horror
3) Armagedoom
4) Forbidden Realms
5) Under the Wings
6) The Call for Doom
7) Freezing Moon
8) Where Angels Die

Yandex / Zippyshare

Here's another Australian contribution, this one sent by brother Wehrwolf, ripped from his tape the other month. Thanks again! Anatomy was one of the better known names from down under in the 90's, or at least I believe so, having formed already in '89, active till 2000 and have reunited recently and according to at least one eyewitness are in great live form too. Today's item is their live tape but this is from 20 years ago... '95 is already twenty years ago?!? Oh how does the time fly... yeah, I was saying ripped from a tape that didn't have a cover, so I made a placeholder using the old Chris Moyen art for the '93 EP and the more recent logo as seen above.

The show features six out of the seven tracks from their '96 debut album "Where Angels Die" plus title track from the '93 EP and a Mayhem cover. Total playtime comes close to the magical 45 minutes, also known as one side of a cassette tape back in the day. Good quality dub as well as sound too, gets a little messy in places but generally quite powerful and easy enough to hear different instruments and sing along to the lyrics. If you're not familiar with Anatomy's music, they play black/death metal. Never saw that coming, did you? Anyways, it's generally more in the warlike and brutal way rather than the melodic and mellow form. So definitely in the Canadian/Australian school rather than Swedish. Though there are some melodic bits, to be honest. Recommended (obviously) for the fans of the band, Aussie-aficionados and blackened death metal enthusiasts.

Lord Kaos - Path to My Funeral Light demo 1995

Lord Kaos - Path to My Funeral Light demo 1995
1) Intro / Violet Chamber
2) Abhorrent Funeral
3) Odour of Sanctity
4) Path to My Funeral Light
5) Bestial Whore

RGhost / Yandex

Recently brother Fenrirsson received a flare of infernal inspiration and worked hard to complete this long-standing request to the Coven, the first Lord Kaos demo from 1995. Thank you for your efforts, much appreciated! Unfortunately he had to work with a dub of less than stellar quality and to boot the demo already had a... challenging sound as we hardened, ear-damaged veterans call it. So, he took time to try to fix it to a bit more listenable form and at least I find the end result better than expected. But please bear in mind that this is slightly different from the original. Cover scan would be nice, there doesn't seem to be a better image online.

Lord Kaos was probably best known internationally for being the original band of the ex-Dimmu guitarist and Carpe Tenebrarum co-founder Astennu. Who naturally had other adventures too but let's concentrate on this recording which I believe they did as a three-piece with Jamie "Lord of Night Summoning" Marsh (who was also in the doom band Elysium and later in several other places) on vocals, Incubus on bass and a cold, lifeless drum machine taking care of percussion. Not sure though, what with the lack of proper covers and all. Most people probably associate (at least the older) Australian black metal with black/death hybrids of thrashing war metal, or other chaotic racket and sure, Lord Kaos is fast, chaotic and raw enough but leans towards the more synth-oriented Scandinavian direction rather than Sadistik Exekution/Corpse Molestation/Spear of Longinus traditions.

Fenrirsson kept the intro and first track, which do blend together rather seamlessly, together as one track and I for once didn't see the need to separate them. I am quite proud of my restraint. None of the demo tracks appear on the full-length album "Thorns of Impurity" or if they do, in altered and retitled forms. The music is delightfully hideous with the cheap synths, obvious machine drum ticking away, screeched and howled, possessed vocals and general quasi-symphonic ruckus. Not for the connoisseurs of sophisticated black art and polished soundscapes but definitely recommended to friends of raw black metal, lovers of old Australian stuff and those who delight in lo-fi "symphonic" blackness. A keeper, this one.

Dying Wish - ...On Twilight of Eternity demo 1998

Dying Wish - ...On Twilight of Eternity demo II 1998
1) Faces Behind the Mirror
2) It Hurts Again
3) With Brush of Madness
4) The Last Reflection
5) Somewhere in the Deep
6) Under the Dreams

Mediafire / Depositfiles

Let's do some (probably) easier listening today, this is a demo I bought as a victim of false advertising from a distro back in '98 or possibly early '99, the second tape by Hungarian band Dying Wish. It was supposed to be similar to Moonspell's "Wolfheart" which I was quite the fanboy of back in the day. It was not. It's labeled as melodic death metal on the Metal Archives but when the first song kicks in you're probably thinking "gothic metal" or possibly something I'm too refined to type here. It's really closer to Paradise Lost when they decided to turn girly metal back in the early mid-90's except with some growls tossed in. Not a very good name drop to be honest, but I'm not so fluent with these melobands. Think Century Media/Napalm (mid-90's onward) roster stables or Swedish melodic metal bands. Ripped from an original cassette so the sound is good. It's not like I had worn the tape thin on this one. Covers scanned too.

So I was dissappointed with this when I got it and as you probably read between the lines already I'm still not very wild about it. But I suppose I could try to say something more, the tape runs easily into album length as most of the six songs are pretty long. The main clean singing voice is decent enough not to be annoying and isn't too high on the mix. It's decidedly amateurish too but that's not really a problem. The occasional death grunts are pretty standard fare, deep unlike the main vocal. Playing is competent enough, music mostly quite fast paced and upbeat. I'm running out of things to say, I still don't really like it but neither do I hate it. I guess you'll know if you want this.

Tears of Misery - Demo '95

Tears of Misery - Demo '95
1) At Bath Woods
2) The Depths of Emptiness and Sorrow
3) Shadows of Reality
4) Before a Vision
5) Fallen from a Dream
6) A Grand Eclipse
7) Across the Black Horizon
8) The Twilight Zone

Mega / Sendspace

Another dive to the non-metal pool, this is actually one of my requests fulfilled, thanks to the sender! I got curious about this demo after reading the vaguely positive review on Petrified #4 and added it to my wantlist and to my surprise it was among the things my contributor ripped and sent me. Cover scans included too.

I said non-metal but that's not really accurate at all as this is sort of metal for well over half of the time, the review compared this to Abruptum but little more melody and metal parts to Hellhammer which is going too far in my humble opinion. The first track with metal, which also is the first proper track, "The Depths of Emptiness and Sorrow" does at times take me to Abruptum, sounding a bit like "De Profundis Mors Vas Cousumet" in some points and a little like Windham Hell at others. But definitely not like Hellhammer, it doesn't have that sort of drive or groove, it's more in a meandering, haphazard semi-doomy vein. Most of the time thankfully instrumental but there are some vocals too which are mainly of the demented, warped bellows school but there's more like silly, bubbly screaming and other pleasantries. Last track features spoken female voice which apparently was enough to distract Thorns to ignore the male noises. Which reminds me, Petrified's reviews really sucked, didn't they? There are even male vocals on the same damn track! Sheesh!

Right, crude ambient metal with suitably crude yet clear sound. I really really disliked this on initial listens but strangely enough parts of it are starting to sound more interesting to me after a bit of time. It could be sleep deprivation too. And the kind of neat cover. As usual, for the adventurous souls.

OfDoom - 03.08.09 demo 2009

OfDoom - 03.08.09 rehearsal demo II 2009
1) Christ's Death (Sarcófago cover)
2) Mayhemic Damnation
3) Black Mark of Doom
4) Demonic Baptism
5) Seventh Desecration
6) War Command (Blasphemy cover)

RGhost / Mega

Today I again felt like making an exception and post an item practically from the future, all the way from 2009 yet at the same time it could as well be recorded in '91 the way it sounds. Yes, it is the lads probably best known from the Beherit-worship of Black Feast (a compilation LP of demo stuff was just recently released by NWN!) nowadays operating under the name of Witchcraft and performing more metal of death oriented material. This is their first incarnation, OfDoom which should be considered a different band from Black Feast and the second demo recording. Brother raf who is either on a lengthy hiatus or in retirement released the first and third tapes on his Modern Sounds of Death blog. Ripped from a tape I got from a trader with very good copies of the covers.

OfDoom plays black/death metal in old school, primitive style. Just thought to mention that if you could not guess from the song titles, connections and the two cover songs displayed on the tracklisting. All songs are on the more compact side of things so the six songs are over in under fifteen minutes. This particular tape sounds very much like demo-era Beherit, not very surprising I suppose, as well as their ancient influences. Rehearsal sound is a bit chaotic in an appropriate way. Entertaining material if you're into old school bestial blackened metal of death, or in their own words: sepulchral Satanic death metal. That is all.

Jarowit - Za dawne dni demo 1996

Jarowit - Za dawne dni demo 1996
1) Zew umarłych legend
2) Płomień
3) Za krew naszych przodków
4) Wicher

4shared / Yandex

Let's do some non-metal material again, this is a contribution, from the same source as the Brunei stuff posted earlier - thanks you know who you are - and a rather obscure project from Poland called Jarowit with a four song demo released in 1996. As far as we know, that is. Seems legit, considering that quite a few similar projects appeared around that time in Poland. Most likely inspired by Perunwit who were among the first to pioneer a sort of mix between (neo-)folk, ambient and some metal elements with a pagan and often nationalistic ideology. Well yeah Lord Wind obviously did something similar too but I feel it's a bit different from what most of these sort of projects put out. Sadly no covers nor is there anything online that my extremely lazy and half-hearted search would've discovered.

You might've noticed I approached describing the music herein somewhat cautiously but I suppose best short description might be low-fi pagan folk/ambient. This is a pretty long demo, that is it feels kinda long running 23+ minutes spread over the four parts here. First song consists of quite monotonous and slightly erratic guitar strumming and tape hiss for almost five minutes. Second one features more guitar, slightly muted clean-ish singing, some sort of percussion (he might be drumming on his guitar case with his hands for all I know) so there's more going on there. It's still kind of sparse and most likely performed "live" or "rehearsal" so to say, whatever he (they? but it's probably, almost certainly, one guy) used to record this just set up running and capturing the result on tape. Third track seems to follow in same vein but has variation by adding what I guess is supposed to be a wolf howling (I'm almost certain it's the artist himself) as well as harsh black metal rasps for more aggressive parts. Those moments make me imagine this as some sort of extremely stripped down pagan metal solo performance in street corner or small square in less-than-presentable part of town. If this was properly recorded in a studio it would have none of the oddly compelling charm present in this forme, though it's a very trying listen, mostly overstaying its welcome and demanding a certain amount of patience from the listener. I'm not really sure whether to recommend this or not as my own reactions seem to vary from one listen to another. I suppose if you're into old Perunwit, Svantevith, Nirnaeth, or other of the several similar projects I can't seem to recall now when I'd need to you'll want to check this one out too. Though those are really not very good name drops as they're so much more, um, refined? This is closer to Messier than December's Fire, to offer some perspective.

Altar of Perversion - The Abyss' Gate Re-opens demo 1998

Altar of Perversion - The Abyss' Gate Re-opens demo 1998
1) At the End of Their Slumber
2) Recalling Old Nights...
3) Land of Ancient Evil
4) Black Magickal Suicide

Zippyshare / Mediafire

I have been frustratingly short on time recently. In that light it is strangely appropriate to post a contribution comrade unholydeath sent already last year, this is Altar of Perversion from Italy and they're a quite well known name in certain circles. If you're not in those circles, no, they do not play any sort of goatwarrape metal, cyber sado-grind or anything such the name might bring to your mind. Those in the knowing will associate the band to raw black metal and Order of the Nine Angles. And almost certainly already have the demo. To be honest, most people likely to appreciate it probably possess a copy or rip but since ud shared his good quality rip (and cover scan) I decided to feature it. So, thanks to him.

This is the first AoP release and with four songs for a bit less than twenty minutes looks pretty standard. However, they do sound untypical both to the era it was released and to a lesser degree present as well. Acoustic guitar opens the first track and features quite prominently in it despite the general pace being brisk and rather violent. It is not a gimmick throughout the whole demo though, so if you expect that you're going to be dissappointed. Considering the militant paces, dissonance and raw, hostile atmosphere perhaps it isn't really that inaccurate if one thought about bestial war black metal upon hearing or reading their name. Recommended for people into vicious black metal or Italian bands.