Belgravelse ‘Total Odeleggelse’ demo/ 2006
	Reclusive, crude, Transylvanian Hunger style Black Metal oozing that vintage hollow atmosphere draped in icy resolute rhythms. There is nothing remotely new here, nothing … What we do have is that macabre aura of authenticity, that certain garage recording that spawned a thousand bands so long ago. This is shall we say, True Norwegian Black Metal, in its most fundamental form. There is no hint of the corrupt industry, the sleazy label poison that so often asphyxiates the music’s final product. This is totally pure Norwegian Black
Metal, cold and reeking of the winter night. The grizzled vocals tear though the air, scrawling vociferous malice into the atmosphere. This demo may only be heard by a select few, but here resides the whole rudimentary awakenings of music in all its numerous guises. This is the seed from which all musical growth must evolve from, and yet so many fans only glimpse at this level of pristine recorded material, for most fans are receptive only to the finished journey from demo act to signed to label act. www.myspace.com/begravelse666
Deathcult ‘Cult of the Dragon’ Dark Essence Records
	This is torturous head fucking Black Metal spawned from the very base grime of the genre. The band features live Taake guitarist, Herr Ekkel, and even Taake mainman, Hoest, as well as guest appearance from Dirge Rep [Gehenna, Secht]. This album is definitely not for the faint hearted and has no relations to the controlled melodic variety of Taake. Here we are greeted with vomit vocals spat from bile blazing lungs. The choking guitar flurry decimated the air with hideously catchy riffs, the drum work is breakneck hammer bashing that when set loose amongst the guitars scalding tempo a great torrent of meat raw Black Metal is born.
Purists will collapse with joy at the very primitive design of the songs, the blood dripping music making the perfect companion to a dying throat rattle. It is quite an achievement to create such an infernal din and not be swallowed up in a grinding swill of chaos. Necro is another good word we can align to this corpse awakening Black Metal. www.myspace.com/darkessencerecords
Helland ‘Den Onde Sirkel. Demo 2006
	With a sound rooted to a Black Metal core, a deeper fusion of Viking and Dark Age moods are layered upon the hypnotic music found on this quite original demo. There is an unusual style to the guitars, with a mandolin lurking in the background, clean vocal chants and slow menacing guitars. If you can recall the Swedish dark metal act Sadness, then a comparison would be revealed. The music’s Black Metal moods are strained though an almost gothic presence. Viking like chants add a medieval feeling to some of the tracks. There are some great instrumental tracks [probably awaiting to be lyriced] that are raw and bitter to the senses, and yet harmony driven in their presentation. The key word for most of
Hellands material here is catchy riffs, memorable and interesting arrangements, and some killer songs. The band sound pretty original and have a style that is hard to pin down is a tribute to the creativity of the band. [in this case one, Trond F Helland] With 16 tracks [clocking in at 60 minutes] taken from various sessions, this demo is a good representation of what Helland are about, and yet the evolving music may well be different still as you read this. www.myspace.com/hellandnorway
Iskald ‘Shades of Misery’ Indie Recordings
	Originally this album was self released in 2006. Promoted as an ice cold and crystal clear Black Metal act, Iskald, are more crystal clear than ice cold. Their style if more likened to the technical melodic death formats adopted by fellow countrymen Scorn, Thyruz, and Celebratum. The bands lack of corpse paint reveals their more diluted imagery, with a more polished sound and thankfully, some hard, fast, flesh ripping tracks. The first track proper, Shades of Misery, bursts forth in a very similar sound as Emperors, lacerating opener on Nightside Eclipse, Into the Infinity of Thoughts. Uncanny, or a deliberate subliminal choice of riffs?
This band have come a long way from their more thrash influenced, Northern Twilight, EP. This album, is a very streamlined fusion of the alluring rhythmic brilliance of In Flames, and the riveting tightness of Sentenced. Add to this mix a dose of Testament, and what you get is a very modern, melodic, Metal album that transcends the mere restraints of the Guitar/Drum ethics of Black Metal. To evolve from the icy drones of the former without the use of keyboards or electronics, the style must reach out into the more progressive extreme acts for inspirations. Iskald, are a band who will keep the Norwegian scene alive, albeit from a more mainstream perspective. www.myspace.com/indierecordings
Mayhem ‘Last Breath’ Northern Twilight Records
	This digi pack release contains the last recordings with vocalist Dead, and unless you are a true addict to the underlying minimalisms of Black Metal, a 1991 rehearsal of appalling quality will not be to your liking. The tracks are here, Deathcrush, Necrolust, Freezing, Chainsaw Gutsfuck, great classic material, and yet the sound lurks in a biscuit tin with the lid shut. The next rehearsal from the same year, has similar flat recordings of Funeral Fog, and Freezing Moon. To end the compilation we get a promo 1990, version of Carnage/Freezing Moon, and an untitled bonus track, that all have an equally lacklustre sound. This release can be looked upon in two ways: Firstly, it’s a historical account of Dead,
snarling in a rehearsal room over material that was never meant to be for general release. It has a certain charm, and if you crave all things Mayhem, then this release will no doubt keep you amused for a few hours. Secondly, the release sounds fucking shit, and if you really need to absorb Dead on vocals then get the live in Leipzig album, for this stunning live opus will blow you into purgatory with ease. There is no doubt that, Dead was an enigmatic vocalist. He apparently buried his clothes to unearth them before a gig so that he would smell like the dead. His place in Black Metal lore is assured, it’s a shame such badly recorded material is presented to honour his name.
Raven ‘The Murder Sessions’ Darkland Records
	A limited vinyl in 333 copies is as underground as you can get. This release features the 1997, No Colours mcd of Ravens, FM MCD, plus a further six tracks of raw, stripped to the bare minimum Black Metal. The tracklisting reveals no song titles, so its pretty much a mystery as to what is what unless you have the mcd, and even then only half the album can be deciphered. I managed to place the last 4 tracks of side B, as the MCD, leaving side A, as a set of songs that are very similar to the orthodox, low fi icy atmospheres of the MCD.
Raven are basically, Forgotten Woods and the Burzum like shrill vocal delivery is very evident here. There are varied levels of pace, one track dragging its slow guitar chords into an almost funeral like dirge. There is a great feeling of improvisation and most of the material here is obviously taken fro a rehearsal tape. The sound is as dire as you would expect, muffled, murky and utterly underground. www.darklandrecords.de
The True Legends in Black ‘Mayhem/ Darkthrone demo bootleg cd
	Legends these bands unquestionably are, and the cover artwork of this cd depicts some art images of Mayhem [with Dead], and Darkthrone, both in full corpse paint and reflecting a very early Norwegian Black Metal era, nothing to do with the recordings on this cd though. For inquisitive fans who seek to hear these bands pre-Black Metal days, and for those of us who are just interested in listening to rough old demo recordings in general, what we can discover here will not change the world. If truth be known, the Darkthrone 3 track demo ‘Thulcandra’, originally released in 1989, is the slightly the better of the two sessions here. First track Eon, is a surprising nine minutes
longs and travels a Death metal path similar to early Tiamat, the vocals most reminding me of the Swedish bands pre-Astral Sleep years. The sound is rather hollow, and yet the involved song structuring that meanders between melodic mid-tempo Death Metal to faster sections, all expanding on the central riffs and returning every so often. The second track is half the duration of the first with much the same rules applied. The final track is a weird percussion tracks, a kind of Fenriz in the Jungle at night, Quite odd. The Mayhem, contribution is the legendary second demo, Deathcrush. If you have not heard this god awful sounding demo, then you should be shot on sight. For a glimpse into Mayhems 1987 recording, is to stare at the very first beginnings of the Norwegian Black Metal scene. Here we have a band driven by the burning passion of Euronymous, with Maniac on Vocals, Necrobutcher on bass, and the lesser known Manheim on Drums. After the initial terror of the blurry garage sound, the songs do tend to unravel into more digestible songs, the vocals revealing a severe extremity for the time. The track Necrolust has a piano piece intro that is both unnerving and out of place. This track could have been an out take to Venoms, Welcome to Hell album. Venom worship this demo is through and through. The cover of Venoms Witching Hour, has to be the worst ever recorded, utterly wonderful. So, not so much Black Metal, rather a history lesson for fanatics of the bands in question.
Tulus ‘Biography Obscene’ Indie recordings
	Tulus released their first demo in 1993, released two more demos, and three rather low key albums before splitting up, to be reborn as Khold. Khold, released four albums that were kind of a progressive Tulus before regenerating back into Tulus. So, here we have one of the genres most classic acts to whom cult status is most definitely allied. The album starts with a cello and violin intro, and these instruments make appearances throughout the release. The slow menacing embodiment of both Tulus and Khold can be drawn from the first track, the vocals becoming the obvious source of this assumption. It is from the unique vocal growl that the music deploys its clean sound. Additional female
vocals lift the deadened atmosphere to livelier heights, but when you have a violin making appearances, piano and a very strident bass high in the mix, there can be no guessing what will come next. The following tracks serenade the senses with fast and slow arrangements crawling and biting within an almost surreal like atmosphere. There is even a lazy saxophone piece on the track Demise, and this smoke fuelled atmosphere hangs over all of the tracks here. The fast moments are vintage Tulus, and yet the flowing string instruments set this album ablaze, taking the brooding despondency to another level. This is not just another Tulus album, another band reforming out of mist of the past for dubious reasons. Tulus were never a renowned act to warrant criticism of their peers. This is a vibrant, head crushing album that is given a decent sound, only time will, tell if can stand the test of time. This is also the first Tulus album with English lyrics. www.myspace.com/indierecordings
Vreid ‘I Krig’ Indie Recordings
	I Krig [meaning, at war] is Vrieds second album, and for those who do not know, the band consists of former Windir members, who opted to carry on under this guise after vocalist Valfar died. Lyrically woven around a poem written in 1946, by Gunnar Reiss-Anderson, that pays homage to the Norwegian resistance during WW2. Musically, the riveting melodies shift between a modern Black Metal frame and the uplifting elements of Windir. There is a great depth to the compositions, a driving melodic spine that sets this band above the icy viciousness of the likes of Gorgoroth, and even Dimmu Borgir sound rugged compared to
the subtleties of this release. The music bounces across slow, cleanly produced guitar structures, crisp drum beats and at times fast sections, that remind us of the roots this band emanate from. The coarse vocal lunges keep the whole album from straying to far from the darkly atmospheres that haunt the main theme of the album. The more I play this, the more the tracks eat into my head. There is a real quality that sets the tracks ablaze, a rare embodiment of simple Heavy Metal music ignited with a dark soul. With Satyricon bearing the torch of Norwegian Black Metal to the masses, Vreid are also armed with an ordinance of catchy, memorable songs to captivate fans of most metal genres. www.myspace.com/indierecordings