Post by nocturnaliridescence on Oct 3, 2017 21:50:03 GMT -6
Notes: Released in 2012. The band has since become a solo project, and its name has been changed to Helligdom.
From the very first seconds of this demo, you can tell it's a bit rough. There are a couple awkward pauses in the tremolo picking, and the production isn't all that great - all the instruments can be heard clearly, it just seems a bit "empty". Things improve a lot when there's more going on, though. The drums, the "louder" guitar sections, and the occasional keyboards(!) help fill in the gaps created by the production. Overall though, this is actually very solid music. Riffs will be played in slightly different ways, rather than just being repeated over and over; the songs change and keep your interest. Take the intro to "Nocturnal Shadow". It's just the same melody being repeated, but it switches between the guitars and keyboards, helping to keep it interesting (it still goes on a bit long, but anyway). The title track goes from tremolo picking, to clean guitars, both with semi-fast drums playing underneath them, followed by the drums slowing down a bit and the guitars switching to simpler chords, and so on. The keyboards only appear briefly, and only appear in the first two tracks, but help keep the demo varied anyway, and also help to add a little bit of atmosphere to this. I don't know if there's a word for the sound they produce, but it's your standard slow, reverberated "dreamy" sounds. The drums are a FAR cry from that slow "dun-dun-dun, TSS, dun-dun-dun, TSS" that seems to be weirdly popular in lesser-name bands. Not quite at "blasting" level, the drums here actually manage to add a surprising amount of attitude and aggression to the demo. There are definitely a lot of interesting ideas here.
The problem is just... the production and execution, pretty much. It's not very noticeable in, say, the faster sections of "The Old Church", but when the band slows down or experiments, the flaws become pretty clear. This is probably most obvious in "Burnt", where the guitars seem to be a bit more awkward, and the track isn't quite as varied. But see... it's also kind of difficult to fault the band for that. It's their first demo, so it's bound to be rough around the edges. In fact, I'm not sure I would go so far as to call this a demo. I view this more as a "proof of concept" than a "demo". This seems more like a statement that the band exists, is in the scene and has ideas to offer, more than an organized release that's meant for widespread listening. Take the lack of vocals for example. Only one of the three songs even has vocals, and it definitely seems like these songs were created with vocals in mind - especially "Burnt". Oh, a couple quick notes about the vocals - they're not bad, but seem to lack energy in spots. (They also sound a bit muffled, but that can certainly be forgiven.) Some of the lines are screamed with enough feeling to be convincing, but some just sound a bit like the vocalist is struggling. Overall the "demo" just seems like a collection of ideas, some of them not quite finished, more than something that's meant to be coherent or structured.
This has a lot of good ideas, but sometimes struggles to execute them. It's pretty "normal" as far as black metal goes, but that's hardly a bad thing - they know what they want to play, and operate well within that framework. Given its incomplete state, I still view this as a "proof of concept", rather than a proper "demo", and as far as that goes, it serves its purpose very well - it's gotten my attention and I'm definitely interested to see where the band goes from here. And with the remaining band member recording new material, it'll be interesting to see what those five years since 2012 have yielded. Hopefully the new material will consist of completed songs (and hopefully the production will have improved a bit), so we can see this project's full potential start to be realized.
Available for streaming on YouTube (with permission from the band) and free official download on Mediafire
From the very first seconds of this demo, you can tell it's a bit rough. There are a couple awkward pauses in the tremolo picking, and the production isn't all that great - all the instruments can be heard clearly, it just seems a bit "empty". Things improve a lot when there's more going on, though. The drums, the "louder" guitar sections, and the occasional keyboards(!) help fill in the gaps created by the production. Overall though, this is actually very solid music. Riffs will be played in slightly different ways, rather than just being repeated over and over; the songs change and keep your interest. Take the intro to "Nocturnal Shadow". It's just the same melody being repeated, but it switches between the guitars and keyboards, helping to keep it interesting (it still goes on a bit long, but anyway). The title track goes from tremolo picking, to clean guitars, both with semi-fast drums playing underneath them, followed by the drums slowing down a bit and the guitars switching to simpler chords, and so on. The keyboards only appear briefly, and only appear in the first two tracks, but help keep the demo varied anyway, and also help to add a little bit of atmosphere to this. I don't know if there's a word for the sound they produce, but it's your standard slow, reverberated "dreamy" sounds. The drums are a FAR cry from that slow "dun-dun-dun, TSS, dun-dun-dun, TSS" that seems to be weirdly popular in lesser-name bands. Not quite at "blasting" level, the drums here actually manage to add a surprising amount of attitude and aggression to the demo. There are definitely a lot of interesting ideas here.
The problem is just... the production and execution, pretty much. It's not very noticeable in, say, the faster sections of "The Old Church", but when the band slows down or experiments, the flaws become pretty clear. This is probably most obvious in "Burnt", where the guitars seem to be a bit more awkward, and the track isn't quite as varied. But see... it's also kind of difficult to fault the band for that. It's their first demo, so it's bound to be rough around the edges. In fact, I'm not sure I would go so far as to call this a demo. I view this more as a "proof of concept" than a "demo". This seems more like a statement that the band exists, is in the scene and has ideas to offer, more than an organized release that's meant for widespread listening. Take the lack of vocals for example. Only one of the three songs even has vocals, and it definitely seems like these songs were created with vocals in mind - especially "Burnt". Oh, a couple quick notes about the vocals - they're not bad, but seem to lack energy in spots. (They also sound a bit muffled, but that can certainly be forgiven.) Some of the lines are screamed with enough feeling to be convincing, but some just sound a bit like the vocalist is struggling. Overall the "demo" just seems like a collection of ideas, some of them not quite finished, more than something that's meant to be coherent or structured.
This has a lot of good ideas, but sometimes struggles to execute them. It's pretty "normal" as far as black metal goes, but that's hardly a bad thing - they know what they want to play, and operate well within that framework. Given its incomplete state, I still view this as a "proof of concept", rather than a proper "demo", and as far as that goes, it serves its purpose very well - it's gotten my attention and I'm definitely interested to see where the band goes from here. And with the remaining band member recording new material, it'll be interesting to see what those five years since 2012 have yielded. Hopefully the new material will consist of completed songs (and hopefully the production will have improved a bit), so we can see this project's full potential start to be realized.
Available for streaming on YouTube (with permission from the band) and free official download on Mediafire