Now this is interesting. This is older material from this great doom rock styled act out of Norway, recorded from 1993 - 1997, including an unreleased full-length, demos, and rarities. And check out this fucking lineup: Simen Hestn?s (Dimmu Borgir, Borknagar, Arcturus), Olav Knutsen (Infern?), O.J. "Apollyon" Moe (Cadaver Inc., Aura Noir, D?dheimsgard), and Einar Sjurs? (Beyond Dawn, Infern?, Virus). Talk about a fucking powerhouse! Their sound is basically heavy, classic doom with a lot of flat out rock in there, fronted by Hestn?s' unique vocals. You can definitely hear some Black Sabbath and some of their later spawn like Saint Vitus, but epic masterpieces like the slow and spacious "Var" even bring to mind a thinner and more rock based Paradise Lost on some level. The songs are fucking great as well. They border on being catchy at times, the vocal performance is awesome, the bass playing is amazing and rarely mirrors the guitars... very fucking nice. It's not generic either. Despite a few obvious influences or similarities this is far more creative than most any American band of this nature in the last several years. The vocals alone are different, but the writing tastefully combines straight 70's rock chord progressions and bluesy runs with some heavier, darker passages and some nice lead bursts, even breaking out some wah at times. The watery effects over the vocals in "Sprukken Maske" are terrible and really fucking irritating, but that's probably the only truly bad decision herein. I do think the vocals are mixed too loud as a whole, but other than that I love the recording. If I could change anything it would be to drop those vocals back a tad and thicken up the bass guitar. The guitar tone is perfect, the drums sound great, and the instruments are mixed together perfectly in my opinion. The demo sounds damn good as well, as listening straight through you can't even tell when the recording sessions change over (except for the 1993 track "Soulstorm", which is of course much rougher). The layout is fairly minimal, using a few black and white photos, a few tinted brown photos, a tracklist, recording information, and that's about it. No lyrics are included, just a brief caption that reads, "Seeking death but you were leaving withered roses far behind." Fans of this genre should absolutely love this. It sounds a lot different than I had anticipated but it's very refreshing. The entire disc is a bit long but the demo is very similar to the re-recordings, so it's not essential to sit through this in one take. I find it odd that the first three songs are the best herein, but the quality never really drops off, so... check this out.
[Duplicate]
Running time - 61:15, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: Essence of Wounds, Hybris, Var]
Duplicate Records - http://www.duplicate-records.com
