Demo 1 95

Amsvartner – Demo 1

A little raw sounding, but aren’t all demos? It actually has 5 tracks, but the first is an intro. Well, half an intro. The first 30 seconds are typical Black Metal intro stuff, screaming, sounds of torture. Why put an ambient track on a demo? Puzzling. The other 30 seconds are an actual musical intro to ‘Lord Blackstorm’.

This was almost certainly done in one take, but the first full musical track is enough to tell that there’s some talent here. The bass player loses it once or twice, but they're really very good. Raw is all, which is to be expected I think, given their young age.

'The Halls of Infinity' and 'Winter Shadows' display an impressive songwriting ability. Both are assembled well, with harmonizing guitar parts and consistent tempos. In the realm of Black Metal I suppose these tracks would be considered average, but in the context of a demo recorded by a bunch of kids I'm amazed. Both should be remastered and appear on a future release.

‘Winter Shadows’ ends kind of suddenly, and we are treated to a minute or so of Outroduction. More ambient Black Metal throwaway stuff. Completely unnecessary on a demo.

A promising start as a Black Metal act, but they didn’t stay Black Metal. This may be why they lost direction and sort of vanished. I give this the same score I gave Dreams. I’ll keep it in my collection.