As the Vile Must Digress

I bought this tape after hearing the new and brilliant release 'where the Sun is Silent'.
Now this tape is in the same vein, but with a lower production. However this is only a promo tape, and done as what sounds like a rehearsal.

The tape consists of three songs that flow well together. Ashdautas obviously made a concrete sound before going public, which is more than you can say about most bands first demos.

The guitars at first sound typical Black Metal riffing, but on more listens you hear that they are at times quite unorthodox and original. There are some calm breakdowns which have a very Les Legions Noire feel to them (or that may just be me). The musicians can obviously play their instruments well and each member seems to know their place and compliment each other.

The vocal performance from Naeth is what really catches your attention on this tape. You will not find typical Black Metal vocals here, but something that can only be described as Silencer’s Nattramn being stabbed to death. His tortured vocals sound very genuine and consistent, which fits the music perfectly. However they will no doubt make you love or hate the band.

I recommend you buy the tape and hear for yourself, as this is a very difficult band to describe, but I would recommend them to fans of LLN, Mutiilation and as mentioned Silencer.

I found this demo by chance, along with its preceding follow-up album, Shadow Plays of Grief and Pain. Though this album isn't inherently horrible as far as black metal goes, this demo doesn't quite cut it as a good release. However, I will attribute this to the fact that this is purely a demo tape.

Instrumentally it pretty much repeats itself over three songs, playing similar barely discernable guitar tracks over and over again, skewered with all of the stereotypical black metal sound of high distortion, low production, and tremolo picking galore. Though not bad on it's own, it's repetitive. After you've listened to the first song you've listened to the whole demo.

However, the instrumentals were not what killed the album for me. It was the horrid vocals. They were simply placed overtop of the instruments, with no real precession or intent, with shrieks that doesn't even sound as if he's attempting to vocalize half of the time. It sounds like a person being stabbed to death, and not in the way that sounds decent (such as in the Nazgul albums).

I'll give this album a low 60%, and I seriously hope that their preceding album is more interesting in sound.