Under the Curse

Barad-Dur's 'Under the Curse' is a pretty cool demo of melodic black metal mostly centered around the guitarwork.

The four tracks present here could best be described as melodic black metal with a focus on intricate riffs. The melodies are pretty well composed, the final track in particular sounds quite inspired by Kveldssanger-era Ulver and sets up quite a nice atmosphere. I guess what holds this back is that the songwriting isn't really that great for it to stand out, and on top of that the music isnt really very fierce for black metal...the productions kinda meek and the riffing is composed of a mix of rather simple melodic riffs and attempts at complexity (such as the opening set of riffs in 'Raging Thunder') reminding me of the unnessescary randomness found in Opeth's music. There are some cool moments, but the material here plays the background a bit and doesn't jump out at you enough to have any real significant impact..

Still, pretty cool though. As I said, the last track 'Highland War' is a nice little instrumental, and The Continuation has some good riffs (demo seems to get progressively better as it goes on), so this is definitely worth owning if you can find a cheap copy. Will be interesting to see where Barad Dur is taken in future.