Ceremony

This demo really caught me off guard when I first got my hands on it. A black metal band from Texas from 1993? "This can't be serious" was my initial reaction. From that part of the country, you'd expect to find nothing but gory death/grind at the time. The United States as a whole didn't really have much to offer in terms of "true black metal" back then. Bands like Profanatica, Von and Necrovore played traditional, primitive black/death, while fellow Texans Absu were only in the early stages of transforming their style from straight-up death metal. Ceremony appeared out of nowhere and released this five-song demo tape of Northern European style BM. These guys seemed to even beat Akhenaten to the punch and got an early start on the Norwegian bandwagon. The mid-era Darkthrone influence here is unquestionable.

What's amusing to me is that there are bands from France and Germany at this very moment releasing demos that look and sound exactly like this. Glancing over the booklet, you'll notice a photo of the band members donned in Master's Hammer shirts and corpse paint and a track list filled with typical Satanic song titles. If one didn't know any better, he would think this tape came out in 2003 or later. Does that mean that these new bands are going for a retro theme? No, Ceremony were just that much ahead of their time.

"Black Spells in a Dark Forest" features five songs of mid-tempo, Norwegian-style black metal. The guitars are tuned high in the traditional modern black metal style. The bass sits boldly in the mix, while the drumming is perfectly timed - so perfect that one begins to suspect the use of a drum machine. At first, I thought the drums were recorded live because they are so cleverly disguised by the demo's raw production. It wasn't until the blastbeats during "Ceremony of the Oath" where it became obvious. These blasting parts are luckily few and far between, and most of the drum patters are programmed to be fast, simple thrash beats. The vocalist uses a very horrific scream that comes from deep within his bowels, as opposed to forced throat gurgling that so many black metal vocalists use today.

The tremolo riffing is total Darkthrone worship, especially on the title track and "Invocation to Satan". The latter is the highlite of the tape, as the riffs are very well written and give off an ominous feel of evil and death. The song flows together smoothly, closing with some cool double bass drumming towards the end. Another notable track is "Morbid Rites of Vorphalack" - here the riffs are a lot thrashier and very much in the vein of Mortuary Drape. The only trace of death metal influence in the music is the occasional backing vocals used on the second the third songs. These are very faint grunts that sound like the vocalist is gagging himself with the microphone. Truly terrible.

Ceremony definitely get points for being among the very first American bands to play in this style. Most fans of raw black metal should enjoy this, but it's important to keep in mind that this was recorded in Texas in 1993 when listening. It just makes it ten times more appealing.