Fortidens Skugge

I haven't heard any band getting an atmosphere as close to the one of Darkthrone's "Under A Funeral Moon" as this demo. Whether this is a coincidence or Darkness being inspired by the legendary album is unknown, since much of this same material was roughly recorded already in 1993 for the band's first tape. The instrumental performances are somewhat imperfect, possibly suffering of this demo being based on a live recording of drums and guitar, where the bass guitar and some simplistic keyboards have been added later. A couple of these songs are a little too long and repetitive to
stand the tooth of time, as the mood in the music is deeply depressing in a very early-'90's fashion. The rather brilliant idea of a "black metal ballad", "Witches Don't Cry", gives a surprising variation in the middle of this monotonically composed material, where the drummer plays the accoustic guitar which the song is composed around. The vocals are deep and doom-like, and some sorrowful falsetto is heard in the end of this track. This original piece of work makes the peak of this demo, despite being an accoustic ballad. This is an 8/10, but ends at 7/10 due to the instrumental skills on this recording.