Aeternae Colere Sathanas, Memento, Ut Honorem Tribuas

Ville Pystynen, a.k.a. Shatraug, is mainly known for his black metal band Horna. However, he's also been involved in tons of other bands that range from various of qualities. One of these bands is Deathmoon Covenance, which formed sometime in the mid to late 2000s and released two demos during its time. The first demo "Aeternae Colere Sathanas, Memento, Ut Honorem Tribuas" is a weird, yet fascinating start to this odd band.

The demo can be divided into two categories: Cantus and Oratio. The Cantus track mainly consist of out-of-tune acoustic guitars that play a slow, dark, and haunting riff. While this is going on, we also hear some dark whispers and echoes and other creepy sound effects, further enforcing the eerie atmosphere of the tracks. It's very minimalistic in terms of composition and the tracks can get a bit tedious at times. However, these tracks do work best at offering a simple, but effective atmosphere of darkness and horror, leaving you on edge. Cantus V in particular is the strongest of the five, as its inclusion of a raw black metal riff strengthens the horror aspect. On the other hand, the Oratio tracks are just chants in Latin. The chants themselves are soft, but there's something off about the vocal delivery that makes it sound off and creepy, which goes hand-to-hand with the Cantus tracks. Though short, the Oratio tracks still emit a similar frightening atmosphere.

There's not a whole lot to say about this demo, as technically, it's very minimalistic and simple. However, despite some mundane performances, both the Cantus and Oratio tracks are strong at providing an eerie atmosphere in the background, and the out-of-tune guitars and terrifying voices do work well as far as these types of ambient pieces go. While it's the weaker release of the two, I still recommend checking it out if you enjoy some dark ambient.