Finnish Demonslaught

Sabbat, one of the most bootlegged metal band and the fifth with the most releases. It's easy to be lost in their discography since several labels release tons of eps, lps, compilations, which most of them are live tracks and highly limited, non-stop. It can be a big turnoff for people trying to get into the band, there have been 58 releases in 6 years since their last album, and arguably only 8 of them are worth getting. Since I could be considered a big Sabbat fan, I've been trying to hunt down most of their worthy releases, including those "official bootlegs". It can be a long and painful exercise to track down which are truly worth acquiring but they usually have several characteristics:
1. Includes exclusive tracks
2. Compilation of rare material released by one of their real labels
3. Alternate versions

Now, the ep at hand, Musta Tuli falls in the last category. I stated it's a characteristic of a worth acquiring Sabbat release, but, it really depends on its quality. Arguably, the only of those categories of releases worth owning is the second, since they have a bunch of really solid rare material, the others are pretty much only for fans depending on their availability. So what got me interested here is the tracklisting and artwork of the ep. First of all, it is the same cover as their self-titled '85 ep, their first release. They changed colours for black and silver, they chose the former probably because of the song "Black Fire" which is included here, but sung in Finnish hence "Musta Tuli". That brings my second point, the tracklist: it is the same as the aforementioned ep, "Black Fire" and "Mion's Hill" which their most re-recorded tracks, and for good reasons. And what caught my attention about the alternate version of "Mion's Hill", is that the vocals are done by none other than Sabbat's drummer Zorugelion and sung in Japanese. Besides some back vocals here and there in their older material, Zorugelion is the only member from the Gezol/Temis Osmond/Zorugelion line-up period to have never done any vocals, so I was obviously interested to see how he would fare, and if it could be an option to make him do vocals in some new Sabbat tracks, if his vocals would complement well those of Gezol as those of Temis did. Some may not agree, but I always like the idea of Sabbat re-recording those songs. The original versions were good, but they didn't play at their full potential, it was at an early stage of the band, but the talent and potential of the songs were obvious. They have since became classics of the band, "Black Fire" being re-recorded in a handfuls of different languages, from Japanese, to French, passing by Swahili (some kind of African dialect). It became some kind of international song, showing how metal reaches people across the world, and you don't need to be American or European to do some ass-kicking metal. And with the Swahili version, they didn't settle for changing the English vocals for those sung in another language. As for "Mion's Hill", each re-recording has them either doing some solo battles, epic versions etc. trying to make the most different versions with the same song.

Though the versions presented here may be the weakest they have done. "Musta Tuli" is a rather short version, half the length of the original, and the other is pretty much the same has the original (a different recording though) save for Zorugelion's vocals. Still the title track sounds great in Finnish, particularly the fast chorus and that brings another point; it's fast and it has a lot of syllables, seeing how it ends up in different languages makes some really interesting listens. Though here, it is said the song was recorded in 2003, I don't know if they just took the song and added Finnish vocals or made the whole song then, though one thing's sure, the 3 minutes available here are roughly the same than from the normal version. And "Mion's Hill" doesn't really make up for it either even if it's the most interesting song here. It's Sabbat doing a song in Japanese so it's always good to hear and Zorugelion's vocals are different than both other band members. They are a lot more contained, he isn't as eccentric as Gezol or Temis, feels a little less comfortable and is a lot more monotone in his delivery though he has some appeal. We could say he is more calculating in a way, as if he was reading some incantations - well it doesn't sounds as incantations - it felt me a little perplexed, as if I needed time to assimilate all this, which isn't much. Wondering how it would feel alongside Gezol in a new Sabbat album - if it has to be done one day - and I think it could make some rather interesting combination but really need to hear it in the context to say something more precise about it. But overall, that's the only thing interesting in that version.

So, all in all, is it a ep worth getting? Since it's easy to find and for cheap, if the concept of the ep interest you, I say yes, though it's not essential at all. Still it's more worthy than most of the material released under the Sabbat name.