Celtic Poetry

Vlad Tepes was one of the better and more melodic and accessible bands in the Black Legions: these guys played with a lot of passion, their music had a very distinctive salty folk flavour and its sound was very scratchy and bleeding-scab raw. "Celtic Poetry" is a very old and early demo of theirs and consists of four songs, all of which were retouched for a later joint recording with fellow Black Leagues band Belketre, "March to the Black Holocaust", which I reviewed a couple of years ago. The melodies of most songs are instantly recognisable to me in spite of the sandstorm-noise distortion that all but swamp them. The production job on this demo is pretty shitty and cheap but it doesn't detract from the band's style at all and actually makes the musicians sound more aggressive and edgy than they really are.

Longest track here is "Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple" which is very enthusiastic and the most folk-sounding rush-job full of raw, noisy tremolo-guitar sound and fury. The singing is crabby, screechy and slumbering in turns but otherwise doesn't detract from the martial rhythms and headlong charge of the music. "Under the Carpathian Yoke" is a straightforward scrabbly screed of hatred and aggression.

There's a definite break before the third track "Diabolical Reaps" which is a very groove-laden song under the constant gravelly groaning. It passes jerkily into outro track "Misery, Fear and Storm Hunger" which is a furious piece with scraping-fingernails-down-a-board vibrato guitar and even more angry growling vocals. There's a little room for improvisation though with the primitive recording conditions here, maybe this track wasn't edited much or edited well at all and the music was left in its original state with splats of guitar feedback here and there.

Even if you have the split compilation mentioned above, it's still worth your while listening to this demo to hear Vlad Tepes at their most wild and raging. "March to the Black Holocaust" starts to sound fairly tame and bottled up by comparison. Those unfamiliar with Vlad Tepes probably should hear "Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple" first and decide whether they want to pursue the rest of the band's material on the basis of the song's melody and production.