The Awakening - Invictus
A whole album’s worth of melodic Metal with cleanly sung vocals. Although not as Doomy, I am reminded a lot of Solitude Aeturnus, with perhaps a little Dio or something like that thrown in. If all the songs were as ass-kicking as the first one, “As the Winds Blow,” this would be an easy 10.
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Avatar (Illinois - USA) - Demo 5/95
Mike and company return with more of their patented Thrash attack. But it’s a little different this time. The production is strangely not quite as good as their last demo [Avatar ‘93 -Editor], although it makes the songs sound heavier, and the vocals are a bit more gruff. Musically, this actually even better than before, which is really saying something. When you write, be sure to also ask Mike about his excellent zine, Dreaded.
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Astaroth (Florida - USA) - Songs of Sorrow
As I sit here waiting for the intro (sounds of rain) to end, I am hoping that I won’t have to endure any more tales of Alicia, and what a bitch she is, when all of a sudden the first song starts, and now I’m wondering if this is the same Astaroth who recorded the fuckin’ awesome Lost State of Dreams demo. It is. Well, I guess they don’t want to sound like they’re from Sweden anymore, because the heavy guitar sound is gone. Make no mistake, the production is ultra clear, and honestly, the sound is great, but I miss their previously evil tone. Also, do I hear a woman laughing in the background of - if the intro has it’s own title - “Eyes of Black” (or maybe it’s still “Prelude to Chaos”)? Hmm, well, anyway, the vocals are a bit more understandable now as well, and sometimes they sound great, like on “Drowning in Blood,” where they are multi-tracked, in what is the best use of 2 vocal tracks I’ve heard for a while. This demo has it’s moments, to be damn sure, and these guys are experimenting with their sound, which is good, but although they are excellent musicians, and clearly know how to write memorable stuff, somehow not all the experiments are successful.
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Amorphis - Black Winter Day
Three of these four tracks are new. I would imagine that they are leftovers from the Tales from the Thousand Lakes album, as they are not quite up to that level.
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Aversion - Fall from Grace
These guys stick with their Thrash/Punk sound, and add a little faster drumming here and there. Some of the 14 songs are really amazing, and the others are all at least good. The playing and recording are both great, though, so that helps.
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Avernus - Blood Gathers Frost
These guys sure like to put out tapes with one track from their next demo. Anyway, this song (you guessed it, it’s just the one track) sees Avernus trading some heaviness for added atmosphere, and more use of keyboards (in addition to Rick’s guitar synth rig). Also, Kim does a little more singing than before, which is fine with me, but Rick has completely abandoned his Death Metal style vocals in favor of a low-register warble, so the contrast between their voices is drastically lessened. I worshiped his growls (as you’ll notice by the other reviews), and so the new vocal direction is taking some getting used to. Also, this song is much shorter than the epic-length cuts I have come to expect from this band, clocking in at about 4:30, whereas “Anastasia” was about 12 minutes. I don’t know what all the changes mean, except that the band is always growing, which is what good bands do, but the line between too much change too fast, and not enough is razor sharp, indeed. For me, at least, this wasn’t too fast.
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At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul
Their new label, Earache, has done little to change this band, but were their songs always so short? The longest one is only 3:35. That bit of trivia aside, this is an all out attack of screeched-vocal (shades of Kreator’s Mille?) evil Death. It’s even memorable, and that really pushes it over the hump.
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Argyle Park - Misguided
This hard Industrial / Electronic outfit seems to be pretty on top of things most of the time. They venture out into the Thrash realm, and then swing back into a world near Ambient, by way of a Hard Beat dance floor, all within a single track. I’ll admit that not everything they do really works for me, but they are clearly good at this. I am pretty sure that they even sample Slayer. It’s too bad that the “spoken word” hidden tracks almost totally ruin this otherwise good CD.
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Arckanum - Fran Marder
For the most part, this is fairly simplistic and straight-forward Black Metal. There are some attempts to make things a bit more atmospheric, and some interesting ideas, but generally they fall flat. This isn’t bad, but it’s certainly no big deal.
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