Dogmeat - A Prayer to the Dog demo 1993

Dogmeat - A Prayer to the Dog demo II 1993
1) Dirtiness / Hey!
2) Love
3) Dead Meat
4) The Flowers Grow (Again)
5) Solution
6) Blond Pigs Have More Fun

Mediafire / Rusfolder

Here is the second Dogmeat demo, also courtesy of brother Suuret Muinaiset, thanks for your efforts! Much of what I wrote in the previous entry applies here except the music has evolved somewhat. There are less songs but they're much longer (in the average over 5 minutes instead of the 2½ minutes of previous demo) except for the last one which I guess serves as a kind of outro.

The sound is roughly similar to the previous one, except the guitar is not quite as dominant and the percussion sounds much better, there's more power to it. The vocals have changed this time, now it's more like death grunts run through a filter which I'm more comfortable with. I think the songwriting and riffs are better overall as well and the Celtic Frost and Black Sabbath influences more obvious, in 'Frost's case fortunately better chosen too. So possibly a slight dissappointment for fans of the first demo, could be an improvement as well. I know I like this one better.

Dogmeat - Revolution Paradise demo 1992

Dogmeat - Revolution Paradise demo I 1992
1) For the Gods Above
2) Blood Purified
3) Colossal Althar
4) Revolution Paradise
5) Gnomus Variation
6) Doom Mood
7) Dogmatic Hypothesis Evidence
8) Fuckin' Lullabye

RGhost / Yandex

And now something little different again. Don't let the cover fool you, this is not nsbm or even neofolk, or punk. Dogmeat from Finland was a one-man project that released two demos and two EP's between 1992 - 95. This is the first one and brother Suuret Muinaiset was once again kind enough to sate my curiosity by ripping his copy as well as providing a cover scan, thank you!

Eight tracks which are all quite short, the whole demo lasting less than nineteen minutes and as far as I'm concerned that is a positive thing. I've seen this compared to Godflesh a lot, which I'm not really a fan of, as well as Celtic Frost circa "Into the Pandemonium" (mostly to the atrocious "One in Their Pride") and things as far apart as grind/noise and Black Sabbath. Let it be noted I haven't and won't compare this to Sabbath and would like to apologize to master Iommi & co. for mentioning them together with this thing here. You might have read between the lines I'm not too excited by this and you're right, this is in my humble opinion awful crap. Well, the guitar sound is quite nice. The effected vocals are so annoying I want to throw my headphones out of the window and smash the monitor with this keyboard right now. Fortunately they're not used in every track. I might not be the leading expert in industrial metal so you probably should check this out if you're a fan, I'm off to get some coffee and some z-rate German black metal from 90's to clear my head with. Handle with care!

SS 2666 - Promo 1997

SS 2666 - Promo 1997
1) Bloody Charriots
2) Holocaust Thunder

Yandex / RGhost

Let's do a quickie today and also something different. And obscure, you see, this short two track promo tape was sent to me by one of my tape traders in the 90's and the only info he had was that it was promo 1997 and featured personnel from Prophecy (pol), Hermh and possibly some other band which I now forget... though the Discogs entry to a compilation CD "Brum numer 50" featuring the first track here credits only two people, Bartłomiej "Bart" Krysiuk for lyrics and Szymon Czech for music while Christ Agony website's bio mentions Marek Kutnik also as a member. And that's pretty much all I've got... until I asked Bart who supplied me with tracklisting and told me they had been preparing for a full length album which was never finished and this tape didn't have any covers or such. Apparently they've also recorded something in 2005 also and Witching Hour might release the SS 2666 material as a 7"EP.

Until that happens we're stuck with my rip here which is ok quality, unfortunately the tape seems a little worn in places and you can hear the results occasionally. The first track can be found in better quality as it was released on the compilation CD I mentioned and the possibly upcoming Witching Hour release will be remastered, Szymon had done that before his death. I guess a few words about what this sounds like might be necessary? It's a mixture of industrial/electronic metal with electronic and industrial beats, metal guitars, mostly harsh vocals, samples and so on. The sound would be good if not for the lacking dub quality. As a quick reference I'd say it's more ...And Oceans than Diabolicum. If these genres and their combinations interest you, it might be a good idea to check this out. Or if you're into the related bands. Not probably for everyone reading this blog.

Amon Hen - Skeleton-Dances adv.tape 1995

Amon Hen - Skeleton-Dances advance tape 1995
1) Landscape 2.
2) Landscape 1.
3) Dream?
4) Brainstorm

Reuploaded

Ok, let's do something different again, here is Amon Hen from Hungary and an advance tape/promo they sent around in 1995. This might be a rough mix or something of the cassette EP/MLP of the same name, don't remember for sure and of course I don't have the other tape at hand to compare! Anyways, this tape was released some months before the rather professional looking real thing. Cover scan is included.

So what is the music like? Hard to put to a proper category, for sure. I saw the older tape G.L.A.S.S. being described as avantgarde cyber metal which I suppose wouldn't be too far off the mark as there are metal elements to this, especially the first track. But overall I suppose this is closer to industrial or gothic sound, perhaps EBM even. This is the field of music where I need to tread carefully so I don't think I can pull of very convincing name dropping or comparisons this time around. So we have synths, samples, distorted guitars, spoken voices, effected vocals (robot vocals on track 4!), beats, atmospheric parts and more going on here. It's quite weird, uneven and kind of interesting. I guess I could recommend it to both very open-minded readers and those who enjoyed stuff like Plastic Sampler, Neverwood (either, really) or maybe even Landfill among earlier posts. That is all, next time either metal, ambient or a 'zine... I guess I'll roll the dice to see.

Neverwood - Grown demo 1997

Neverwood (fin - Lahti) - Grown demo 1997
1) Murder in the Kindergarten. Pt2
2) Headless
3) Grown
4) All Good Children

Reuploaded

This is again a bit different post and something I wasn't expecting either as I asked Grev to dub me this demo. You see, I thought it might be another demo by this Neverwood but turned out this was a completely different band. Even though there is a slight similarity as this one plays some sort of electro-industrial metal which reminds me of The Kovenant and Diablerie to drop some names quick. So naturally I was a bit dissappointed. Grev sent scans of the covers as well, much appreciated brother!

Like I said above, this reminds me a bit of few later 90's bands working in this area, but as this was not really my shot of vodka even back them I'm not too familar with many projects of this kind. The main issue was that they were too light and this demo isn't very heavy and neither is it very dark. However, if you approach it more from an electronic/industrial music angle than metal it works much better. I personally prefer the less metallic but gloomier atmospheres of the last track. Check it out, you know you're curious now!

Landfill - Confined Inner Beauty demo 1993

Landfill (us) - Confined Inner Beauty demo 1993
1) Idle Bleeding (Intro)
2) Slough of Desolate Haze
3) Confined Inner Beauty
4) Same Mind (By Doom)
5) Digging Yourself to Death
6) Devoid
7) Injected Serenity

Reuploaded

Something different now, industrial death metal from the States, Landfill has released two demos and two albums. Their mid-career label, the notorious Wild Rags, was supposed to release also a split with Amon Hen but this didn't happen. This item here is the second demo, also released by Wild Rags, which I got from a tape trader of mine in the 90's. Without cover, so a Metal Archives image once again. At least this time it's bearable.

The demo contains almost half an hour of industrial/death metal hybrid moving in mid and slower paces. Not bad at all, leaning maybe more to the industrial end of the sound rather than the death metal, the music does manage to bring about feelings of gloom and alienation. Of course it is quite monotonous at times and some of the parts are not that great, I grow weary of the samples pretty soon, especially on the intro, and the vocals might have a little more variety to them, though I guess the lack of is intentional here. Good sound and as the dub was ok quality and not too advanced generation the rip came out nice. There's some minor tape hissing but if you're a seasoned veteran of this blog you probably expect it to have some. Adds to the listening experience, more authentic cassette feeling etc. Recommended to the more open-minded readers/listeners, not so much to the hardcore death metallers.