This "dragon metal" band from Latvia gives us an enchanting, magical work of
creation as their first demo. Their songs are mid-paced, flowing
narrative-structured metal songs with many lyrics actually written in the form
of a bardic tale, which is not at all inappropriate.
The sound is well-produced in a studio environment, each of the instruments
clearly distinguishable, yet giving space for the emotional vocals to express
and communicate their story. The lead is taken by the female vocalist Rasa
(Ronja nowadays), who handles her high-pitched and trained-sounding voice
skillfully during normal pace, but with the increasing tempo starts sounding
more ecstatic and almost hysterical in a way reminding of upbeat dance-pop. Pop
music elements can also be heard in the poignant keyboards, which emphasize
major-key notes most of the time, never playing an individual melody that would
be distinguishable from the dual-guitar riffing. Fortunately, the drug-induced
keyboardist Morgueldar knows how to inspire visions of beauty and majesty with
simple note combinations, that reach quite complex levels of (dis)sonance in the
best songs of the demo. The brightness, lightness and happy elvishness of the
constant stream of melody may sound escapist, careless and uninvolved to a grim
listener and so, it is fortunate that this band has labeled themselves away
from black metal, even if some of the darker, more sorrowful riffing and
Morgueldar’s tortured, mostly uncontrolled vocal shrieks would give them
aesthetical justification for it. The dark scream sounds out of place at times,
as in the romantic "Lament of the Shield-Maid" and gives reason to suspect that
this band has not yet reached a fully satisfactory conclusion concerning style.
Out of the two sides of the demo, the side "Dragons" comes out as being the more
powerful one, containing songs with more diversity in arrangement, like the evil
"Wolfghosts" and the folkish "Aelfwine".
contact :
Heresiarh website
© 1999 black hate