Emperor
1.I am the Black Wizards
2.Wrath of the Tyrants
3.Night of the Graveless Souls
4.Cosmic Keys to my Creations & Times

Wrath of the Tyrant
5.Introduction
6.Ancient Queen
7.My Empire's Doom
8.Forgotten Centuries
9.Night of the Graveless Souls
10.Moon Over Kara-Shehr
11.Witches Sabbath
12.Lord of the Storms
13.Wrath of the Tyrant


Total Time : 50 min 43

In '91-'92, Emperor has released two demos (one on split CD with enslaved), now re-released on CD by Candlelight Records : these demos are 'Emperor' and 'Wrath of the Tyrant'. So this CD is divided in two parts...

The first one, 'Emperor', contains 4 songs and two of them ('I am the Black Wizards' and 'Cosmic Keys to My Creations & Times') will appear on the band's only good album, 'In the Nightside Eclipse'. This first demo is excellent : even if the production is not really good (very fuzzy), we can hear all the instruments. The atmosphere is really Dark and Evil and the music is intense, mostly because the singer shouts desperately all the lyrics, with some death growls in the background. Keyboards are used on almost all the songs, but on 'Night of the Graveless Souls' the keyboards are quite strange (silly and pathetic should I say)...

The second part, 'Wrath of the Tyrant', is different, because the sound quality is worse, and unlike Darkthrone, this bad production was not wanted. But like the first demo, this one is very dark and evil. The vocals are as great as on the first demo, but sometimes Ihsahn use strange screams... and it adds a very special and, hum, an infernal dimension to the music.

Unfortunately, the lyrics are not included in the booklets (there's two booklets : the fist one provides some info about the demos -line up and stuff- and the second one is a commercial booklet. blah, fuck that) Line up on these demos : Ihsahn (guitar, vocals & keyboards), Mortiis (Bass and he wrote the lyrics), Samoth (guitar), Faust (drums).

Conclusion :
These demos, imo, are really good, even if the production is bad on the first one and horrible on 'Wrath...'

Good Points :
- Intense and original music (back in '91 - '92)
- Dark and Evil Atmosphere
- Great vocals

Bad Points :
- Bad production
- Some songs on the second demo are too short

Rating/5 : 4+1/2

© 1999 cythrawl