Unsigned

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Euphoreon – Before The Blackened Sky (2009)

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    Euphoreon hails from New Zealand and their demo “Before The Blacked Sky” took me by surprise. This one man band is clearly influenced by Wintersun, Ensiferum, etc. This demo is one of the best I heard this month, since it’s perfectly produced and the music is very fresh and enjoyable, too bad it only has 3 songs.

    The guitars, bass and vocals are performed by the sole member, while the drums and everything else is programmed. The guitar work is excellent and it’s clearly the style of music this band is shooting for (Epic Melodic Metal). There are plenty of nice guitar solos that complement the music.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Fenris Cult – Heil Blackgod! (2009)

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    Every time I listen to a terrible demo I say that it can’t get worse than that, well many times I’m wrong. This month I found this demo, and let me say (again), it’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my life. As you can see the title of the demo is misspelled (no it’s not one of my many typos), and from this it all goes down to hell (in a bad way).

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Thee Orakle – Metaphortime (2009)

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    Every once in a while I stumble upon a great album from an unsigned band, and this month’s surprise album was “Metaphortime” by Thee Orakle from Portugal. I’m always amazed that bands of this quality are not signed while other bands that suck are. Anyways, this band formed in 2004 and after one demo and one EP they released this album. If you did not know this, you would have never imagined it.

    “Metaphortime” showcases a band that is very good at playing a style that has been loosing popularity over the last few years (Death /Doom Gothic metal) because most of the band playing this style sounded all similar. But Thee Orakle manages to keep it fresh and while they are not the most original band, they are pretty good at what they play. And in my opinion that’s what quality a band should do.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Sublagrimal - Mental Execution (2009)

    Well I have to say that I haven’t listened to many different Electro / Industrial bands, or stuff related, it’s just not my thing. This Colombian band provides us, from what I can say a very decent Electro/ Industrial album. All the tracks have the same feel and you can probably play the album with no skips and dance the night away.

    This is pretty much all I can say about this release, since I don’t know how to judge good electro music and stuff like that.
    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Silent Descent - Duplicity (2009)

    After listening to this album, I had to do more research on the band, and then I found out that they have won a few battle of the bands competitions, and many magazines have been calling phrasing them to no end. Well I can say that they are 100% correct. While it took me a while to really get into their music I have to say: it’s pretty fucking amazing.

    They label themselves as trance metal, and I think is not very accurate, but they do play a mean Industrial/melodic death metal. I have to say that their music is original in the sense that they sometimes burst out singing like some cheesy synth pop band, and it blends very well with their overall musical style.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Luna Obscura - Feltia (2008)

    I have been looking for a great gothic/doom release for the whole year of 2008 and I was never able to find one. Just a few weeks ago I discovered Luna Obscura, and since the album was released in 2008 I have to say that I did found the release I was looking for during that year.

    After finding bands like this I have to wonder if the world is ever going to run out of bands that play this <insert-any-genre> at it’s best, and my answer has always been: NO, I keep finding bands that blow me away.
    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Inferi - The End of an Era (2009)

    While Nashville, Tennesee is not usually know for its metal bands Inferi calls this city home. This bands release is very good if you don’t consider two things: 1) Very bad recording/mixing and 2) Terrible vocals (or it might be the recording).

    Inferi plays melodic death metal, and they do so with a lot of energy and brilliant precision since most of their songs are very fast in nature and therefore their guitar work is amazing, I cant say much for the bass guitar since you can’t hear it. But the drumming is very good (it would be better if the recording was not this bad).
    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Hybrid Heaven - The Textures Of Spirits (2008)

    There are several reasons why I label this as a demo: 1) The production quality is not very good, 2) The band is unsigned and 3) It’s limited to 200 copies. Setting this aside, this Mexican band plays a pretty decent trash/death metal with progressive elements. The vocals are the weakest element in this release.

    The music however is pretty good for a first release from this band, they are clearly influenced by progressive music and they have enough skills to incorporate these influences in their songs.

    This release is around 50 minutes long and the songs are very short, however they are not too repetitive or annoying and they do a good job at creating different rhythms in every song. 

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    My Life's Despair - Love, Sorrow, and Suicide (2009)

    I will call this release a demo since it contains only 3 songs and it’s freely available on their myspace page. This is an American one man band that while not having the best production behind their demo, it clearly makes an impact.

    My Life’s Despair has their music style well defined to be a mixture of early My Dying Bride, Crematory and The Sins of Thy Beloved. And this release is a great stepping stone into hopefully a full length album with better production.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    The Worthless Dream - Trip Through Depression And Autumn (2009)

    There is only one way of describing this ‘rehersal demo’: WTF, yes I just said What The Fuck, how do you even leak something like this on the internet. The demo consists of only 1 song that is around 16 min long, and let me guide you through my experience on it.

    The first 6 minutes sound like just a shitty metal band learning how to make a doom metal song. Then I was almost in a boredom trance, when I hear some fucking screams like somebody out of an Asian horror film, it kind of caught me of guard and freaked me out, not because it’s impressive, but because it is so lame.

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