BAL SAGOTH - DEMO I (fun review 1# new)

I am going to start doing random reviews from time to time now, mostly based on my favorite albums, demos and such. Been meaning too for awhile but never got to it, but at this rate, I wont be able to do it till I start now!!! Sorry underground bands, I just would love to review my favorites too, but at the same time, SUPPORT THE UNDERGROUND!!! hey, you would do it too, if you were me. Right??? -D

I never really got into Bal Sagoth until tonight. I remember watching the Emperor video of a fine day to die cover live on the Anthems To Welkin At Dusk cd I bought as a bonus feature, and the singer of Bal Sagoth was on stage with a huge fucking medieval times sword from the time of dragons, and mysticism, and such. He screamed out some Bathory lyrics, and I thought he was bad ass then I truely wanted to set out and find out what this guy really was all about today. His discography I heard is real epic sounding, and fantasy like, which I yet to listen to it all, but the first thing I made sure to selfishly download from them was the 1st Bal Sagoth Demo from 1993. Thinking it would might sound like their later albums I yet to hear but more rawer and dirty, I downloaded this bad boy off a site called MEGAPORN, not megauploader, MEGAPORN lol it just so happened that I found their discography on a blog spot, and the demo said follow this link, so I did and hahahaha my freaking ass off. I got the demo though all joking aside, and um I opened it on winrar, got the songs transferred to my Realplayer library and started listening and FUCKING DAMN... this is totally what I have not expected!!! It is like a cross of 80s brutal technical death metal, elements of OLD darkthrone, and the vocal prowess of Napalm Death in its hey day, and fucking BOLT THROWER. Shit this demo is great. It also has some passages of a lighter but darker side to it on a short instrumental in between a track and at the end of the demo but it is totally thrashing and powerful for a recorded onto tape demo and never released, but just circulated around to labels for secretive notice. This demo I recommend to anyone starting to listen to Bal Sagoth like I am, and I look forward to collecting the rest of their albums, but hopefully to pick up one of their cds, a shirt, and hopefully a Bal Sagoth vinyl would be fucking excellent. To sum up this review, download it now from this megaporn site hahaha! and enjoy its powerful sound and technical cunning-ness. -D



INFO FROM METAL ARCHIVESDemo, Independent
December 1993
- No cover was made for this demo

This demo was never officially released; it was just sent out on the underground
tape trading network in 1993 in order to be circulated.

Track 1 is sampled from the film "Masters of the Universe". Frank Langella,
playing the part of Skeletor, speaks the lines.
Track 2 is a different, shorter version of the song that later appeared on "A
Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria".
Track 3, after extensive lyrical and musical changes, eventually became "Shadows
'Neath The Black Pyramid" from "A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria".
Track 4 was eventually dismantled and had some of its constituent parts
incorporated into other songs.

Tracks 2 and 3 are both featured as exclusive bonus tracks on the Japanese
pressing of the Bal Sagoth album "Atlantis Ascendant".

Contrary to popular belief, there is no cover artwork for this demo. The band
sent this as a blank tape to record labels and copied it onto other blank tapes
for fans who requested it. The picture shown was thrown together by someone
using an old band photo and some photoshop working. Funnily enough, this cover
IS shown on the official Bal-Sagoth page.

After the last song, there is a short outro sample resembling a gate grinding to
a close. The whole is only around 8 seconds long.

DOWNLOAD NOW : Demo I

1.	Intro	01:36
2.	Dreaming of Atlantean Spires (Alpha)	04:58
3.	By the Blaze of the Fire Jewels (Zero)	05:34
4.	A Shadow on the Mist	05:27
Total playing time		16:35