Holocaust (Gdańsk) - The Towers of Isengard (rehearsal tape II 02.12.1994)

Holocaust

Black Metal z Gdańska

Metal Archives:
http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Holocaust/The_Towers_of_Isengard/49655
Download:
https://yadi.sk/d/uSO4dUyDVxkuG

Taken from:
http://ascoven.blogspot.com/2014/07/holocaust-towers-of-isengard-reh-ii-1994.html

Ok, more black metal contributions and a rare special double feature slash reupload, a few months ago (time passes damn quickly!) I was contacted again by an old contributor to the Coven who sent me his rips of these two Holocaust tapes, made from first generation tapes sent by Lord Thoth himself to our conspirator. As this rip of "Our Kingdom" is superior to mine I decided to upload it here at the same post so more people might notice it. And it was third demo, by the way. I'll update the old post which has more text about what I thought about it to refer to this entry too. Unfortunately he had no cover scan for me, but one cannot have everything. The main course here is the second rehearsal tape "The Towers of Isengard" which I had actually received a rip of not long before this one was sent to me! Both contributions are greatly appreciated but I'm going to go with this one, seeing how it is pretty much made from original. Sadly no cover scan for this either so we'll use Metal Archives pic.

This is a short tape, all but one track last less than two minutes and the longest one barely makes three. A spooky intro reminiscent of old B/W horror films opens the recording, followed by the obviously rehearsal-sounding yet clear (much cleaner than the '93 tapes) first track. Similar to the later demo the elements are again guitar (stronger and better here), drums and the extreme shrieking vocals. They're not quite as shrill as on the demo III and overall this works better for me. The compact playtime might be partially responsible for the effect. Recommeded listen to people into raw black metal, rehearsal recordings and basically mandatory for collectors of old Polish stuff. I'm hungry so this ends up a bit short, download away! It's probably good for hangover too.

Holocaust (Gdańsk) - Our Kingdom (demo 1997)

Holocaust

Black Metal z Gdańska

Metal Archives:
http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Holocaust/Our_Kingdom/59109
Download:
http://yadi.sk/d/r4sVSs1MKHvcr

Taken from:
http://ascoven.blogspot.com/2014/03/holocaust-our-kingdom-demo-1997.html

Back to the 90's and the murky dungeons of Poland, here's the (I think) fourth demo of the black metal band Holocaust which was a much fancier affair than the earlier tapes, being more or less professionally released by Drakkar. Or that's what I gather looking at the image provided by Metal Archives, my copy is a dub I got from comrade Triv already a while ago (thanks, Triv!) and unfortunately I haven't found decent scans of the covers. Assitance required there again.

To content, this is almost half an hour recording with the first and last tracks being intro and outro, both rather long and the tracks proper each clock between 4:05 and 5:48. The sound is very stripped down but clean enough. Odd guitar sound is somewhere between Veles' "Black Hateful Metal", Graveland's "Following..." and Countess' first album. Or was it the second? Percussion and vocals are the most noticeable and dominant elements. The main voice is an almost hysteric shriek which also brings Countess to mind and percussion is just barely on board. Some clean-ish singing vocals are used, fortunately briefly and they're not that bad in such small dose. There's a folkish feel to the demo, partially due the guitar almost sounding like a Jew's harp. Tempo is mostly in the mid range, from the more leisurely first proper track to the almost urgent parts of "Wizard" which does have slower parts too. I had something more in mind but now I need to get into kitchen and rescue my food from the oven so I'll just leave you to listen to this. Recommended for collectors of Polish demonology, people into odd guitar sounds and sloppy drumming and to whoever it was who requested this band's material in the first place!