Forgotten Ones: Tågefolket - Lad Asketid Begynde

"I See Fog People"


We, Danes have never been that efficient at creating our own unique metal genres. Not like our Scandinavian brothers, such as the Swedes death metal or the Norwegians black metal. But still we have good bands in both of those areas such as Iniquity, Deus Otiosus, Denial of God and Nortt. Ynleborgaz, on the other hand is better than good. He is a Danish primal one-man band machine with a lot of ideas. With bands such as Angantyr, Make a Change... Kill Yourself and Holmgang on his resumé. Tågefolket was a project made by him and Huul from Blodarv, and different from other bands he was or is in. The atmospheric button has been dialled way up and overall feel is very claustrophobic and haunting.

Lad Asketid Begynde, which can be translated to 'Let the Time of Ashes Begin', I thought was a re-recording of the 1996 demo of the same name but that is not really the case, I think, although I could be wrong on that one... Anyhow, the album cover fits the music perfectly, it is simple, grey and spooky. The medium paced-passage in the end of the first song has a very eerie atmosphere about it... A feeling that there is people singing in edges of the forest but you can´t see them while you're walking by. Ynleborgaz mostly implement simple riffs with not a lot of meat on them, but they don't ruin the EP completely, as they are quite eerie in sound. The production is not really special, the drums have a hollow production but are at least well-played with a lot of awesome fills and beats, especially on Lad Asketid Begynde, Del I. The bass is sometimes inaudible, but usually just lies in background chilling with sixteenth note tremolo riffs. As I said before the guitars are nothing special, but do the majority of the job to give a very neurotic and tight atmosphere.

The vocals are quite good, they sound like a thicker and a more agonizing version of Fenriz, but with a more flexing behaviour and a small dose of chanting clean vocals on the first track. Lad Asketid Begynde, does suffer from a couple of things, mainly the length of the demo and variation. If there were more passages such as on track one with more catchy mid-paced riffs like on Lad Asketid Begynde, Del II. This demo would have been much greater, but too many times I felt the riffs were kind of dull, simple and unvaried,  It has the potential, especially with the atmosphere, if you can dig it up somewhere I would recommend this to any black metal fan.

Rating

Exhumed - Platters of Splatter

''A Feculent Cluster of the Purest Gore Metal''

When I first saw the album cover to this album sitting in the store I picked it up and thought it was disgusting as hell. All I saw was a gorefest, I did not think it was resembling anything, but now my eyes see it is a tribute shrine for all the filthy, disemboweling goregrind Exhumed did back in the day.  Little did I know that some years later I bought this very record and it would become one of my all-time favourites.

At the beginning of this feast of a beast, a typical death metal enthusiast's mouth would make it drivel all over. Its, griddy production value, the muddy guitar-squeeling sounds, vocals both so high and low that it will make your head explode and lyrics so grisly and loathsome it made me cringe, which gore lyrics normally don't do. Most gore metal fans just don't take the gore lyrics-thing too serious, they just have fun with it. And Exhumed sure had fun with them here, but at the same time they are very disturbing imagewise.

Matt Harvey really is a frenetic and hard-working musician, you can hear that on tracks like 'Necrovores: Decomposing The Inanimate' and 'Bone Fucker', so many changes, passages and variation of chugging and tremolo-picking. Harvey's gore-soaked vocals completely dominates this record, they are in great shape and really tearing up each track like it was a chunk of dripping flesh, plus they have a striking resembling to Carcass, which is also the main inspiration for the most of Exhumed's 20 year long career.

Now, the only thing that bugs me with this record are the drums and the bass. Now the drums are audible most of the time, but sometimes they are very muddy and sloppily produced, but that is to be expected since it is from self-produced and released demos. The bass is almost inaudible throughout all the demos, except on a few tracks like 'Emeticide' and 'Quagmire of Flesh'. But besides it being buried beneath the bludgeoning drums and screeching guitars it just becomes awesome and does its own kind of thing, when you can hear it.

This platter splattered masterpiece remains one of my favourite records to listen too on a daily basis, the sheer brutality, variation with interesting covers and just pure awesomeness. A great recollection of the early Exhumed, and is something every death metal and grindcore fans should listen to, it will be worth your time and money. This band is a true testimony to all that is good about extreme music, it will demand your attention and punch you in the balls with a chainsaw for a hand if you don't give it.

Memorable songs:
Horrendous Member Dismemberment, Necrovores: Decomposing The Inanimate, Torso, Dead Again, Goreified, Grotesque Putrefied Brains, Quagmire of Flesh and Puke of the Dead

Rating

8.5