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

Forgotten Ones: Dominus - View to the Dim

"View to the Dark Past"



Dominus... For those of you who doesn't know, this band would later evolve into Volbeat, but before doing that they started out as a death metal band from Ringsted. Speaking from experience, I lived in Ringsted for 13 years and I am surprised that a band like Dominus, or even any kind of metal band would spawn in that city. It is the asshole of Zealand since nothing fucking happens, and the metalhead population is 0 since I moved the hell away. But back to the matter at hand! Dominus changed their style for each album and personally I would only recommend the first two albums.
View to the Dim is death metal with a capital D. The successor The First 9 is also death metal but it got more hints of what Dominus would become later on, but it still contained death metal vocals.
And yes, it is Michael Poulsen who is the vocalist, and I am, like many others, truly amazed that he can deliver the vocals that you'll hear on this album.

"Upon the years of the seventh century, we followed the blaze to Valhalla. To see the mighty kingdom of Odin... To be among the bravest men of history."

The cover for this album looks really good, but I never understood why their logo was kept in the background of the white font instead of just using their proper logo... Anyway. Dominus are from Denmark (like yours truly) and we are many that take pride in our heritage as Vikings. For once you can see it on the cover, and you can hear it in the lyrics. Vikings and Nordic mythology is an ongoing theme on this album with well written lyrics which is well performed, and Mjölnir (Thor's hammer) is also portrayed on the back of the album. Aside from all that, the albums strongest force is its production, because it still blows me away even though I've listened to Dominus since 2010. The word "perfect" is not something I would ever use in a review, but the production on this album is pretty close! Drums, bass, guitar, vocals. Everything. It all sounds amazing, everything is audible, and nothing being drowned out. The vocals and the bass is probably what keeps blowing me out of my chair. It just sounds amazing, and is something that must be heard. 

The highlights of the album are"Tears of Black", "Bring Down the Roars", "Spiritual Mountain" and "The Ravens Eye" but I would strongly recommend you just listen through the whole thing. As those songs are the ones that shines the most, this whole album is put together extremely well and it is a pure joy going from start till finish. There is only one track that I could live without and that is the outro "Weiv Ot Eht Mid" which is stripped of all instruments and only feature vocals. I can't hear what's being said on the track but I definitely think it is redundant.

This album always struck me as something special because of its unique sound. Some songs has grown more on me over time than others, and for some everything is just instant hit. We are all different in that way but I can assure you that if you like quality old school death metal with a production that will melt your mind, then you should try check out "Volbeat" before they went soft. View to the Dim is a lost and forgotten gem and it is one of my favourite death metal records... and a little side tip.
If you like me enjoy View to the Dim, I would recommend that you check out the bands two demos Ambrosias Locus and Astaroth which was released respectively in '92 and '93. The bands single Sidereal Path of Colours from '93 also adds some good material for your Dominus death metal collection!

"Now as we ride in iron and steel, we know that this is the land of eternity."

Rating

8.9

Forgotten Ones: Feikn - Helhesten

"The Sun is red above the vaulted Sky"

Feikn is a band that started in 1997 and the members was situated both in southern Jylland and mid Sjælland. They had the same line-up for both the demo, Visse Ting Som Hænder and the EP, Helhesten. Though they had planned to record a 10'' called Gamle Sagn Lever Om Natten, the unfortunate nature of bassist Inanna's suicide, prevented this record from ever happening.

It starts out with a mellow acoustic guitar intro, also worthy of mentioning here is the clearness of the bass, which gives the music a deeper and cloudy atmosphere. The drums play simple beats, sometimes including some neats double bass patterns. Though the snare hits at times crack the production sound which threw me off a couple of times. The first track, Helhesten changes between acoustic passages and more traditional norwegian black metal riffs and beats while Aamanden consistently has a more mid-paced beat and feel to it.

The vocals, which are mainly performed by guitarist Isaz, consists of a more harsh yelling rather than the traditional black metal raspy screeching and a more operatic style of vocals, which are extremely well done. I adore them, at first they felt like they did not belong there, but a after a fourth and fifth listen I realized they fit the music and atmosphere perfectly. Drummer/vocalist Charon also have some pretty decent clean vocals which appear on the track, Aamanden. The distorted guitars are somewhat left in the background and not that much audible, which I felt is okay since the riffs does not sound that intriguing from what I can hear. But atleast they sound grieving and sorrowful when they play slow. Solos are nowhere to be found, and that dissapointed me a little bit.

Helhesten is a dark and sad near ten minutes of black metal, though it doesn't feel that way. If you like black metal in general, and want to hear something a little different, then this is highly recommended.

Rating

7.3