Demo '98

Arthemesia – Demo ‘98

Suffers from “Curse of the Demo” – poor production quality. Otherwise a fairly solid Blakc Metal debut. Contains just three tracks, not really enough to characterize a band's musical style. It is just enough of a sample though to decide if they're worth pursuing. And for the record, I think they are.

The demo opens with '…My Oath, My Throne'. This track both fades in and fades out, which is ia little unusual for Black Metal. The vocals need to come down a notch in pitch. A little nasally for my taste. The listener is surprised by some clean vocals near the end. Don't know why, I didn't think the song needed it.

'A Serenade for the Hunt' is a slower, somber, almost Doom track with Black vocals. Very keyboard heavy, or maybe that’s just the production. This track could use some remastering. It's interesting enough to appear on a full length release, if they ever do another one.

'In the Shade of the Blackstone' finishes off the demo. This track needs some cleaning up, because it sounds as if they threw together every musical element not yet represented. Half the song is sung clean, which is fine with me. Peculiar addition of acoustic guitar towards the end, which is not.

All three tracks are on the long side for the genre, averaging just under 6 minutes. With a talented producer and some studio time Arthemesia could easily obtain Anorexia Nervosa level grandness. All the pieces are there.

This was an interesting demo to hear, especially considering that the band seems to release mostly demos. Their official websitre, by the way, reports that they're shopping around 'ShamaNatahS - Promo 2006ab', another promo that contains three new tracks plus 'Promon02ab'. I'm genuinely interested in seeing where they go with this.