Origo Regium 1993-1994

(Review originally appeared in Gnosis Webzine in 2000)

My perfect vision of the ideal of black metal grimness can be summed up in one word… Abigor.

Abigor have taken the basic precepts laid forth by the low-fi, but brilliant nightmares courtesy of seminal black metal masterpieces such as Mayhem's De Mysteriis dom Sathanas, Burzum's Hviss Lyset Tar Oss, and even Emperor's Into the Nightside Eclipse as their musical blueprint. However, instead of aping those acts verbatim, Abigor builds upon these influences with such great passion and creative revelation that they transcend and surpass all that came before them.

Origo Regium is a collection of demos recorded prior to Abigor’s debut album, “Verwüstung / Invoke the Dark Age”, and they show a very clear picture of how Abigor came to be. Abigor has evolved and de-evolved over their existence, meta-morphing from “primitive symphonic” into one of the few convincing technical black metal bands I’ve ever heard, and then back into something even more primal and brutal on their latest releases. Abigor has also been one of the most prolific in the genre, rivaling even Darkthrone for sheer quantity of output, while always retaining a surprising level of excellence. Origo Regium just goes to further illustrate that fact.

One thing that really sets Origo Regium apart from other demos is the clean production, which is very representative of Abigor’s sound. Compared to the earliest demos of Enslaved, Mayhem, or Emperor, where you can barely discern what is going on, Origo Regium is spacious & clean, allowing you to hear each instrument clearly. This is impressive because these demos where recorded on 4-track with sub par equipment.

Unlike most demos, which often show the promise, but still undeveloped potential of a band, Origo Regium showcases the fact that Abigor had already realized much of their vision even at this early stage. The music is breathtaking, both in the scope of the performances and the high-caliber arrangements.

If you are reading this review, wondering whether to check it out or not, you probably need no introduction to Abigor. This compilation of early demos features mostly the material that appears on Verwustung, arguably Abigor's best full-length album, and is thus bound to be of high quality.

There are some minor complaints about the production, such as the vocals being too high in the mix and the low initial volume, but other than those (the volume issue is ignorable, as you can just turn the volume up), the production is very good for demo material, while still being raw. The production is what primarily makes the music here sound darker compared to Verwustung.

Mildly complicating the issue of the relatively high vocal volume are the vocals themselves. Tharen, while competent, is no Silenius. His vocals are strongly reminiscent of Abbath of Immortal, which is hardly a good thing in itself, and this style of vocals is not very suiting to Abigor's music. They are not really bad, but nor are they up to par with the rest of the excellent music.

Yes, the rest is excellent. All the defining characteristics of Abigor -- the highly emotional leads, progressive song structures, seamless incorporation of acoustic guitars, beautiful tremolo melodies, homophonic twin guitar lines and interesting percussion with a tribal touch -- are all present on this compilation. And this is not merely a collection of songs -- this compilation can actually be listened to as a full album, with an intro, interludes, and an outro being present. Among the tracks not found on Verwustung, Filii Septemtrionum is an intro as it says, and Animae Totae and Abysmal Scorn (which opens with a riff that sounds like a simplified version of one found in Emptiness/Menschenfeind/Untamed Devastation on Orkblut) are ambient-oriented interludes (though they have guitars and vocals). Shadowlord, which opens with a riff that would later become the intro riff of In Sin (but the rest of the song is different), is an actual song in the vein of other early material (as would be expected), and with very high quality. Rest of the songs, which all appear on Verwustung, are mostly played in the same way as the album version, except Midwintertears which lacks the intro lead and the metal part that comes in after the long acoustic passage (this version of Midwintertears is connected directly to the outro). Then there are such major classics like Kingdom of Darkness and My Soft Vision in Blood (which is longer than the version on Verwustung). And of course, Eye to Eye At Armageddon, one of the best black metal songs ever written, which has the organs emphasized compared to the Verwustung version (probably due to the low volume of guitars).

This is not an essential release, although it would have been a cult classic of the black metal genre had Abigor broken up without releasing anything after the demos. There isn¡¯t a truly compelling reason to listen to this when you can get Verwustung, which has better vocals and sound quality. Nonetheless, this is definitely a worthwhile listen for fans of the band.