ABUSIVENESS - Dwie Twarze Mroku (Self released demo 1997)
I must admit that I have quite a lot of good
memories about this demo from Polish heathen metal band called Abusiveness as
it was actually one of the very first strictly underground releases (read: demo
tapes), which I got in my hands and for which I contacted directly the band.
Well, prior to that I only depended on my friends’ collections or what some
magazines were saying (Metal Side, Thrash’em All, Morbid Noizz and maybe few
more), so it was really something exciting to be able to contact Abusiveness,
send them a blank tape and get their demo recorded. Good times. It was 13 years
ago and I still have this tape here with me, which only confirms how important
that was for me and also how much I liked Abusiveness’ music. Yes, I do like it
a lot. Of course nowadays (it’s April 2012, when I write this short review) I
would rather listen to some recent Abusiveness’ recordings, especially their
amazing “Trioditis” album, but still it’s more than a pleasure and good
nostalgic feeling to come back to “Dwie Twarze Mroku” from time to time.
The material on “Dwie Twarze Mroku” (originally
recorded in 1997) still sounds strong and didn’t age so much. I can truly say
that if you’re into pagan metal, you will like this demo a lot. OK, the
production may not be the most perfected one ever, it’s actually quite raw and
the whole demo sounds almost like it was recorded 100% live in a rehearsal
room, but I guess it gives the whole music sort of authentic charm and
atmosphere, which sometimes can be missed in the sterile clean and digital
productions of many nowadays albums. “Dwie Twarze Mroku” may sometimes sound a
bit messy, but from the other hand you can hear all the guitar, bass or drum
parts relatively well, so there’s no problem.
The music on “Dwie Twarze Mroku” is very
Polish, if I can say so. I mean there were such bands in this land like
Sacrilegium, Hefeystos, Neasit, Thy Worshipper, even Behemoth on their “Grom”
LP, which shared specific atmospheres and styles. Their music was raw, but
majestic, atmospheric and had lots of epic parts and “Dwie Twarze Mroku” is
also very alike. There are many faster parts on these songs, but at the same
time Abusiveness uses a lot of melodies (which in many ways became their trademark,
as they were always very specific and gave the band some sort of originality
and uniqueness). They also add quite a few acoustic guitars and keyboards,
while vocals do not limit themselves only to the black metal scream, but
occasionally also to clean singing. The material is really strong, with such
memorable tracks as “Lędzianin”, “Alraune”, “Dwie Twarze Mroku”… Yeah, very
good demo tape indeed, even despite the obscure production I listen to it with
great pleasure and can say that it is one of my favourite Polish black metal
releases from the 90’s along with Behemoth recordings, Sacrilegium’s “Wicher”,
Hefeystos’ “Vilce Syen”, Sauron’s "Kraina Martwego Słońca" and Christ
Agony’s albums (of course I’m not going to mention all great Polish releases
from that time as there are too many).
Final rate: 70/100
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