SCARECROW / INDULGENCE - Deo Optimo Maximo (THRASHING MADNESS CD 2016)
Thrashing Madness comes back
with their another piece of Polish Metal Classics, introducing us to Scarecrow
and Indulgence. The story of these bands goes back to 1987, when Scarecrow was
formed in Bydgoszcz. In their short history they basically recorded just one
official demo “Deo Optimo Maximo” in 1989 and soon split up. A while later, in
1992, some Scarecrow members formed Indulgence and again did one demo “Embodiment
of Evil” and split up. Now these relics of the ancient metal scene from Poland
are available on great quality CD (with additional DVD!). And as usual,
Thrashing Madness did excellent job, when preparing their release. The booklet
for this CD is so fat that it can barely fit the jewel case and brings a lot of
information about these two bands, with interview, scans of photos and old zines
interviews and other stuff plus some comments on Scarecrow and Indulgence from
few old Polish metalheads. So, the presentation is as usual, very, very good. As
for the music, I cannot say that I’m big follower of these two bands, because I’m
not, but they recorded some decent demos, so I won’t say a bad thing about
them.
Scarecrow’s “Deo Optimo Maximo”
strikes with killer, furious and vicious… hmm, some call it black, some death,
some other people call it obscure thrash metal. It’s not easy to label this
music. It’s just like with Sodom’s debut EP. You can call it black metal or
thrash… One thing is certain: it sounds very archaic these days. Scarecrow
music has similar evil, nasty feeling and mostly is very, very fast, sick and
morbid, what I like a lot. Their songs are short, never crossing two minutes,
so they’re like short outbursts of maniacal aggression. I especially like their
first three tracks, they’re surely the best, especially “Ostatni Sakrament”. Later,
in such “Kurwa matka” or “Jestem w tobie” Scarecrow tried to come up with a bit
different arrangements, used some spoken vocals, but I don’t like the result so
much, these vocals suck badly. I do like the production though. It’s very
rough, but I love their guitar tone.
As a bonus for Scarecrow part,
we get here also three rehearsal recordings, but they’re not so interesting to
be honest, just fillers in my opinion. No vocals there, not the best sound
quality (luckily, it’s not tragic also), just three short tracks that can be
easily skipped.
And then we have Indulgence. I
remember that some tracks from their “Embodiment of Evil” demo were played in
local radio metal show back in the early 90’s and I had it taped back then. But
that was long long time ago and I don’t remember it at all now. So, it’s cool
to come back to this band after so many years. Indulgence has something in
common with Scarecrow, as their music is also often very fast, but
stylistically it seems to be more traditional, rather simple and archaic thrash
/ death metal, with quite raw production (which definitely could have been
better, with heavier guitars, etc) and quite harsh vocals. I like some of these
songs, especially “Darkness” (killer idea to use funeral march in one of the
slower riffs) or “First was the Wind”. Some other songs are much more mediocre,
but it’s OK. And they end up with killer Exodus cover, so…
…so what else can I write? These
two bands are not among my favourite 90’s Polish metal bands, they’re not even
in my top 20, but they surely had been an important part of the Polish metal
hell. As a proof, Vader recently did Scarecrow’s cover for their “Future of the
Past II – Hell in the East” compilation of covers.
PS. Sorry, but I had no time
to watch the DVD yet, so I cannot write anything about it, other than it
features old VHS recordings of 1992 gigs.
Final rate: ----
No comments:
Post a Comment