Dagor - Songs of the Slav Ground

DAGOR - Songs of the Slav Ground (FALLEN TEMPLE - CD 2017)

This is a reissue of 1995 demo "Songs of the Slav Ground" of the band called Dagor. It's the only recording of this short-lived band from Poland, although I'm not quite sure what year they split up for good. I have to say that reissuing this demo on CD and MC was quite good idea, because it definitely is a good piece of classic Polish black metal, so this repress can save Dagor music from perishing. I like the idea also because I don't think I ever had a chance to listen to Dagor before. I definitely am familiar with this band's name or even with the artwork for the demo (which I had to see in some old fanzines, I suppose), but I don't think I ever heard it before. 

The pleasure is bigger because "Songs of the Slav Ground" is a damn good demo. Stylistically you can obviously put it aside to the old Behemoth, Graveland, Infernum or Sacrilegium. But I would also add early Enslaved to this set of bands (keyboards and even the vocals remind me old Grutle). "Songs of the Slav Ground" contains four pretty solid songs of raw, but atmospheric black metal. For such an early demo, it's not as primitive as you would fear, Dagor had enough ideas to make their music more interesting, whether by adding some keyboards, acoustic guitars or even with combining harsh vocals with clean singing (which, to be honest, sound fuckin awful haha). The production is not bad at all also. So, it still sounds good nowadays, even after these 22 years since "Songs of the Slav Ground" was recorded, especially the song number four is great (there are five tracks, but the tracklist on the cover shows four, so I am not sure what is the title of my favourite song), as it shows the best ideas, arrangements and riffs. 

So, we have pretty good demo. Sure, it's nothing what we would call classic or cult, it's just another old black metal recording, but I am pretty surprised with the quality of Dagor's music and it's a shame they've split up and never recorded anything else. 

Final rate: 70/100