By Jonny Bakes
It’s becoming a pretty common occurrence at the moment for black metal bands to dig up those long-forgotten demos, that were once doomed to stay underground, and dust them off ready to see the light of day again. Generally, these are seriously raw and sound like they were recorded straight onto cassette with a boombox in the corner of the studio. It’s primitive, and unpolished, and exactly what you should expect from the underground black metal scene.
And that’s exactly what we’ve got with this nasty piece of work from Canada’s Godless North. Driven by the primal force of Othalaz, this grim and frostbitten Canadian export became somewhat cult legends on the back of a 7” split with Nargoroth, Apolkia and Decayed in 2001. But it’s the 1998 demo ‘Dark Rites of the Mystic Order’ that I’m interested in, which has just been released on vinyl for the first time ever, with the added bonus of a previously unreleased cover.
And boy, what nastiness have we uncovered here that can be perfectly summed up with a Gordon Ramsay quote – “It’s fucking raw.” It sounds like someone has made a copy of it on cassette, buried them in the forest for a few weeks, dug it up and then used it to make the master copy. This makes what would already be an impressive wall of sound, blend together into this nasty fuzzy noise. Othalaz’s vocals bark and rasp, like a man who has been possessed, in a manner that makes the blood run cold.
This is clearly influenced by the underground black metal scenes of the early 1990’s, particularly those in Poland and France. Of course, there’s no escaping the Scandinvian influence either, particularly with the chosen cover that has been tagged onto the end of this re-release – Burzum’s ‘Dunkelheit’.
If you’re into collecting these rough and ready raw black metal demos, then you should grab a copy of this, particularly if you’re already familiar with Godless North (which I was not!). ‘Dark Rites of the Mystic Order’ has an unhinged, murderous sense to it that will leave you with a tense energy that’ll take a while to shake off. Not one for those who are only just dipping their toes into the murky waters of the black metal scene.
- ‘Dark Rites of the Mystic Order’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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