An intense and rather Machiavellian orchestral selection from Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2 Montagues and Capulets’ opens this 1994 demo with a sinister feeling. Sound wise this is for the most part Progressive Death Metal with a unique, hard to place “out there” kind of spin. The whole Atheist, fellow Polish band Tenebris, middle era Pestilence, and ‘Human’ / ‘Individual Thought Patterns’ era Death sound blended up with some idiosyncratic touches on it and a Gnostic theme. This demo has “large and in charge” production with super gated reverb on the snare drum and toms like pop music from the 1980’s, which adds texture and character to ‘Ain Soph Aur’ sonically.
The proper Metal kicks off with a trucker style riff and loud as fuck, spooky vocals come into the mix whispering intensely while keyboard additions are sprinkled in here and there to great effect. This sounds like a wrestling intro song a little bit, otherwise it could have been the music used in a trailer for a monster truck event, it’s fantastic. We get some thrashing Death Metal in ‘Pain of Recognition’ with randomly mega loud as fuck bass now, it’s a bit jarring and out of the blue and it totally works. Imagine the guitars are on 35% power and the bass is on like 65%, thats how it feels after from the second song onward. The vocalist is really putting in the work here as well he adds a ton of atmosphere with these creepy whispered vocals delivered quite intensely.
This album has instrumental passages where the guitar is transmitting haunted melodies from the dark side of the moon but the Death Metal is always just around the corner. There’s a good use of delay on the vocals here, and expect some acoustic guitars used sparingly as well as charged up thrashing choppy chugging riffs. On ‘Azagthoth’ we get epic leads like sailing on the back of a sea dragon toward a distant island.
Things slow it down around 22m in with a really ponderous moonlit sort of riff on “Veni Creator Spiritus’. It’s great material and speeds up to a rocking speed sooner than later with these surreal clean guitar leads that come in a min a half into the song and are straight from outer space. I love how the song progresses, it doesn’t get boring for me yet it keeps going and progressing and kept me hooked. There’s a bit more Hardcore Punk/ Crossover influenced stuff and later crawling creeping Death Doom all on the same song just some awesome, fun writing here.
Overall this is adventurer music with noisy gnarly rounded bass churning up in the front of the mix, it reminds me of some Norwegian Black Metal like Forgotten Woods a bit with that Rock and Roll edge and loud bass guitar. I like the Gnostic leanings they have as well and think thats an interesting angle to approach this genre from. The demo closes with an intense outro that has an ancient mythological type of vibe. Great hidden gem from Poland here!
