Artist: As Serenity Fades / August Moon
Country: Finland
Label: Personal Records
Formats: CD
Year: 2025
Almost fifteen years ago, in 2011 all the collected work of Finnish gloomy Death Metallers As Serenity Fades was already immortalized on one of those glorious reissues that The Crypt used to do at the time. Now, Personal Records decided to give this material another shot, mainly aiming at those who either missed it back then or prefer their music on a shiny silver disc instead of vinyl. Since I was only given the digital tracks for this particular release, I can’t compare it to the lavish quality of the vinyl document by The Crypt, but it is hard to imagine that anything housed in a plastic case with a tiny little booklet will have the same impact. But, alright, that’s also a matter of preference, of course.
The music is what matters, obviously. Compared to the previously released compilation this CD-version has the advantage to be really complete. The original compilation omitted the ‘Deux’-demo tape from 1996, but is included here. These three tracks recorded in the first days of 1996 marked quite a remarkable departure from the doomy Death Metal from their previously released material to a thoroughly melodic Hard Rock/Heavy Metal sort of direction. Possibly prompted by the same urge for a change of direction as, say, Sentenced and some other Finnish Death Metal bands at the time or as Sweden’s Afflicted, but whatever it was, apparently no one seemed to particularly like it and the band came to a rather abrupt end soon after. One might wonder if adding these three songs is really a good idea. For the completists and historians among us it might be a fun listen, musically this could only be your thing if you could enjoy something that’s midway between Dokken, Dio-less Rainbow and later Europe. Regardless whether you’d enjoy these three last As Serenity Fades songs, the label decided to put them last in line. Meaning that you’re either in for a little funny desert or a total culture shock – depending from your level of tolerance for cheesy Hardrock.
The other As Serenity Fades songs are offered in chronological order, which means the ‘Earthborn’ EP (1994, Adipocere Records) is up first followed by ‘Lowering Sunset’ (1993). Most remarkable from these songs is that they stood the test of time pretty well. In fact, the music serves a bit like a DeLorean and throws you back a few decades, right in the middle of a developing Death Metal scene. The heydays were just gone and Black Metal was becoming the next big thing. Lots of Death Metal bands decided the throw in the towel or ventured in completely different directions. Yet, a few stayed true to their Death Metal roots but gently started to experiment with melody and “gothic”-influences. A whole generation of bands pursued a sound that blended these elements into something that typifies those mid-90’s Death Metal releases. Picking up the pieces left by such bands as Paradise Lost, ‘Always…’-era The Gathering, Celestial Season and Phlebotomized, these bands went nowhere really fast, but in hindsight cemented a certain sentiment, a zeitgeist that is rarely heard these days, anno 2025. If you happen to share the same fondness of this sort of Death/Doom Metal, you can’t go wrong with picking up these early As Serenity Fades recordings.
Besides all the compiled As Serenity Fades songs, there is also the August Moon demo, ‘Rosegardens’ from 1994. A band that I was surprised to find out are still active, or better, got reunited back in 2014 and released their debut album in 2014 (also through Personal Records, that’s where the reissue of this compilation comes from). August Moon was basically formed by As Serenity Fades drummer Tom Henriksson and guitarist Peter Viherkanto to pursue a more melodic path. And that’s simply what it is: it sounds like As Serenity Fades but faster and more melodic. With incorporating a brisker pace and more melody they must have sought connection with the then emerging Melodic Death Metal movement in Sweden. But it is not too much to say that August Moon falls far short of that level, and that with stripping away the gloomy atmosphere of As Serenity Fades, there is really nothing left but rather soulless melodic metal with a very tenuous whiff of Death Metal remaining. But, fair is fair, at least these songs on ‘Rosegardens’ are much better than on the album the gentlemen unleashed on humanity last year, which sounds like a dime a dozen Melodious Death Metal with vocals as bad as Chris Barnes believes he has to spew these days.
On a musical level the result is basically the same as with the The Crypt-released compilation, the first As Serenity Fades part is unquestionably superior to the August Moon material, let alone the rather misplaced second bit of As Serenity Fades of which I still don’t know what to make of. If you are in need for a ride on nostalgia’s train, I would recommend checking out or re-listening to these old As Serenity Fades songs, as they perfectly capture the atmosphere and ambience of what (part of) the Death Metal scene sounded like when the dust had settled after the rapid rise of the genre.
