Artist: Karelian Warcry
Country: Finland
Label: Self-Released
Formats: CD
Year: 2005
Somewhere last year I already reviewed the first demo of the Finnish band Karelian Warcry. A demo that managed to impress me by the quality of the songs because the recording quality was actually not too good – I even dare to say it is rather murky and sloppy. But isn’t it the reviewers task to look beyond these things? I was rather curious to the next release of these guys, and just recently the band released their new demo CD simply called “Kylmä Rautainen”, yep?
A quick first listen learns me that some of the demo tracks were re-recorded and again put on this CD. Well, three out of five songs from the first demo were put on this one too, which is obviously a rather interesting thing, that gives the songs a new chance to present themselves in this good production. First of the band starts with an intro (or short instrumental track, whatever you like to call it) and then bursts out into the melodic paganish black metal, in the exact vein of the previous demo. The third track is one from the first demo and displays indeed a progression that is worth to mention, a more clean production gives the songs better insight and therefore its better to follow. Though I also need to say that the rawer version also have its charm. With the older song comes also the Mithotyn vibe that I mentioned in the review on their previous demo. That Viking-like touch seemed to be forgotten in the first real track of this demo but in the second new (and title) track its there again. According to the interview I did with the band some time ago they were not aware of this ‘influence’, so I won’t mention it anymore now, but it is definitely not meant to be seen as a disadvantage. Another remarkable thing is that this one is presented as a demo CD but it contains nine tracks and clocks over forty minutes and looks professional enough to get a place at the EPs or even albums. Besides that the production is good enough to compete with most of the albums released with label-support in the scene.
So, all in all this is again a class-demo which proves them worthy to get along with the bigger names, now it is time to get this band on a suitable label. Let’s say it this way, the next will be a full-length album, I’m pretty sure!
