Artist: Mystic Realm Plagued With Eternal Curses
Country: USA
Label: Annulet
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2025
From the illustrious Annulet circles comes this duo that goes under the long name of Mystic Realm Plagued With Eternal Curses. Just like their peers such as Juniper, Jaeger and Twilight Enchantment, this new act ventures in the world of Raw Black Metal with a rich atmosphere and plenty of mystique. This rather short 3-track demo, sandwiched between an intro and outro is the band’s first offering and introduces us into the mystic realms and eternal curses…
It might be good to first point out that nothing that’s on offer here on this debut demo is even remotely original, so anyone who was drawn to this band by its long band name or this demos rather appealing cover can just skip to another review or band. Mystic Realm Plagued With Eternal Curses is a band that purely and solely builds further on the well-known and tried-and-tested cornerstones of the somewhat muffled-sounding Raw Black Metal that has its roots in the late 90’s and early 00’s. Moody and rather dynamic it blends in a lot of the tremolo-melodies and harsh walls of sound that typifies the majority of the Black Metal that was more or less the flavour of the day around the turn of the millennium. Also the somewhat standard icy vocals make their acte the presence to finish the whole picture of true authenticity.
The ones who prefer to have a negative approach or the general naysayers might see all this is serious criticism, yet, if you are still somewhat stuck into those bygone years of great Black Metal in which the genre was still very much in its puberty, evolving and expanding its territories, this is a demo to fully embrace. Something else that the Black Metal from that specific era characterizes is the feeling that the music was brought with a bit more conviction. These days everybody can record and release a Black Metal demo in half a day in their own bedroom, that was quite different back in the day. So, as a result, much more thought and dedication seem to have been put in most of those older demos. Although this one is clearly written and recorded in recent times, this self-titled demo exudes a similar kind of atmosphere and overall feeling.
As a whole, this demo is a breath of fresh air in the raw-yet-atmospheric niche of Black Metal. It might not all be lightyears away from what some of their contemporaries do, but the crux is found in the details, the feeling and the overall experience of the demo. ‘Mystic Realm Plagued With Eternal Curses’ has yet to be released on physical format, sadly in only 15 copies, but it should be easy to find on either the Annulet BandCamp page or either on some YouTube channels. Take a listen if you are into late 90’s Nargaroth, Weltmacht, Bilskirnir and just basically random Black Metal from roughly 1998-2002.
