Artist: Smyrtonos
Country: Bulgaria
Label: Self-Released
Formats: Digital Demo
Year: 2024
Despite once being declared dead, Smyrtonos, Todorac’s main musical project, is more vibrant than ever before. Apart from a compilation of older material, we already saw him release an EP this year and, just prior to that, the first full-length album. Now, barely recovered from all that, here is another new demo.
‘Ceremonial Blaze’ consists out of four tracks that were all recorded some two years earlier and judging from the variations in sound quality they stem from different recording sessions as well. While that might break a bit of a natural flow that you would expect from a stand-alone release, it is not at all that distracting.
Compared to Smyrtonos’ last two releases, these tracks are definitely a tad rawer and more bareboned. Especially the full-length album showed the band moving forward a bit, not entirely disbanding the lo-fi aesthetics of the project’s earliest recordings, but definitey aimed for a more traditional riff-driven approach. The majority of these four tracks presented on this newest demo, has that same formula but due to the rawer sound they feel a bit more atmospheric. Todorac’s haunting and shrieking vocal style fits perfectly in and add to a stunning contrast against the repetitive and predominantly slow and dirging riffs and its overall ambience. Listen to ‘Annihilation Of The Mind’ for instance, one of the best tracks Todorac has put forth, it conveys an amazingly authentic late 90’s/early 00’s Black Metal atmosphere.
Although all key-elements are present to label this a “Depressive Black Metal” release, it would be a bit too easy to do so. The slow strumming, the repetitive guitars and melodies, the mournful crying vocals and the overall dragging pace together blend into a sort of Black Metal that indeed sounds melancholic and just not quite optimistic, but it obviously has more to offer in terms of song writing and dynamics than your average Depressive Black Metal band.
For now this demo, with its 21 minutes, is only available as a digital stream, but since most of the recent Smyrtonos material has been released at least on cassette tapes, my guess is that this will also find its way onto a physical format sooner or later.
