Eald

Eald - Fire Shalt Purify Our Land
Self-Released, 2003
Genre: Black Metal

1. Intro
2. Cursed Sons of the Bastard
3. Black Death's Embrace
4. Enthronement of the World Destroyer
5. Increasing Fire
6. Fire Shalt Purify Our Land








For some reason I don't hear a lot of stuff out of Spain that catches my ear, but Eald did.  Albeit I heard the later recordings, but I tracked down a copy of their first demo to see how things first started out.  I will say that this isn't nearly as interesting as the later material.  I can see why this didn't really get people very interested in the project.  This demo was pressed on cassette and limited to 50 hand-numbered copies.  I own copy 32.  I believe the booklet is professionally printed, but I think the tape is just a dub.

"Fire Shalt Purify Our Land" is a fairly generic Black Metal performance.  It's not necessarily the really good generic that you would listen to anyway, despite it being basically the same as other classic pieces.  I find this unfortunate because Eald clearly has some skill behind the music.  The riffs aren't really that bad and "Fire Shalt Purify Our Land" is actually quite a good song.  The rest of the songs are fast riffing sawing away at the guitar while doing blast beats.  Some songs have slower sections and these are good because at least it makes the song feel a little more varied.  Songs like "Increasing Fire" close with such a wonderful riff... but it's not played enough.  But this demo is a bit of a whirlwind experience with all the songs being under four minutes except the closing track.

The vocals are pretty standard.  However in the title track he does these screams that remind me of some elements of Moonblood.  They sort of fit with Eald, but with the different vocal performance it did catch me off guard.  By the end he may have done this too much... but the vast majority of the vocal work is your standard Black Metal approach so it works great with everything else.

The overall package has that older 90's feel to the music, so if you love that to no end, then you might like this demo more than I did.  For me the demo is only okay.  With the closing track, I think it shows that Eald has some serious potential and I feel they manage that in later releases.  Definitely a band to keep your eye on.