Self-released, 1995
Genre: Black Metal
1. March of Black Assemblies
2. Sweet Death
3. Flame of Hate
4. My Soul for Your Victory
5. Bloody Tears
6. Time of Sabbath
As with a lot of the other LLN material, by the time we got to 1995 things have improved a bit. As before "Time of Sabbath" was originally released as a demo tape, but I missed out on that as well, so I only have the 2008 Drakkar CD edition. The rip from the demo tape isn't as good as the first demo tape, weirdly enough. The original tape probably suffered from being played too much, since this is the better release.
"Time of Sabbath" is not as much of a dramatic improvement as some of the other LLN projects as they put material together in 1995, but it is an improvement over "Devoted to Satan". The demo opens with some Mortiis inspired dungeon synth, which is a major improvement over the spoken word bits. The music feels darker and more intense. Torgeist doesn't play around with weird dissonant pieces, instead favoring a far more straight forward approach. Some parts of this release made me think of early Gorgoroth in their style. "Time of Sabbath" both the album and song feel a lot heavier than other LLN releases as well and again the riffing has parts that remind me of that grinding style Gorgoroth pulls off.
I feel like this project is a bit of an outlier compared to the rest of the LLN projects, it certainly has the best drumming of any of them, so that's a stand out feature of Torgeist. There's also quite a bit of energy in the music on this demo, which is a bit different from the melancholic, almost depressive, feeling of a lot of the other LLN bands. In the end I thought "Time of Sabbath" was an excellent demo and it uses that raw production to it's advantage. So, if you want to check out one of the better projects from the LLN I definitely recommend this one. Some may find it too samey to Black Metal that already exists, but I still think Torgeist did a good job with this demo.
Self-released, 1994
Genre: Black Metal
1. Intro
2. Follow Him
3. Devoted to Satan
4. Dark Place
5. Evil Prevails
6. Outro
Torgeist is one of the stranger bands in the Les Légions Noires because they don't record at the LLN studio and their Black Metal is a lot more straightforward. It's not the weird and twisted kind of Black Metal found in the other projects. As with the other LLN material, this was originally released to a limited edition demo tape. I missed out on that original release, so I managed to pick up the 2008 CD when Drakkar repressed the material.
Torgeist's debut feels rather similar to something like Darkthrone or Moonblood, but even simpler and more raw than either of those projects. There is also a decent dose of Punk or Thrash Metal styled riffing thrown in. It's not too bad for a first demo, some of the songs are pretty catchy, but I wouldn't say they are particularly memorable in the grand scheme of things. Torgeist just play straight forward raw Black Metal on this release. Even for its time in 1994 it wasn't really anything revolutionary or strange because many bands from elsewhere were already building on this sound. At this point in time, other bands have done this sound better, but it's a pretty solid place to start for a new project. The only outright awful parts of this recording are the spoken word parts over the ambient sections. Those just sound, well... childish. They don't sound evil or foreboding, they just sound kind of dumb compared to the rest of the music.
In the end the first Torgeist is certainly worth hearing, at least once, but I'm not sure if it has a lot of replay value over the years. It may be worth waiting for something more solid to come along, but if you're a fiend for that raw Black Metal edge then I'm sure this will be a must listen for anyone that falls into that description.
