There is something about Greek Black Metal that is primitive yet classy. Varathron are perhaps the oldest and best known Greek Black Metal band. Here I present Varathron's first demo tape from way back in 1989 called Procreation of the Unaltered Evil. It's the larval stage of what would become a legendary name in Hellenic darkness. Teenage occult metal from the Hellenic Republic, the land that brought us olives, democracy, and Yanni.
17 comments:
Varathron's "His Majesty at the Swamp"!!!!!!!!!!!
Am definitely downloading this one. That mean-spirited pentagram-haloed wolf is begging me to listen.
necroabyssious is a teacher and tons of fun.
What does he teach?
That's a pretty great cover.
1989? Isn't that a bit early for (second-wave) black metal? Or is this retrospectively labeled?
Or should I just listen to it?
It sort of exists in that area between death and black metal, like Von or earliest Beherit or Sarcofago. Just listen to it.
unless i m mistaking, 5-12 year old children
That is beautiful.
it seems like there are a lot of black metal musicians in the educative professions. well, at least King Ov Hell from Gorgoroth is.
Teach Your Children To Worship Satan
Ted from Darkthone is a kindergarten teacher, I believe.
Rotting Christ are one of the earliest Greek black metal bands that people are generally familiar with. Varathron follow shortly after, and then Necromantia, if memory serves. There's a lot of satellite groups to these that might predate them very briefly but they're not generally known or influential.
It's interesting that people think early Greek second wave is classy. For me it's almost retarded (in a good way). It's people without a lot of musical education, usually young, feeling their way through the music they like and not seeing much of a problem in mixing Heavy Metal with the early Kreator/Sodom type of fastness and of course broken-English occultry. The mix is potent obviously and generally people think that that is the characterization of Greek BM style. But classy? A Burzum record for me is much classier than say, Passage to Arcturo.
Not to say I don't like early Greek BM, in fact I love a lot of it, but for different reasons, I guess.
This demo is very similar to the then active Mortuary Drape from Italy. Nice find. Sadly the first song of the two cuts off very abruptly. Bad rip?
Classy in comparison to Sarcofago, Profanatica, Von and what is generally regarded as the earliest bm. I'll have to check the rip, might be bad. Thanks for the heads up.
I agree but let's keep in mind that first wave is also stuff like Mercyful Fate and Root which were quite classier than almost everything that came after.
helm dear, these people woke up with sodom, kreator and destruction and went to bed with priest, mercyful fate, sabbath and maiden. do you think people over here go to study music? well, unlike scandinavia, NO!!
they just served the idea and were totaly hyped about and into it. time passed and they learned more chords though!
if you sort of knew 80's athens and greek reality in general this would make more sense.
besides who needs class when tape-trade and draw pentagrams on church walls on a hot as fuckin hell athens night?!?
"helm dear, these people woke up with sodom, kreator and destruction and went to bed with priest, mercyful fate, sabbath and maiden. do you think people over here go to study music? well, unlike scandinavia, NO!!"
I agree and I think that's awesome in some ways(also I am Greek so I am very acutely aware of what the situation was/is). I don't think only 'classy' stuff is good. Passage To Arcturo is in my top10 of all time for example and it's like a lobotomized Kreator exalting Azazoth more than anything. I was just confused about what Aesop meant.
btw here be more Varathron, plus the demo in question, I didn't check to see if it was a better rip but for those that want to venture can: http://greek-heavy-metal.blogspot.com/search/label/Varathron
Thanks for the link, Helm.
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