Thyrane - Black Harmony (1997)

Formed in the early 90's in Kemi, Finland as Thornmoon (but quickly changed to Thyrane), the foursome of Blasmor, Daemon, Avather and R. Grönholm originally released their debut demo, 'Black Harmony' in '97 and due to its overwhelmingly awesome sound it was subsequently re-released by Woodcut Records shortly thereafter.

Clocking in at a little over thirty five minutes and four songs total, 'Black Harmony' is in my opinion one of the best black metal demos ever created. Quite different to every single other BM demo out there, Black Harmony is produced adequately and the musicians abilities and song writing is beyond exceptional. Thyrane's music falls into the symphonic black metal sub-genre, though the synths are used more so as a backing instrument to generate more atmosphere while the main focus is on the highly melodic guitar work.

Since all of the songs are over seven minutes (one over eleven) you'd expect some of the usual BM monotony to take place during this demo, but largely the songs are quite progressive and rarely repeat structure or riffs and just continue onward. For the most part the demo is on fire and full of energy from start to finish and as a result of that this is one of those recordings where I could headbang my head to for its entire length, but some calmer ambient and purely acoustic moments due pop up here and there for a quick breather. Seriously though the drive behind these four songs, especially, 'Enthroned by Antichrist' is just fantastic! Interestingly there's also an underlining thrash characteristic to aid this drive and with the melodic guitars of Daemon and Avather being full of interesting riffs, leads and solos the ability for various parts of these songs to get caught in your brain is always there too.

The drum work is also quite well performed with plenty of rolls, fills and blast beats, but Blastmor's speeds definitely vary throughout each of these four songs. He also handles the vocals, which frankly sound great since they are full of raspy blackened emotion and his cleanly spoken parts sound ominous and commanding.

'Black Harmony' as a whole is stunning and if you can find the original tape, the Woodcut release or even the split with The Dead Beginners you'll definitely be on the right path to hearing some superior sounding symphonic black metal music.

After this demo Thyrane released their debut, 'Symphonies of Infernality,' which was quite similar and as such was quite a good recording too. 'The Spirit of Rebellion' however showed a band losing its blackness in favor of something else and by the time they released, 'Hypnotic' in 2003 they'd turn to complete shit with industrial and techno crap in the music. Apparently their last album in 2005, 'Travesty of Heavenly Essence' was a return to form, but I haven't heard that one yet...