format: 7" EP
year: 1983
country: Norway
label: private
#: S-8301
info: -
style: Heavy Metal, Doom Metal
Side A:
Side B:
This remained a 7" top want for many years before I finally managed to overpay a Norwegian collector for an original copy. The track "Evil Eye" had circulated on mp3 for years, ripped from an old 2CD retrospect compilation set of Norwegian hard rock and of course it was one of the greatest, coolest Scandinavian Heavy tunes evah'!...
Ha ha, no, I'm kidding, it wasn't, but the style was rather raw and unique - pure basement Doom Metal (quite reminiscent of Mercy or early Death SS) and ancient & obscure, 1st gen Doom always begs for further research, no matter how flat the vocals. Maybe - just maaaybe - the 2 other tunes on the EP might be even better? Some time inbetween first hearing "Evil Eye" and actually finding the EP I also got to see a picture of it, which obviously inspired me to look even harder. That sleeve is simply a masterpiece of True D.I.Y.-Metal Kült!
...And in true d.i.y.-kült-sleeve-fashion and collector-Murphy's-law, the music still ended up a disappointment. "Firemachine" turned out to be a dull NWOboogieM-standard, and while the title track retained the Doom Metal sound, twisting it even further down into the abyss, it's those damn, whining, out-of-tune vocals that makes this close to unlistenable. If not for this major flaw, this would have been quite the warts-and-all cult classic.