Immortal
Live Zaandam
[Nordic Empire]
1 track (yes, a fucked up mastering job too), 32:31m
This is a bootleg recording of the gig Immortal did in Zaandam, the Netherlands, from the 1994 Enslaved/Immortal/Marduk "Sons of Northern Darkness" tour - ironically a show I planned to attend at the time but for some reason didn't. It's obviously one of those "walkman in crowd" recordings, and the sound quality is absolutely abysmal. You'll have to turn the volume way up to hear anything at all, there's no bass to speak of, the (excellent) vocals are way up front, and throughout the recording all kinds of annoying background crowd conversations pop up. Oh yes, the band you ask...well, the line-up was Abbath on bass/vocals, Demonaz on guitar and the late "Erik" on drums (the infamous tour drummer who was credited with drumming on "Pure Holocaust" but actually never played on it). "Pure Holocaust" was just released, and judging from the crowd response, few were familiar with the songs because the "Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism" tracks receive many more cheers. Musically, it's a chaotic mess - hell, what did you expect? The hyper fast and complex "Pure Holocaust" tracks suffer most, while the mid-tempo DFM tracks fare slightly better. But towards the end of the disc, sound quality improves a bit and the last two tracks are actually quite enjoyable. It's not the band - except for the fastest parts, Immortal is playing an excellent gig, it's just too bad it isn't properly captured on tape here.
So, is this CD worth getting? For most of you, no. Unless you feel the need to track down everything remotely related to Immortal, or you thought recordings like the 1986 part of Mayhem's "Dawn of the Black Hearts" are the ultimate in aural pleasure, this is just not worth it. It does have some novelty value, but it's certainly not something anyone would play regularly. This CD was released somewhere around 1996, so all copies will probably be sold anyway.
© 2000 sybren
This is a bootleg recording of the gig Immortal did in Zaandam, the Netherlands, from the 1994 Enslaved/Immortal/Marduk "Sons of Northern Darkness" tour - ironically a show I planned to attend at the time but for some reason didn't. It's obviously one of those "walkman in crowd" recordings, and the sound quality is absolutely abysmal. You'll have to turn the volume way up to hear anything at all, there's no bass to speak of, the (excellent) vocals are way up front, and throughout the recording all kinds of annoying background crowd conversations pop up. Oh yes, the band you ask...well, the line-up was Abbath on bass/vocals, Demonaz on guitar and the late "Erik" on drums (the infamous tour drummer who was credited with drumming on "Pure Holocaust" but actually never played on it). "Pure Holocaust" was just released, and judging from the crowd response, few were familiar with the songs because the "Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism" tracks receive many more cheers. Musically, it's a chaotic mess - hell, what did you expect? The hyper fast and complex "Pure Holocaust" tracks suffer most, while the mid-tempo DFM tracks fare slightly better. But towards the end of the disc, sound quality improves a bit and the last two tracks are actually quite enjoyable. It's not the band - except for the fastest parts, Immortal is playing an excellent gig, it's just too bad it isn't properly captured on tape here.
So, is this CD worth getting? For most of you, no. Unless you feel the need to track down everything remotely related to Immortal, or you thought recordings like the 1986 part of Mayhem's "Dawn of the Black Hearts" are the ultimate in aural pleasure, this is just not worth it. It does have some novelty value, but it's certainly not something anyone would play regularly. This CD was released somewhere around 1996, so all copies will probably be sold anyway.
© 2000 sybren