Demoncy

One of the few American bands to continue in the linearist style, Demoncy make confrontational acoustic sculpture.
flag of the United States Demoncy - Joined in Darkness (1999)
Joined in Darkness
Baphomet
1999
Production: Distorted in fullness and strength.

Review: Vast movers of sound Demoncy layer modalities in oppositional structure to produce the abstract equivalent of a melodic turnaround device as used in Graveland, rendering here a matrix of possibilities in which tone and rhythm are shaped into one by phrase as used in architecture of patterns to present a mood and then reduce it rapidly with forebodingly direct melodic manipulations and modal implications as rendered through these carefully structured phrases, producing a sense of spatial dynamic not found outside classical and metal. Extreme yet majestic music soars within the dark shuttling riffs and rudimentary power chord bludgeoning that frequently builds pace on this release.

Tracklist:

1. Hymn to the Ancients (1:21)
2. Impure Blessings (Dark Angel of the Four Wings) (3:58)
3. Demoncy (3:29)
4. Joined in Darkness (5:02)
5. Winter Bliss (4:16)
6. Hypocrisy of the Accursed Heavens (3:15)
7. Spawn of the Ancient Summoning (4:03)
8. Hidden Path to the Forest Beyond (2:24)
9. (Angel of Dark Shadows) Goddess of the Dark (4:22)
10. The Dawn of Eternal Damnation (4:23)
11. Embraced by the Shadows (0:21)
Length: 36:56

Demoncy - Joined in Darkness - Black Metal 1999 Baphomet
Copyright © 1999 Baphomet

Guitar instrumentation is precise, with no solo work, providing a seething cover of powerchords to spell out dominate melody through rhythm and counterpoint modal resolution iterating structure in the style of Havohej or Incantation. Rising and roaring, this music narrates epic distance motif and texture into a clarity of nothingness continued in immanent properties of chaos, which allow principles to break seeming rules of songwriting through structural sense of these limblike and precisely carved riffs. The harsh whisper dry throat vocals that carry these songs in rhythm and timbre drive behind a churning tempo orchestrated by guitars and unobtrusively backgrounded digital drum accompaniment. As a loud recording with plenty of variation in its dynamic output, "Joined in Darkness" moves like an organic progression of growth in decay and carefully orchestrates its atmospheres for consistent conceptual mood.

As racing tremelo is used an ambience of resonant sound is created but unlike the work of the Norse, it is here purely manipulated in the evolution of structure through progression of sound as skeletal rendering of abstract concept, using infrequent changes in chord voicing and few instances of pure note-repetition for resonance, although there is structural repetition in repeated themes issued harmonically along a note progression to create a space of that form in which resonance will be found to a future motif. Encompassing in texture and loudness the conflict of finding order in these songs creates a vast spectre which emerges from each work in order to destroy and vanish in its own ashes, with the lingering reminder of its arbitrary but inevitable return.

BLACK   |   DEATH   |   HEAVY   |   SPEED   |   THRASH   |   GRINDCORE