Woodcut Records Remasters Thyrane’s Black Harmony Demo
2017 is upon us: The year in which it was once prophesied that the demo recording by your favorite Finnish slightly symphonic black metal band, Thyrane, would return to Earth to cleanse the righteous and lead the wicked to Sodom Eternal.
It was foretold in a millennium past (circa 1980) that a young band of Finnish blood and ill repute would rise from Hell’s lower gastro-intestinal tract to spread faith-shredding riffs and general poor cheer across the lands of this weary planet. That band was Thyrane. The band’s assault began in 1997 with the Black Harmony demo and would continue on until they were struck down in 2006 by in-fighting or a riff deficit or a wintry global economy. But the prophecy foresaw a second dawn of blasphemy for this here ill-fated year of Two Thousand and Seventeen. On January 13th, courtesy of the ne’er-do-wells at Woodcut Records, Black Harmony will be reincarnated to finish what it started: re-mastered, re-released & re-Satanized! Behold!! Tremble!!! Throw horns!!!!
I have read the name Thyrane at least a dozen times in reviews and such, but I have no recollection of ever checking out their music. My early forays into listening to and reading about black metal coincided with the long-defunct Thyrane’s period of activity, yet back then it was not easy to find samples of the music you read about–especially if, like me, you were not computer savvy. So, unless you were absolutely tickled black by a review or an interview with a certain band, chances are you weren’t going to strain yourself in search of the actual music.
If you are similarly unfamiliar with Thyrane’s brand of black metal, prepare yourself for endless double bass rolls, evil chords, and gothic keyboards which provide flavor yet never overpower the riffs. Also, prepare yourself for a high-fidelity recording. The production is crystal clear; all instruments are not only discernible but rather bombastic, except of course for the bass guitar. I had to wonder how the remastering engineer pulled such a crisp, biting sound from a mere demo. So I searched for the original recording on the Youtube and found that the demo itself is a curiously hi-fi recording, to the point where I can’t really hear the difference. How did a mere demo end up sounding so clean when bands with record deals were struggling to make records half as audible? Either someone at Tico-Tico Studio owed these dudes a favor or they made a pact with the Devil: Their souls in trade for that sweet, sweet dynamic range. Listen below and judge for yourself.
Woodcut Records will release the re-mastered Black Harmony on tape, CD and vinyl. Check out their bandcamp page for a bunch of nifty t-shirt bundle options or to download the digital version.
