PROMO '94

In February of '94, Abigor got together to rehearse some material they were working on. As one might expect, a one-take black metal demo is not something that's going to appeal to the audiophile in all of us. Although the songwriting appears to have promise, I cannot give this album anything more than a low rating, if only for the fact alone that it sounds so garbled.

'Promo '94' comes from a long stream of demos from Abigor, and sadly, none of them are particularly good. Abigor always saved their quality for full lengths. 'Promo '94' does show a degree of improvement from the band's origins in 'Ash Nazg', but they were still light years away from what they would accomplish in November of that year, with 'Invoke The Dark Age'. A three song collection, 'Promo 94' sounds like it was recorded with a budget tape recorder. The guitar sounds like it's a sorry product of damaged tape, and the vocals are amateurishly filled with superfluous echoes that ring above everything else. As for the drums of Thomas Tannenberger, they are barely heard in this performance. It is a shame that the recording values of the rehearsal are so poor, because the songwriting here is relatively solid. 'Eye To Eye At Armageddon' has some memorable guitar melodies, even. However, more often than not, the entire thing ends up sounding like a singular blob of distorted mush. 'Promo 94' may have been useful for the band to get their thoughts on tape, but for the average listener, this is a waste of time.