Horrified ‎"The Ancient Whisper Of Wisdom" vinyl 7"EP

Here's a very interesting 7" from the Greek band Horrified. What originally drew me to this band was their name. I assumed they took it from Repulsion, and that the music would be dirty death/grind along those lines as well. Well, this vinyl is quite on the opposite side of the spectrum because what Horrified offer here is two songs of atmospheric doom/death with keyboards, female vocals, etc. I rarely listen to this type of music, but I have to say that I was impressed with this EP... What's cool about this release is that it was clearly ahead of its time. It was recorded way back in 1992, when only a handful of other bands were experimenting with this style of metal. It wasn't until the mid and late 90's when thousands of bands like this began surfacing.
The 7" opens with "Seperial Dominion". Most of this song consists of doomy, melodic riffing in the trademark Greek style (Varathron, mid-era Rotting Christ); but it's when the amazing acoustic guitars and keyboards enter the picture where it becomes obvious that Horrified aren't just your typical clone band. There's some heavenly female vocals used in the song which are mixed in with deep death metal growls from a male singer. Many people believe that Theatre of Tragedy were the first to use this technique, but Horrified were already doing it in 1992 (and it sounds like they've been doing it for ages)! The male vocalist also uses an eerie whispering voice during parts of the track, which only accentuates the already dream-like environment created by the music. The drummer unleashes some heavy double bass kicking about mid-song, while the guitarist drowns the listener in unending melodic leads. The song slowly fades into silence...
As you flip the vinyl over, you expect an entirely new track; but "Astral Submersion" is actually a continuation of "Seperial..." and begins exactly where the latter left off. It's pretty cool how they did this. On this second part of the 7", the guitarwork is even more impressive. There's some very memorable and dreamy riffs of Katatonia caliber, along with the occasional faster, thrashy riffing reminiscent of latter-day Gothenburg bands. The production on the EP is flawless and I really have nothing bad to say about the sound. The bass guitar in particular sounds excellent!
Even if you're generally not into this type of atmospheric metal, give this 7" a listen sometime. As long as you have an open mind and can appreciate great musicianship, then you should enjoy this very much.

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