The End of Time Records selects its releases quite carefully and does not flood the market with large numbers of releases. It has its target and is slowly moving towards self-fulfilment, satisfying fans of strongly underground, black metal. The current year brought a very interesting item in the form of a compilation of old demos by the Polish horde Infamis. The album includes two materials previously released only on cassettes. These are Wilcza Resurekcja from 1997 and Irremeabilis Unda from 1999, which gives us a result of twenty years from release to reissue. The End of Time Records also has a very interesting way of numbering its releases, this one is described as Psalm 17. A small detail, but it arouses my attention and probably the attention of the Rogaty himself.
Infamis was an underground band, and this compilation has such a character. The demos included on it sound like Polish black metal sounded at the end of the 90s. It is imperfect, full of dirt, small curves and imperfectly played notes, one could even say that it is simple. All these clues are nothing more than facts, without a doubt. The catch is that these are not flaws but advantages of this album. These dozen or so tracks represent the uniqueness of the Polish BM scene in the underground, which at one time had a lot to offer. I have the impression that the scene back then was much closer to the essence of black art, uninfected with the Internet, focused on creating dark sounds instead of styling bangs to the side and making holes in branded trousers. There were no problems with determining which band you could trust, because the very fact that they undertook to create and record the material was already proof of serious persistence, because the times did not spoil the presence of recording programs like Cubase or computers in general. Back then, you had to sweat to record. I respect that and I respect Infamis for both demos that they managed to create. The compilation includes twelve compositions, eight from Wilcza Resurekcja and 4 from Irremeabilis Unda. Both materials are characterized by rawness, pagan black metal character of the lyrics, use of a large dose of licks on undistorted guitar. Generally, there is a lot of atmosphere, sinister melodies and devilish climate. I perceive the first material as a bit more true, clearly focused on the Norwegian scene, but thanks to the lyrics it is a bit close to the more famous band from those years Sacrilegium. Despite the fact that the first demo is slightly worse recorded and reaches me more than the second one, probably because it is so traditional. In the second demo you can already feel a slight opportunism and influence of the symfo black scene on Infamis. The appearance of keyboards in the line-up resulted in patents reminiscent of the first three Dimmu Borgir albums, still in a raw setting (like from the Norwegians' Stormblast period), but I don't really know what it could have led the band to next if they hadn't broken up.
This is just a small detail that differs the materials, without a major impact on the reception. The whole thing is surprisingly good to listen to, and spending time with this nostalgic-sounding album is a pleasure, especially for me personally, because I miss such simple, honest and valuable black metal music, where ideology and music were one, and the message was the truth.
Sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNP7Y1CjoNY
