Limited to 300 hand-numbered copies.
The discography of Zemial – the mastermind of one Dimitrios Dorian – offers a history of extreme metal since the 1980s in three simple steps. From the primitive, murky beginnings, to the occult later translating into epic cinematic scores in the form of Viking metal, to a seamless marriage of old school blackened thrash with prog rock on the near immaculate ‘Nykta’ released in 2013. But delving all the way back to the debut LP in 1996, the cult classic ‘For the Glory of UR’, we meet a very different beast. The scant output from this artist has led to this album wallowing in relative obscurity, but it is nevertheless cherished by many scholars of the scene. Despite the evident musicianship showcased, the production is pretty rough, belonging to the mid 80s as opposed to 1996. Drums exhibit only a hint of the free jazz drums he would later explore on more recent work, but here they offer a tight performance that is a little under-serviced by the mix. Vocals are that excellent combination of high-pitched and manically aggressive, in the vein of Absu (no kidding), which perfectly fits the thrashier, occult metal that Zemial were working with.
The influence of ‘Under the Sign of the Black Mark’ is hard to gauge at this point, but from the get-go it’s clear that ‘For the Glory of UR’ is one of its most direct offspring. It’s that magical combination of the boisterous dirty thrash that made up the origins of black metal with remarkably ambitious song structures and theatrics. It’s a classic example – again found in the tradition of Bathory – of doing more with less. This is clearly an album born of limited means, but with care and attention applied to the song writing, along with liberal but tasteful use of keyboards, one can transcend these humble tools and create a work that resonates through time.
In many ways this album functions as the missing link between the Rotting Christ tradition and the first wave of black metal. There are many riffs that would have been at home on ‘Thy Might Contract’, in that they take a NWOBHM riff and apply palm-muted tremolo picking atop a mid-paced blast-beat. But Zemial connect up these riffs with melodic progressions that are very much of the 1990s, by repurposing Bathory’s ‘evil thrash’ of the mid 80s and the epic, Viking metal direction they were headed towards at the time. Despite this album being barely half an hour long, it achieves this impressive marriage of traditions without either sounding derivative, or a complete mess. It also affords us the chance to see how these different techniques played off each other, and how extreme metal was experimenting with different combinations to find the next direction, towards something more transcendental and permanent than the thrash and death metal that had preceded it. This album offers a fantastic marriage of occultist metal aspiring to modern forms of romanticism which makes up the essence of Greek black metal at this time, through the development of traditions well outside the remit of those further north.
This album offers a valuable insight into metal’s quest to transcend its own environment, it holds lessons which are still of great value today. At the same it is a rewarding listen in its own right. ‘For the Glory of UR’ succeeds as a classic example of occult metal; one found at the crossroads between the old and new, between the primal and refined, between Dionysus and Apollo. But despite this it feels unfinished in places, even taking into account the appeal of lo-fi albums of this nature, there is a sense that more could done. This is especially true when one considers what this project went on to achieve on both followups ‘In Monumentum’ (2006) and ‘Nykta’ (2013). Despite this is still comes highly recommended.
Sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFqlsvaeDc4
