I was really pleased to be sent this demo from Horizon Obscur, a Canadian band that I have had the pleasure of reviewing before, with their “Damnes” demo that was unleashed about a couple of years ago. At that time, I noted that the band were a really effective doom/death outfit with some great ideas, and a slight lack of production values. To some extent, those plaudits, and that criticism is the same here. (Those of our readership with attention deficit disorders may well want to stop reading now; the introduction says it all!).

Essentially, aside from two short mini-tracks, this is a three track demo. What can be found here are long, winding death/doom of a slower than most pace, with some really nice guitar subtleties and a relatively melodic bent. There is a touch of the theatrical and dramatic to be found on the gothic splendour of tracks such as “La Place Rouge”, and the lead work that underpins the more interesting sections are a particular stand out. While the basic ingredients of doom/death remain – you know, the gravelly growled vocals, the minor key riffs, the mournful bass playing and languid drumming – it is the guitar playing that really elevates this from any number of similarly accomplished bands that seem to endlessly spawn from the darker climates of the world. The song writing is also particularly strong, with “Le Lame Pour Tous” being slightly left field for this style of music, with some off-kilter time signatures and plenty of ideas to be found.

So far, so good. The purpose of a demo is, I think, to showcase the quality of the band, and so it would be churlish to pick on the production, save for me to say that again I find the production of the drum sound to be so hollow as to annoy me, and the vocals are (to my ears) sometimes placed a little too highly in the mix, but once a record deal has been struck, then I am confident that the band will be able to finally let their sheer talent blow away any cobwebs that the slightly under par sound quality here represents.

(6.5/10 Chris Davison) 

http://www.myspace.com/horizonobscur