Band:	Shores Of Sheol
Album:	The Cult Of The Damned
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	April 14, 2005
A review by:	Herzebeth

01. The Curse
02. The Cult Of The Damned
03. The Chasm Of Gehinnom
04. Winds Of The Apocalypse

Austria is not one of those countries with a lot of "popular" Black Metal bands. To this day, the metal scene is aware of only few Austrian Black Metal Bands like Belphegor, Abigor, Amortis, Vanitas, Vobiscum, Cryosphere and some others? Well, let me tell you another true fact - metalheads from Austria know about this issue and now they are creating a lot of good bands from this particular genre. Demos are circulating all over the net, bands with no recognition are fighting to get the credit they deserve and names like Eschaton, Gabriel's Cry and Hagelsturm are becoming well known? Now I got one of those demos and its from a band called Shores Of Sheol. Let's review this Demo right now.

This Demo starts with a very grim intro called plainly The Curse. First we can hear one audio clip of church choruses. After a small melody with just a plain drumming and retrograde riffing the actual Demo starts. The self titled track comes with another audio clip but then the actual song sounds incredible - the drumming is simple yes but this happened to Beherit once, the album is just filled with minimalist tunes. The song per se is a weird mixture of a lot of repetitive but in fact catchy riffs with one of the grimmest vocals I've ever heard. The structure of the song is plain as I already said but that doesn't mean awful. Sathur manages to write simple riffs that actually sound catchy at times.

The second song is called "The Chasm Of Gehinnom". This track changes everything. This song is indeed very powerful and gives the Demo a lot of good extra points. The riffs are structured and the tempo changes from time to time, the drumming is not as plain as in the previous song and this time the drum-beats vary a little bit giving minor twists to the song. This track really has to be heard by every Black Metal fan. After this track the "Outro" comes giving a great ending for this good Demo.

The production is incredibly fuzzy and most of the time, the instruments sound like bzzzzzz bzbzbz but what would you expect from a raw BM demo? I won't complain more about the production. If you are into Raw Black Metal check this band, you won't regret it.

Follow: it's a demo that endures 8 minutes of music?don't be lazy hear it all

Recommendable if you like: Beherit, Von