Let's be more accurate now about this 3 song demo. Well, actually not really 3 but 2 songs since there is one short "ambient" interlude which can't really be considered a real song. So in the first place, it's obviously really tough to judge one's work with only two singles in hand. As a consequence, the future releases of the band will tell if my first feelings are confirmed or not. Now about the music itself, I would say that my first surprise deals with the style of the band. Indeed, one could maybe have expected some kind of underground raw black metal, not to say "true black metal" as is often the case in Eastern Europe but here you get something much more grown up I would say. You can really feel the effort that those musicians put in the composition process. This demo is very well done and even for only two songs, it's been obviously a hard work for Esgaroth, judging by the quality of the music. This is some atmospheric black metal that we get with this demo. And the main tricky part of this style is called "keyboards" in my opinion. But this trap is elegantly avoided here since there are indeed some keyboard parts but they are never cheesy. They are just used for the global atmosphere but they are not really holding the melodies and that makes them noticeable but still in the background. And if you listen kind of passively to this demo, you may even forget keyboards. But for me, it's really positive because that means that they fit with the rest of the instruments perfectly and the arrangements sound much more natural this way.

Second, everything is really made even more valuable by the quality of the production which is really clean and polished. All these things put together, we get a debut demo very catchy. And you don't need to listen to it a thousand times to feel the power of Esgaroth music. After only two or three times, you start to hum one riff or another and you really can't get this CD out of your head. Esgaroth realized something really amazing with this demo. Even though it's short (about 15 min total running time), it really creates a dreamy atmosphere and most of such atmospheric black metal bands don't succeed in achieving this purpose (even with a full-length album) which is by definition essential to this kind of music. I have to make a comparison here with the first albums of the great Dimmu Borgir and I really mean what I'm saying here. I even go further saying that Esgaroth also has a distinctive touch. Esgaroth's influences are present (I would quote also Mörk Gryning and even Evergrey for instance) but pretty well diluted in a definitely very personal musical universe and that's the most interesting thing actually.

I long hesitated between 8.5 and 9 and my final decision is just explained by the fact that the demo is still much too short for a review in general (but we can make some exceptions when it's worth it...) and as a consequence, Esgaroth will have to succeed in the real exam: their next release!

written by Hubert Chapuis

Playing time: 14:09