Barathrum – Hailstorm (1995)
From a murky and somewhat intimidating backdrop of demos, Barathrum presented Hailstorm as their debut album. It is in many ways clearer than the more amateurish demo recordings, but in other ways it is a harsher, more unforgiving beast. Hailstorm is not typical of the black metal style; it is slow, doomy and filled with all sorts of weird atmospheres. Moments of it remind me of Beherit’s Drawing Down The Moon, but this is still an entirely different beast and the records are quite different. Bass is loud and present in the mix, as are the vocals. It feels like some sort of bizarre ritual is being invoked across these songs.