Time for another series of posts I will start and inevitably abandon. I’m dubbing this series Blind Buy Archives where I will post short, light, fluffy reviews of music I purchased as a blind buy– purchasing without hearing the music, that is. I am fortunate enough to be able to dig through all manner of record stores and thrift shops in my free time and can spend a few bucks here and there on used CDs & records that tickle my fancy on the strength of their cover art, title, or some other inscrutable facet that speaks to me on a smooth-brained yet spiritual level.

The joy of a blind buy is in the gamble (gambling is bad, don’t do it, kids) of finding something obscure and kvlt that has been hidden away that you otherwise would never stumble upon. There is also the adventure of finding something not great and digging in to it, really digging in to it because god damn it you spent 6 bucks on this CD and you’re going to get your money’s worth. Sometimes that is the best way to develop a relationship with an album that you could easily have written off if you passed by it on a streaming service. It’s a low stakes version of how it used to be where you’d buy a CD or record from the store and that was it. You didn’t have much money and you couldn’t easily look it up online first so you just have to sit with whatever you purchased and find the good in it through repeat listens.

I’m microdosing 2003 is what I’m saying.

Anyways, let’s begin with our first entry into the Blind Buy Archives:

Daemonium – Dark Opera of the Ancient War Spirit (or Search the Light)

Purchased At: The Beat Goes On, Kitchener, ON.

Price: Maybe 10 bucks Canadian? Used copy.

The Hook: What a title. What a title. Absolute black metal theatre kid energy (complimentary).

First Impressions: Endearing kinda-symphonic-kinda-Hellenic black metal who’s huge ambition more than makes up for it’s mediocre execution.

What a joy to find. The entire package here had me giddy as I left the BGO to head home. The long and winding title, every song being titled an Act of the story, being on fucking Adipocere Records, the instructions in the liner notes to “put yourself in an obscure universe and put the volume to maximum!”. Pure cinema.

I looked the album up when I got home and behold: a one man project from 1994 with a single 25% review on Metal Archives. Also curiously, with releases in 1994, 1995, and 2016, Daemonium has released this album and this album only 3 times in a row. First as this release on Adipocere, then as a split with Moonspell‘s(!) incredible EP Under the Moonspell, of which this entire album makes up the B side, and finally as a three way split with Akhenaton and Sangdragon. Again, the Daemonium portion of the split just being this album, in it’s entirely, again, over 20 years after it’s initial release. Hell yeah, brother.

Out of curiosity I checked out Akhenaton and Sangdragon since I didn’t recognize the names. As soon as I google them I do, however, recognize their logos. Feel free to perform your own analysis below by pulling the white bar left and right. Feel free to scroll back up to see Daemonium‘s logo for reference as well.

Now, I want to be crystal clear: I think this rocks, actually.

Our man Lord A. V. Daemonium has a vision and has been honing it and refining it over the decades across multiple projects. I listened to the full length albums of his post-Daemonium bands and I can totally see the through line and evolution of his music, going from the chaotic and amateurish 1994 symphonic black metal to the much more professional and realized Hierophant released by Sangdragon in 2023. As much as I generally dislike how everything is logged forever on the internet, it’s honestly inspiring to see this long time musician try and try again, shift and follow muses, and keep making the music he wants to make time and time again. There’s an air of “no, I know this is good, I just need to tweak it and revise it” permeating this artist’s history that I think any creative among us can relate to.

Let’s stay in 1994 for now and chat Dark Opera of the Ancient War Spirit (or Search the Light).

Up front I want to mention that this came out the same year as Emperor‘s In the Nightside Eclipse. Like, symphonic black metal wasn’t a thing yet and Daemonium were already going hard into the genre. Dark Opera opens with “Act I – Necromancy”, a dark and looming atmospheric, synth filled intro track which builds for two minutes into “Act II – Chaos’s Resurection” [sic]… another atmospheric intro track running almost 3 minutes. What guts to have to put two intro tracks on your debut. The funny thing is the pacing is actually great, with tension building and building and building as synths pound, rising in pitch and tempo and chanting dances over top. Eventually the music explodes into the Hellenic black metal inspired “Act III – By The Sword in the Blood”, complete with melodic riffing and more orchestral synth stabs worthy of a grimace and a fist pump.

Performances are a bit sloppy and the orchestral sounds feel so dated and low budget that it non-ironically brings a huge smile to my face. I’m sure resources were limited when making this album, and Lord A. V. Daemonium cared not of the limitations, only that he can bring his epic, operatic story to life. Same comes with “Act III” ( or “Act IV”, the CD is one long unbroken track so I’m trying my best to decipher which acts are which movements in the music) where a sword fight erupts… with the aural intensity of a drawer of cutlery tumbling down a gentle, grassy slope. It sucks, but it rocks, and I love it regardless.

When all is said and done, there are really only two actual black metal songs on this release with one really nice acoustic piece nestled in there. About 10 minutes of Dark Opera‘s 26 minute run time is black metal. The rest is atmosphere and set dressing– intros, outros, and interludes of varying intensities carrying the undeniable vibe of this thing from start to finish.

A quick aside, the acoustic passage in the album evokes memories of the Divine Beast Cave music in the 2000 action JRPG Dark Cloud which is a nice nugget of info for me and me alone, but it rocks and is another thing that just endears me to Daemonium and Dark Opera as a whole.

And in a word, endearing is what I can say about this CD. Front to back: the title, the music, the packaging, the song titles, the production choices (and limitations), and the lore surrounding it really sums up what I love about independent metal music.

The power of the human creative spirit is indomitable, and heavy metal is forever.

All this leads us to the only question that matters:

Is it Sick?

Yes, if you are not a coward.

The Context Zone™️

In addition to the album reviewed above, I also listened to the following music to try and get a bit more context for this release and/ or to cultivate the right headspace:

• Akhenaton – Divine Symphonies (1995)
• Sangdragon – Requiem for Apocalypse (2015)
• Sangdragon – Hierophant (2023)