Sunday, January 5, 2014

Beerdigungs Lauten - "Slay The Close Of Yours" [1994]

Artist: Beerdigungs Lauten
Title: Slay The Close Of Yours
Genre: Death Metal, Grindcore
Country: Armenia
Year: 1994

Track List:
  1. Slay The Close Of Yours
  2. Psychosis
  3. With God's Help
  4. Unchallenged Hate (Napalm Death)
  5. Sabre Dance (Aram Khachaturian)
To my knowledge, Beerdigungs Lauten were the very first extreme metal band in Armenia. The band was formed in 1993 by two former members of Demon Spirit (Armenian clone of Slayer, with no known releases), after they started listening to such bands as Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Pungent Stench, Disharmonic Orchestra, Atrocity, Righteous Pigs, etc. and decided to play more brutal music. During the autumn of 1993 they held their first rehearsals at Armgiprodor (a scientific faculty outside of Yerevan).

The winter of 1993-1994 was very hard for them, as well for the citizens of Armenia as a whole: constant electricity outages, war in Nagorny Karabakh, economic blockade by Turkey and Azerbaijan, etc. However, in spring of 1994 they got lucky: an Yerevan-based band called Dumbarton Oaks offered them a rehearsal base. They got all the needed equipment shortly thereafter, and recorded their first and only demo at Ardzagank studio after two months of rehearsal. After that, they were invited to the "Barev" TV show, which was their first appearance on TV. After 1995 the band was pretty inactive, but they finally split up only in 2004 after playing a final concert in Yerevan.

Unsurprisingly, "Slay The Close Of Yours" sounds quite raw. Back then there were only two recording studios in Yerevan - Ardzagank and Asparez - and BL had chosen the former (because they had some friends there), even though Asparez had better equipment. Anyway, the very fact of existence of brutal death metal in Armenia 20 years ago is quite interesting. To put it in short: if you liked Abscess' demo, you might like "Slay The Close Of Yours" as well. I also think BL were the only band in the world to make a death metal version of "Sabre Dance" :)

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