Moonblood - Rehearsal IV (1995)

 

MOONBLOOD somehow arose out of the ashes of DEMONIAC who formerly have been active since 1990 under the name of PURULENT OBDUCTION and playing primitive Doom/Death Metal . And PURULENT OBDUCTION was the continuation of BLOODBRAIN, an raw early Thrash/Deathcore act that was started sometime in early 1989 as T and A (Terror and Agnostic) by Tino Mothes (aka Occulti-is, later Occulta Mors) and Andreas Schwach (aka Lord of the Necrotic Slaughters, Lord Asmoday).

Partly other local “musicians” have been shortly members of the project in person of Michael Männel on guitar and Heiko Kahn (later joined the Hardcore band 4 BEHIND 3) on the drums. The line-up just lasted for a year or even less but long enough to play a horrible live show and 2 even more horrible sounding Grindcore Demo tapes (with Andreas Schwach and Tino Mothes as remaining members) were recorded in the attic namely “Satan’s Lust” (end of 1989) and “Cadaverous Mutilation” (1990). Tino Röder (aka Necromaniac, Count Damien Nightsky), who was playing with the local Schneeberg Thrash/Crossover band SEPTIC TERROR, joined in late 1990 as guitarist and from this day forward the band was known as PURULENT OBDUCTION while the Grindcore changed to doomy Death Metal.

Besides PURULENT OBDUCTION Tino Mothes and Andreas Schwach had a Grind/Noisecore project running as well called EXCREMENT TERROR were they recorded several sick trax that have been available in form of a Demo tape called “Achachnophobia” back in 1991 (Excrement Terror in 2014).

PURULENT OBDUCTION played 3 live gigs and locally released 3 Reh/Demo tapes (“Rotting Corpse” – 1991, “Live in Unterheinsdorf” – 1991, “Addictive” – 1992) until in spring 1993 they got the idea to change the band name once again due to the slightly changed lyrically content. The name they’d chosen was DEMONIAC and a first Demo “Divine Grudge” was released in March 1993 while the musically concept did not change until late summer/autumn 1993 when Mirko Schmat (Blacksoul, later Gaamalzagoth) joined on vocals and they also started writing faster, more Black/Death Metal. The line up was consisting now of Necromaniac – Guitar, Occulti-is – Drums, Lord of the Necrotic Slaughters – Vocals, Blacksoul – Vocals.

With that line up they quickly recorded the Reh/Demos “Blaspherion” (September ’93), “Black Prophets” (October ’93) and “Jesus never lived” (January ’94). Shortly after releasing “Jesus never lived” that had almost no Death Metal influences of the early days left, the band broke up because of internal trouble. Necromaniac and Lord of the Necrotic Slaughters started Andras while Occulta-Mors and Blacksoul decided to change the band name to MOONBLOOD because another band from New Zealand just had released their first Demo almost at the same time when they sold their last Demo “Demoniac” in early ’94, a kind of compilation of ’93 recordings.

 In July 1994 after several months of intense recording sessions MOONBLOOD finally had enough material for a fullenght Demo (entitled “Moonblood”). Sadly the sound was utter garbage, while the songs itself haven’t been that horrible though. With that tape they got in touch with Unholy Baphomet Records to release the “Nosferatu” Demo in late 1994, a 40 min fucker on pro-tapes but again with terrible rehearsal quality. In January 1995 MOONBLOOD entered for the first time ever a recording studio, the Digan Tonstudio in Annaberg (where most of the Death and Black Metal bands in that area recorded their stuff) and recorded the “The Winter Falls Over the Land” tape. Sadly they have been too unexperienced for such a session so the whole tape was mixed by the sound engineer himself. Therefore they later wasn’t much satisfied with the result in the end. September in the same year they once again entered the Digan Studio again highly motivated to record 5 more trax, including the intro of the coming album. This time the sound mix was much more of their liking. In October, one month later, they released a Reh/Demo Tape that shouldn’t really appear in their discography as lyrically it didn’t fit in their concept. Therefore “Siegfried” was limited to only 50 copies, German written verses based on the Nibelungen Epos with Bathory-ish music underlayed. Definitely shouldn’t represent MOONBLOOD in general.

 The next studio date was in February 1996 when they recorded the first album “Blut & Krieg” for the label Majestic Union Records again at Digan Studio. In August 1996 Unholy Baphomet Records finally published the Split 7″ with Nema, which the track “Moonstruck” was recorded for in September 95. “I am All” from the same session was placed on the Canadian Compilation CD “Under the Pagan Moon”. In November 1996 they had another Digan date and recorded the outrageous “Fullmoon Witchery” and the hymnic “Under the Abyssic Black of the 3rd Angel” (previously never used). The cassette version of “Blut & Krieg” was ready in March 1997 as a co-production of Majestic Union and Sombre Records. They’ve made 666 copies and in contrary to the LP version contains “I am All” and “My Evil Soul” from the September 95 session as bonus trax. July 1997 the “Enceclopedia Pestilentia” Triple Compilation CD’s got released and they opened the massacre with the aforementioned “Fullmoon Witchery” track. In the meanwhile they were waiting for the release of “Blut & Krieg” on vinyl as promised but nothing more happened in 1997 except that MOONBLOOD entered the Digan Studio again in November 97. Originally the 5 tracks recorded should be meant for a Split CD with malay Black Metal band PURNAMWULAN but it just did not happen. In March 1998 Sombre Records released the Split 7″ with ASAKKU with MOONBLOOD’s part being “Hordes of Hate”, the last unreleased track from the September ’95 session. Sombre Records also suggested to do the “Blut & Krieg” LP by himself which happened already in November. He did 333 copies, but it’s not a secret that more copies are circulating. When he died there was a complete box with 50 copies (or more) found at his place. You should at least watch out for the insert and the sticker if you plan to buy the LP, all copies without them are highly doubtable, especially the stickers as they’ve made them by theirselves, so there are just 333 stickers available. It was in August 98 when they recorded 7 new trax in a newly built up recording studio in their neighbour city and part of the songs have been used for the Split Tape with Brazilian band Evil.

-Tracklist:

Side A
1. The Raven     09:15
2. Hordes of Hate     07:00
3. The God of Lies     09:01
4. Cold and Blood Red     06:32
    
Side B
5. The Eyes of the Forest     09:02
6. Für den Sieg     05:12
7. I Am All     07:08
8. Kingdom of Forgotten Dreams     04:38

 

-Line up:

- Occulta Mors: all instruments
- Gaamalzagoth: vocals.

 

 

 

Label: independent.

 

Recording during July-August 1995.