INTO THE WOODS... - ISLE OF MEN (1993) and VED BUENS ENDE - THOSE WHO CARESS THE PALE (1994)

These two brilliant demos from the early/mid 90's Norwegian Black Metal scene. A sub goal in my LP and CD collecting is to own as many Kyrck Production releases as possible especially the ones from the Norwegian scene. 

The ones I own by Arcturus, Ulver, Thorns/Stigma Diabolicum; Strid/Malfeitor, Manes etc. are all immaculate vinyl and CD releases. Just like these two of course.

Know I'm repeating myself and praising Kyrck in this one again as done in earlier posts. But Kyrck are so amazing at finding demos, hard to get, expensive releases or just brilliant albums. Especially from the Norwegian scene.

Isle Of Men (1993) by Into The Woods...

This vinyl was released in 2006 and limited to 1000 hand numbered copies, 500 black & 500 white-splatter, mine is number 594/1000 (I actually added the back sleeve from my copy over at Discogs because it was missing there).

It comes with a A3 poster of the original demo cover artwork and if you're familiar with Kyrck Productions LP's a small 12-paged booklet that many other releases also includes.

Those Who Caress The Pale (1994) by Ved Buens Ende

My copy was released in 2015 and is limited to 150 copies, they also reissued the demo on purple and orange/black vinyls also 150 copies each at the same time. All versions comes with a A3 poster and the lyrics printed on a regular A4 regular paper, mine is kind of light blue. But I do believe there's other color variants with each of those releases lyrics sheet.

Let's finally start this post by a very unique Black Metal band with Into The Woods... with the second demo called Isle Of Men released in November 1993.

The booklet states that Isle Of Men were recorded in the summer of 1992 but that's a misprint. Because it was actually recorded in June - September of 1993.

Before this demo Into The Woods... had already released the Rehearsal / Demo 02.93 as its title suggests from February of 1993.

The original release of Isle Of Men consists of 5 songs and the line-up is the same as on their epic debut album Heart Of The Ages (1995) released on Misanthropy Records. You can read my post on that one here.

This 2006 reissue has 1 bonus song the title track from the album Heart Of The Ages. It's just a 4-track recording done in 1994 so it's not as refined as the album one.

Some of the titles on Isle Of Men also ended up on the Heart Of The Ages album Wotan's Return and ...In The Woods. Both are already sounding amazing in the demo versions.

Anyone that's heard Heart Of The Ages knows it's a very unique sounding album at the time of its release in the Norwegian scene. The Isle Of Men demo is also very different from other bands but is more straight forward Black Metal than the album.

Isle Of Men could easily have been an album the quality of the songwriting, sound and production is better then many other contemporary bands debut albums. I highly recommend getting this demo on any format you can find it because it's one of my favorite demos from the 90's.

Speaking about high quality demos from those years. Kyrck Productions really did us all a big favor by reissuing another demo. That also could have been an album Those Who Caress The Pale by Ved Buens Ende.

At the time of its release Carl-Michael Eide (clean vocals/drums), Vicotnik (harsh vocals/guitar) and Skoll (bass) weren't exactly quite known in the scene yet.

Shouldn't have to namedrop their resume but I will name some of my favorite associated bands like Arcturus, Dødheimsgard, Ulver, Strid, Aura Noir, Manes and a ton more.

5 songs on this demo and it gives their debut and only album Written In Waters (1995) a tough match for being my favorite Ved Buens Ende release. Another albums that was released by Misanthropy Records that at the time released classic records with each release.

Both songs The Carrier Of Wounds and You That May Wither appears on both releases. Don't have a definitive answer to which version I prefer the most, it depends on my mood of the day. You really should invest in both releases because they are just like In The Woods... a very unique band from my favorite era of the Norwegian scene.

Actually these 2 are the only releases that Ved Buens Ende has ever released. They started as Manes in 1993-94, not to be confused with another amazing Norwegian band with the same name, changed name to Ved Buens Ende in 1994 and split-up in 1997.

They made a short return in 2006-07 and was working on new material but nothing was officially released.

Just recently they announced that Ved Buens Ende are making a comeback! Hell fucking yes am I psyched about this!

With the same line-up but due to Carl-Michael's accident in 2005 that prevents him from playing drums ever again. They have recruited Øyvind Myrvoll as their live drummer with credentials from Aura Noir, Dødheimsgard, ex. Myrkur).

I have really high faith for this reunion even if it's been 24 years since Ved Buens Ende released any new material.

Anyway that's two other releases in my Kyrck Productions collection. I got more amazing reissues to write about from this excellent company.