The final decade of the last millennium was a significant period for the birth of Finnish extreme metal. In the late 1980s, speed metal found its way into the country, and was immediately followed by thrash metal. Afterwards, death and black metal bands started to pop up in every nook and cranny. Some of those rose to an international fame, while others stayed in the shadows waiting for their turn. Through the years, Black Records has already brought to light many lost treasures of the Finnish metal scene. This June it will be the turn of Thromdarr from Riihimäki and their old tapes excavated from the band’s archives.
The story of Thromdarr reaches back to 1989, when the band’s guitarist Mika Kyöstilä formed Nymphomaniaca precursor to Thromdarr, together with Ari “Ave” Auvinen. When the band went through a lineup change, they changed their name to Necrobiosis and eventually to Thromdarr in 1991. According to the band, they entered the scene with the punk attitude of learning by doing. They followed the steps of their idols and started to make fast and heavy metal in the vein of Sodom, Destruction, Creator, Slayer, Possessed, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Grave, Obituary, Pestilence and Death.
When the demos and recordings started to pile up, the musical taste of the band members started to evolve into a more brutal direction.
-“We played the demo to our friends with great excitement and were often told we sound more like black metal than death metal. We didn’t mind this since we had already embarked on that direction and had face paint on the first band photos. We developed the name Thromdarr ourselves and it was supposed to sound phonetically like thunder”, the band’s frontman Kyöstilä recounts.
Early on in their career, Thromdarr had already played with many renowned metal acts, such as Barathrum, Sentenced, Archgoat and Demigod. The band took a couple of cassette pressings of their first studio demo As a Wind Cries and ended up selling 500 copies.
On their later demos, Thromdarr made more experimental material from the black metal canvas. On the other hand, going through a lineup change led to the band losing its driving force, the recording pace slowing down and the little live activity falling behind partying. In the end of the millennium, the band became active again and signed a contract with Sunset Recordsreleasing their debut album NorthStorm Arrives in 1998.
Black Records has now compiled Thromdarr’s early demos into a single package. Kyöstilä and Svart’s producer Olli Hänninen have barely touched the original soundscape, instead remastering the demos the way they were originally made with all their faults and successes.
-“The tapes haven’t been remixed afterwards. Instead, they sound as primitive as when they were originally released. The material has also been copied from original recordings. Pick up a beer and listen to old school metal!”, Kyöstilä urges.
Black Records will release Thromdarr’s Midwinter Frost – Complete demo tapes 1990-1997 double LP compilation and CD on the 17th of June 2022. The previously released singles Path Leads over the Stone Bridge and Frozen as the Moon can be listened at:
Thromdarr – digital samples
Path Leads over the Stone Bridge (1993)
Frozen as the Moon (1997)
Thromdarr: Midwinter Frost – Complete demo tapes 1990-1997 2LP/CD – pre-order link
THROMDARR – Midwinter frost – Complete demo tapes 1990-1997 2LP / CD
Black Records – SRE532LP, 2022
A:
THROMDARR: WINTER OF FLAMES (DEMO 1993)
A1. NORTHSTORM ARRIVES
A2. PATH LEADS OVER THE STONE BRIDGE
A3. FOREST OF THE BLACK DIAMONDS
A4. BY THY ARROWS
A5. WINTER OF FLAMES
A6. RAINBOW IN A RED DESERT
B:
THROMDARR: AS A WIND CRIES (DEMO 1992)
B1. INTRO: DAWN OF THE SAMHAIN
B2. DRAGONMYRMIDON
B3. NOCTURNAL INNER TORMENT (RE-VERSION)
B4. OTHER: PROLOGUE OF SATAN
THROMDARR: SILVERTHRONE (DEMO 1995)
B5. DAWN IN THE SHADOWS
B6. AS ONE WITH THE ICE
B7. SILVERTHRONE
C:
THROMDARR: WINDS OF THE FALL (DEMO 1997)
C1. THROMDARR
C2. AN ECLIPSE OVER THE MOUNTAINS
C3. THE EMBRACE OF COLD
C4. WINDS OF THE FALL
C5. EYES OF CRYSTAL
C6. FROZEN AS THE MOON
C7. OCTOBER
D:
NECROBIOSIS: CONSUME THE LIFELESS CADAVER (DEMO 1991)
D1. INTRO: PHANTOM
D2. MAGGOTS INFEST
D3. THE TASTE OF FORMALDEHYDE
D4. NOCTURNAL INNER TORMENT
D5. CONSUME THE LIFELESS CADAVER
NECROBIOSIS: CONSUMED TRACKS (DEMO 1990)
D6. NOCTURNAL INNER TORMENT
D7. CONSUME THE LIFELESS CADAVER
https://www.facebook.com/thromdarr
https://www.thromdarr.com/
https://www.instagram.com/thromdarrofficial/
(Could be translated from Finnish)