1. Arrival at the Horned Gates
2. Beleth, Rider of the Pale Horse
3. Purson, the Viper [full mp3]
4. Dance in the Poison Garden
5. March of the Lost Children [full mp3]
6. Rosa Funebris (Letany to Lilith) [full mp3]
7. The Arising of the Aethyr [full mp3]
8. Apocalipsis XVII [full mp3]
9. Aiel

Ah, the beginning of it all. Ah, the horror.

Truth is, I’m as proud of this album (erm, demo) as I’m embarrased by it. It sounds so naive now, with its 8-bit samples, badly cut loops, horrible-horrible-horrible computer generated sounds… But there WAS something there. I had a lot of great ideas, and I didn’t have time for learning about sound dynamics, acoustics, EQ, compression or anything like that. I only wanted to give life to the music I had in my head. I was a die-hard fan of two particular bands then, Endvra and Ordo Equilibrio, and it certainly shows throughout all the CD. I had never listened to anything like OE’s “The triumph of light…” before, and it just blew me away. THAT was what I wanted to do.

Of course, it never sounded anything near to what I intended: the powerful trumpet blasts I heard in my mind were translated to sampled “meeep”s, the thundering percussions I dreamt of sounded more like trash cans being hit with a stick, and the gently soothing flutes ended up being synthesised Commodore64-like bleeps. But it was a nice effort, I think.

Some tracks in fact haven’t aged that badly, so I’ve decided to make them available in mp3 format for your delight. “Purson, the Viper” reappeared years later in the remastered version of “Ouroboros”, but this is the first draft, without any vocals. “March of the lost children” was played live a couple of times, “Apocalipsis XVII” was a very powerful piece for closing concerts with the crazy latin vocals and live tribal percussions we used to add on top, and “Rosa Funebris” sounds awful, but I kinda like it because it’s my first intent at cutting vocals on a track. Unfortunately, it sounds so much like Ordo Equilibrio it’s not even funny.

Oh, and “Arising of the Aethyr” is a pretty cool one, too. Monotonous and simple, lots of Endvra influences, but effective. You can’t beat Uncle Al when it comes to ritual chanting.

As to the remaining 4, let us not unearth the horrors of the past. You really don’t want to listen to them. Trust me.