Review Summary: Timeghoul impale you on the crumbled pillars of the millennia.
Timeghoul set many benchmarks in terms of complexity, atmosphere and thought provoking lyrics during their incredibly short existence. Know it or not death metal owes a great deal to Timeghoul. Timeghoul were on the cutting edge of death metal; incorporating clean vocals and extensive song lengths even before Opeth were formed. During the time when bands like Cynic and Pestilence were pushing the boundaries of death metal, Timeghoul were pushing the sound even further with their lyrics and with the way they composed their songs. Timeghoul were a band very few death metal bands could parallel.
During their short time as a band they were able to put out two demos, “
Tumultuous Travelings” which was released in 1992 and “
Panaramic Twilight” which came out in 1994. These demos have long been out of print until recently when Dark Descent finally released their two demos in one special package. Both demos are absolutely crushing.
“
Tumultuous Travelings” is the first of Timeghoul’s two demos. Let it be known even before the first hiss of the guitar that this isn’t just another amateur death metal demo tape from the 90s. Timeghoul meant business. They exhibit a supreme grasp of composition and knowing how to give the listener that extra dose of deep space atmosphere. These songs are covered with visions of aliens and futuristic planets. The riffs are extremely technical but never overbearing or self indulgent. The vocals on this demo are fantastic, usually in the typical death metal growled fashion but on a track like, “The Siege”, eerily sung vocals can be heard, adding that extra something that really pushed this band to the next level.
On their second and final demo, “
Panaramic Twilight”, Timeghoul take everything that they did on the first demo and multiply it by 5. The song lengths, the variance in vocals and even adding ambience and spoken word on both tracks. The first track, “Boiling In The Hourglass”, is easily the strongest track that Timeghoul put out. It does everything Timeghoul did with their sound and even a bit more. The futuristic samples and ambience make the listener feel as if they are falling into a black hole as a grainy distorted voice tells you that he is God and that he will impale you. As corny as that might sound, it’s actually quite unsettling and that’s part of what death metal is about; being frightened.
These two demos are some of the best death metal ever recorded. They pushed boundaries for death metal and are largely unrecognized for it today. Adding clean vocals and the spacial effects really made these demos something special. It is a real shame that they split and did not get a chance to release a full length album. Timeghoul created fascinating and and mysterious music, and it is time that you check this out.
