GODKILLER – Demo Compilation & first track

Originally released on tape during the pinnacle phase of the Black Metal movement, the two GODKILLER demo tapes, „Ad Majorem Satanae Gloriam“ (1994) and „The Warlord“ (1995), will be available for the first time on CD, vinyl and digitally. Composed and arranged by multi-instrumentalist Duke Satanaël, the seven songs on „We Are The Black Knights“ display a feverish will to combine the harshest sounds Metal music has to offer with sublime moments and neoromantic passages. Thus, GODKILLER’s early Art is a stunning reminder of why this music sparked a revolution.

The title of the compilation must be understood as a nostalgic link to the early Black Metal scene. Duke narrates: „The title is taken from the lyrics of a track featured on GODKILLER’s first EP, „The Rebirth Of The Middle Ages„, entitled ‚The Neverending Reign Of The Black Knights‚. „We Are The Black Knights“ is a federating title that sums up what the Black Metal scene was at the time.

On this compilation, the seven demo tracks appear for the first time in a carefully mastered version. To allow an insight into this new sound, GODKILLER present the song ‚Waiting For Lilith‚. This composition taken from the first demo highlights the extraordinary mixture between raw Death as well as Black Metal elements and symphonic sublimity. Listen to the song via Bandcamp: We Are The Black Knights | Godkiller (bandcamp.com)

Duke comments on the creation of ‚Waiting For Lilith‚: „As far as I remember, ‚Waiting For Lilith‚ was the first track I wrote for the first demo, „Ad Majorem Satanae Gloriam“ (1994). It is an energetic song, but it is punctuated by slower, darker, more depressive passages, with accompaniments of classical instruments (timpani, violins, church organ). This alternation of rhythms is one of the characteristics of GODKILLER’s style. It is a mixture of Metal (Death and Black on this track) and more intimate atmospheres, inspired by a music not stemming from Metal, rather from the music of the 80s (DEAD CAN DANCE, BAUHAUS, THE CURE and so on) and classical music. The lyrics evoke a classic figure of Satanism: Lilith, Queen of the succubus. She is the incarnation of evil and the terror of women in childbirth, because she steals newborns to devour them.

GODKILLER was founded by Duke Satanaël in 1994. The first demo, „Ad Majorem Satanae Gloriam„, was released in December of the same year. It featured a mixture of Death and Black metal with already an evocation of the medieval era, as it is audible in the intro. The second demo, „The Warlord„, was released in February 1995, and showed an evolution towards a style that would become GODKILLER’s trademark: Black Metal with medieval-inspired sounds.

The demo caught the interest of Italian label Wounded Love Records (a division of Avantgarde Music). The first release from this partnership was „The Rebirth Of The Middle Ages“ in 1996.

Always being interested in new musical inspiration and evolution, the next album needed to be different. On „The End Of The World„, released in 1998, the tempo slowed down, the riffs became heavier, the atmosphere was less medieval-inspired, but still crepuscular, even more so. The lyrics dealt with personal, introspective subjects from a bleak perspective.

Finally, the last GODKILLER album, „Deliverance„, was released in 2000. Once again, this album marked an evolution in style. The main characteristics of „The End Of The World“ were kept, but the medieval atmosphere was almost entirely gone, replaced by a more modern, cold and clinical atmosphere. This last album was, in a way, GODKILLER’s self-destruction, the point of completion as well as the point of no return.

In 2022, GODKILLER signed a deal with Debemur Morti Productions to reissue the two demos on CD and vinyl.