Tranendal (1996) by SOULWOUND

SOULWOUND formed from the ashes of CAUTEROR (doom/death, two demo's in the early nineties) after a change of style. CAUTEROR was rather primitive deathmetal mixed with melodic parts and a bit of doom. SOULWOUND's sound was forged from a steady diet of Peaceville three, Candlemass and 'Indy' music from the nineties. But also classical music, the weird sound of Holy Records and a bit of first and second wave black metal. The goal was to create the most sorrowful, heavy and downright miserable doom/death possible.

In hindsight the music almost sounded like 'slowcore' and 'funeral doom' before those genre tags where even invented. SOULWOUND always sounded different from their contemporaries. Probably due to the fact that most members mostly listened to other music than doom, death or any other metal.

'Tranendal' ('Valley of tears' in dutch) is the second demo from 1996 (the first one is from 1993). 'Tranendal' was recorded at the legendary dutch studio 'Beaufort' in may and june 1996 with legendary studio owner Han Swagerman on 24 tracks (a real luxury in those days). The sound of the demo is pretty decent. Also given the fact that out budget was tight and we had no real knowledge of mixing/producing. Marshall stereo chorus combo's forever :)!

What i can remember from those days was that we where very excited to be there and recording these 4 songs. Yes they are a bit long, yes there quite a few mistakes (this was before digital/DAW editing) and man do i hate my clean singing but these songs ooze atmosphere and a genuine miserable feeling.

I cant really remember how the demo was received at the time..probably mixed. As usual with music we where involved in..it always sounded different than what people expect. We where all pretty stubborn people musically. Opening a doom/death demo with almost 5 minutes of quiet clean guitar noodling and clean singing (i remember being inspired by a Sonic Youth track) in 1996? Probably not a good idea.

This demo was a big deal for us back than. We where so proud of the sound and compositions. There was no real interest from record companies and we where not really good at (or to lazy) promoting the band and the demo (this was before the internet!!). I think we where quite disappointed that no record company showed interest. Recording a full length and having it properly released was the ulltimate dream back then.

We kept playing after the demo but than 'life' happened. Jobs, school, other interest etc. etc. We all lost interest in this sound too. So that was the end of SOULWOUND.

A few weeks back (may 2019) these last 25 tapes and the original DAT (digital audio tape) emerged from the bottom of some box Wieger had and I decided to release these again. The DAT was digitized and the demo remastered). The tape comes with newly printed (yet original): cover, lyric sheet, bio sheet and a flyer.

This site includes work from my projects: Gnaw Their Tongues, Aderlating, De Magia Veterum, Seirom and many more.

gnawtheirtongues.com