Aeolus - Celestial Forest

From the band himself:
Aeolus is an atmospheric black metal band from Wisconsin.  I have just released our debut EP entitled "Celestial Forest." My music was written to capture the beauty of nature while highlighting that at night, the atmosphere of the forest changes and danger lurks everywhere...This was my first attempt at writing, recording, mastering, and producing an album all by myself, along with handling all the instrumental duties

This is not great, its not even good. What it is is a young band just starting out and making missteps. First off, the drum programming is alright when its blasting, but it doesn't sound good. It sounds rather akin to an overloaded washing machine on the spin cycle. When it slows to a mid pace, the programming sounds like some digi-disco "grim and frostbitten bee-gees"-lite, while still muffling the fuck out of the snare and bass. The riffs/songwriting are alright, just lacking enough originality or conviction to stand it apart from the hundreds of other bedroom bands out there. The vocals are too loud in the first couple of tracks, with too much distortion on them. Just a pretty annoying shriek that is so far in front of the mix that it eats up the rest of the real estate. The last original track mixes them lower, but even beyond being able to clearly hear them. And there happens to be a cover of "The Wolfpack" by Satyricon, its just kinda eh, but better than the rest of this demo. 

Samyaza needs to practice his songwriting. If this was a interesting or unique songwriting release, you could look past the iffy programming and uneven production (mostly). As it stands, this is the upper end of the lower end of the quality road. I've heard much worse, but I've also heard a lot better, and from projects that either have an even production or interesting/strong songwriting. I think that with practice and dedication, Aeolus could put out a solid record. Until then, its not enough to stand out in any aspect.