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You have to start from somewhere if you want to play in a band, right? Finland's blacksters Gloomy Grim started in 1995 and recorded a couple of demos in their early career. Those demos were Fuck the World, Kill the Jehova!, which they recorded in 1996, and Friendship Is Friendship, War Is War, which came out about a year later in 1997.

Now, these demos have been combined for this compilation, titled Fuck the World, War Is War!, courtesy of Russian Satanath Records. I guess they saw enough potential in these demos to want to get them both out on one disc.

Gloomy Grim's Black Metal was very spooky, obscure and different sounding at their beginning and really didn't follow any prevailing Black Metal trends like when every band wanted to copy elements from either Darkthrone or Dissection. They clearly wanted to have a different approach to their sound, something at which they succeeded. Check out the creepy "War / Ashes" from their second demo, Friendship Is Friendship, War Is War, which has a very soundtrack-esque, spooky feel to it. There are a few other nice and appealing moments on this disc, but the cold and poorly arranged drum machine sound ruins many things here, unfortunately.

I am not personally too stoked about this release, but I understand the necessity of this demo collection from the fans' point of view.