Labels Spotlight: The Devil's Elixirs

  

Due to too many posts waiting in the queue, I decided to release them this week in the global language only - Polscy czytelnicy wybaczcie!

This is the second time I write about an Ukrainian label. Previously I was disseminating Propaganda Records (click dammit), but among my real favorite labels of all-time, is The Devil's Elixirs. It's a label mostly dedicated to various Doomy Black Metal, but I've first learn about them when I acquired both "Mystic - Anthology" (all-female Doom / Death), and "Magus - Ruminations of Debauchery" (side-project of Absu members).

The label was founded in 2019, but their first release (Ildjarn's ambient album) was in 2020. Over the time, the label released acclaimed bands, like Varathron, Kampfar, Tartaros, Troll, as well as provided spotlight to more obscure stuff, like Midvinter, Mayhemic Truth, Unclean or Wish (Doom / Gothic band formed by Bart Smiths that he formed after leaving The Gathering during their deathly days).

The label has a habit of numbering their releases using Roman numerals, which adds to the elitist attitude. While initially, their output was released on both CD and Vinyl format, over the time, the latter started slowly dominating. Some of these albums were released interchangeably with Archivist Records *. For example - Archivist would release Kublai Khan, Vargavinter, or Living Death on CD, while T.D.E. on vinyl only, but using the same design and cover art.

At some point, probably due to Russian-Ukrainian war, the label presumably had to slow down their activities, which would explain why plethora of their announcements still wait for production. Among them would be Morrigan, the rest of Wallachia discography, Lekamen Illusionen Kallet, or Aghast. Looking at their catalog, there are many empty spaces, still waiting to be revealed. Hopefully, everything will work out in the end.

As a trivia, it's worth mentioning that there were also releases that almost happened. One of them was classic (albeit I don't like it) Judas Iscariot 's album "Of Great Eternity" (lol). Alas, it did not happen, either due to the band being "too trve" for a re-release, or probably due to other financial problems. Somehow the label managed to get distributed through Season of Mist, and Ván.

What makes T.D.E. so exclusive? Luxurious digibook releases in hardcover. The content of the book depends on the band, and you can see which one of them cared, and which were like "whatever". In my opinion, there should have been additional liner notes, and archival photos, even if only to fill some pages, alas, what can you do? One negative is that the releases are quite expensive, albeit earlier this year the label had a discount, which helped me fill my collection with missing albums.

Overall, a label worth checking out, if only to learn the bands that they re-release. 

Website: https://the-devils-elixirs.com/ 

* Another Ukrainian label, who had the same exact style of releleases, albeit they focus on modern local Death Metal bands - their building got bombed by Russians during the war, putting on hold their activities.