Thy Grief's demo A Frozen Realm was recorded at Hindu Lyd during a week in august of 1995, with Cato Langnes at the helm.
Ken Larsen wrote the music for the tracks A Frozen Realm and A Cold Winters Mourning, Kim wrote The Cosmic Symphony Of Creation and Kim and Kjetil wrote Da Morket Omfavnet Meg. Roald wrote the lyrics for A Cold Winters Mourning and Christer Korsvold gave some of his own lyrics for them to use on the remaining tracks.
Kim:"I remember that we had to get our act together and record a demo before Roald moved to Sweden to go to school, cause the lineup wasn't much stable, at least that's the way I felt. The band was devided into two camps with Ken and Roald on one side and Kjetil and I on the other. We were determined to write music together, but our way of working weren't that refined since we had only been playing together for 6 months or so, and we lived on the opposite side of town from each others. When we entered the studio we had most of the basics sorted out, but stuff like synths was something we hadn't even tried out at rehearsals. I was a bit weary when we started the recording sessions, but the whole process went great, and we spent a total of 4 days in the studio. The demo sounds really good, and it cost only 5000 nok."
A Frozen Realm tracklist:
1. A Frozen Realm (An Ancient Scripture)
2. The Cosmic Symphony Of Creation
3. A Cold Winters Mourning
4. Da Mørket Omfavnet Meg
Roald Fosse - Vocals
Ken Larsen - Guitar
Kim Anders H. Johannessen - Guitar
Kjetil Monsen - Bass
Erik Hæggernes - Drums (session)
Reviews:
Franang Zine No2. 1997 (France)"THY GRIEF comes from the 'new' wave of B.M. of Norway and offers us quality music. They mix some fast parts with some others more melodics and these elements keeps the listeners hung from the beginning to end. The fast parts contain a harsh voice and the melodic parts are with more Death-like voice. Some accoustic guitars are adding with a synth choir, you have to listen to the first song 'A Frozen Realm', a really majestic opus. Here is a promising band with a demo which have good sound."
Morpheus No 2. March 1997
"THY GRIEF comes from Norway and 'A Frozen Realm' is, if I am not wrong, their first demo. This work includes four track and of course, being Norwegians, they couldn't be playing anithing else than black metal. But they manage to stand out quite a lot from this pile of the often dull Norwegian acts of this kind, as the composition remind rather of a Swedish band, with the exception a bit of the first track, which reminds of a Norwegian act due to its speed and mainly its roughness. Why am I saying that? Because there's quite a lot of melody through nice guitar riffs and keys, combined with speed and also with slow tempos. Besides, the production gets away from the Norwegian patterns, since it's more powerful. I'd mark out among the four tracks 'Da Morket Omfavnet Meg' (reading it made me sweat!), because of its melody and atmosphere. In all, a very good black metal demo managing to stand at a high level in this particular idiom, as THY GRIEF know how to play black metal very well. Certainly, this demo's ranked among the best of its kind I've listened to lately. "
- Nick Bolianitis