MAIOR ARCANA: (THE WORDS THAT TURN FLESH INTO LIGHT)

Maior Arcana is that odd duck: a reissue of a band's demo with four new tracks. For some reason, "War" and "Love" were swapped in the running order, but the packaging does not reflect this, meaning that the two songs are mislabelled. Since "Love" was reworked with a faster tempo and different arrangement as "Love (Garden of Aphrodite)", this may produce some confusion for listeners.

The material here is pretty strong, considering much of it was a demo. The recording quality is better than one would expect of a black metal demo; highlights include both versions of "Love", "Passing Away", and "The Path (You've Found)". All of this material is likely to be interesting to fans of black metal.

The problem here is that most of this material is now also available on reissues of the band's older albums. The Forgotten Arts was also included on a reissue of Dionysos; "Burn" was included on a reissue of Forever Alone, Immortal; "Heart of the Devil" and "Love (Garden of Aphrodite)" were included (albeit with the titles swapped) on a reissue of My Guardian Anger. If you don't have those reissues, this material is worth tracking down; if you do, "When Horned Souls Awake" probably isn't enough to justify the purchase of the CD on its own.