Description

Polish pressed music cassette. Clear Euro Profi cassette with white text. Ukrainian tax sticker on cover so probably made for the Ukrainian market

Poland is probably the country that had the most record labels in the world that only released cassettes. But even though there were lots of labels the market was still small as they only printed these for their own market inside of Poland. And a label in one town maybe lacked the distribution for another town and so on. A Warzaw or Krakow label might print more copies of a tape then labels from a smaller town. So even if there are thousands of releases you will notice how rare some are if you start to try to list the catalogue number of one particular label. Some cassettes just rarely shows up. A label based in the East-Central Polish city Legionowo actually managed to make it rather big. The company was Euro Star and they started their activity in the early 90s in Poland. Around the same time, Euro Star products began to fill the Ukrainian market and by the mid-90s became the main supplier of cassette products. Probably everyone in Ukraine who bought cassettes at that time had products of this company in their collection. At the start the Ukrainan tapes were imported from Poland but over time they began to press them in Ukraine, at the Zapadnaya 14 in Kyiv. When the Polish Parliament passed on a new copyright law in May of 1994 most Polish cassette labels disappeared but Euro Star became a cassette manufacturer for external recording companies. Around 1996/1997 the sublabel Kyiv-Eurostar started, which was a joint Polish-Ukrainian Enterprise based in Kyiv. Since 1998, Ukrainian text was printed on the inside of the cover. Euro Star also had office in Lithuania (their cartalouge numbers begins with ESMC-xxx), Albania and Russia. They also released tapes under the sublabels CD Club, Euro Sonic Production/Euro Profi Production and Super Tape (catalouge ST-xxx). More than five thousand tapes was released in Poland and about two thousand tapes in Russia.

Although the British band Anathema left their traditional death metal sound behind on The Silent Enigma with guitarist Vincent Cavanagh taking over vocals duties from growler Darren White, the dark themes continue. Shifting their morbid focus from God-bashing and destruction, the chaps focus on suicide and the meaningless of life. The blistering guitars have been replaced by atmospheric keyboards making this come off as a twisted combination of Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel, and there is even some spoken poetry here. As a whole, Anathema has proven that they are an original band, not content to repeat history. Unfortunately, there is a place in this world for such dark subject matter, and for those who care, Eternity fits the bill.

Track listing:
1. Sentient
2. Angelica
3. Eternity (Part 1)
4. Eternity (Part 2)
5. Hope
6. Far Away
7. The Beloved
8. Suicide Veil
9. Radiance
10. Eternity (Part 3)
11. Cries On The Wind
12. Ascension