What’s really surprising about Sielunvihollinen though is the variety of riffage on display.  Typically upon diving this deep into the black metal underground, one is met with a constant barrage of uninspired, monochromatic tremolo riffing, but Forjord guitarist Valgrinder ain’t havin’ it.  He’s just as likely to unleash some thick ‘n’ chunky palm-muted chug, garage-punk power chord damage or eerie arpeggios, sometimes all within the same song.  His playing brings a dynamic range to the band well beyond the re-hashed 2nd wave Norse-worship that so much of the modern black metal scene is content to serve up.  Drummer/vocalist Prokrustes Thanatos is no slouch either, spending most of the album beating the living shit out of his kit with a solid, bare bones approach.  The vocals are largely your standard-issue blackened rasping, but Thanatos sounds appropriately inhuman, complementing the music’s seething ugliness.

While Forgjord’s press materials refer to them as freezing Finnish black metal, I don’t get a particularly cold vibe while listening to Sielunvihollinen.  In fact, to these ears the album possesses a fairly earthy atmosphere by black metal standards, which probably has something to do with the folkish-sounding moments of relative calm that ever so briefly rear their heads throughout it’s duration, as well as the aforementioned lack of reliance on ear-bleeding treble.  The soundscapes Forgjord creates here are multi-layered epics drenched in hateful, lo-fi abandon.  The atmosphere is undeniably grim and primitive, but also polished and well-composed, at once embracing and defying black metal’s sonic tenets, if such a thing is possible.

Although Forgjord is firmly entrenched within the rawest of the raw black metal paradigms, it is what they are able to achieve while working within that paradigm that makes Sielunvihollinen such an enthralling listen, tinkering with the formula just enough to keep even the most hardened black metal fanatics on their toes and not a bit more.  You’ve no doubt heard lots of filthy, traditional Finnish BM, but you haven’t yet heard a band quite like Forgjord.

http://www.hammer-of-hate.com/

Having been involved in black metal since 1993, Hoest is one of the few prominent Norwegian BM musicians that has kept both his music and ideology pure.  Noregs Vaapen is black metal to the core, and although it might not be particularly raw or lo-fi from a production standpoint, it nonetheless upholds black metal tradition with its icy, hypnotic tremolo riffs, rasped vocals, monochromatic cover art and malicious demeanor.  It embodies the genre’s timelessly cult essence, while at the same time aknowledging the genre’s first wave roots (see Venom, early Bathory, etc) by not being afraid to embrace rock ‘n’ roll when the songs call for it.  It is easy to forget that rock ‘n’ roll was considered wild and dangerous when it first appeared on the musical landscape, but the primal bloodline of early rock (and also punk) can be traced directly to black metal’s willingness to shock and provoke as well as its appeal to our lizard brains.  Hoest is no stranger to provocation and controversy, having walked on stage in Essen, Germany with a swastika painted on his chest.  Do I think that Hoest is a nazi?  Of course not.  Do I think that Hoest embraces the notion that artists have the power to subject us to ideas and symbols that we may find uncomfortable or downright offensive?  Absolutely.  Black metal musicians aren’t the first artists to do so, but they have integrated this idea of confrontational art on a level that is rarely encountered; black metal confronts us with subjects such as death, Satanism, nationalism, totalitarianism, domination and submission at almost every turn.  Although I haven’t been able to find a full translation of Noregs Vaapen‘s lyrics, the song “Orkan” has recently come under fire for the line “To hell with Muhammad and the Mohammedans.”  If attacking Islam isn’t confrontational in today’s social and political climate, then I don’t know what is.  I do applaud Taake for being one of the few bands to recognize that Christianity isn’t the only religion that deserves contempt.

Back to the music, Noregs Vaapen is textbook black metal, but don’t let that description lead you to write it off as a rehash of genre cliches.  On the contrary, the album proves that it is still possible to create interesting music within the traditional black metal framework.  There is no one distinguishing characteristic, but rather something about the totality of Hoest’s approach to composition and playing that makes it a great album.  The feeling that Hoest understands the genre implicitly, that it is as much a part of him as the most simplistic of human functions, is palpable throughout the duration of Noregs Vaapen.  Of course, one much-discussed deviation from the black metal norm does occur on the song “Myr,” which sees guest musician Gjermund Fredheim (Syrach) laying down some seriously wicked banjo playing during the song’s final minutes.  I’m not familiar enough with Norwegian culture outside of metal to know whether or not the banjo is a part of their musical tradition, but the instrument does give “Myr” a unique character that to these ears recalls American roots music, like the Oh Brother, Were Art Thou soundtrack gone straight to Hell.  Several other guests pop up throughout Noregs Vaapen, including Nocturno Culto, Attila Csihar and Demonaz (if you don’t know who they are, what the hell are you doing reading this blog?), but their appearances don’t change the fact that this album is Hoest’s sole vision, and that Taake is a cult of personality in the tradition of Burzum, Ildjarn and other infamous one man black metal acts.

Noregs Vaapen is a statement of intent.  That intent is to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that rumors of black metal’s death are greatly exaggerated, in spite of what faux-academics, “journalists,” or internet warriors (you know, the dudes with user names like “trvegoatlord666″ who swear up and down that the genre was buried along with Dead and Euronymous), might have you believe.  While I do think that some kind of paradigm shift is needed to move black metal into its next era of greatness, keeping the flame of tradition burning is every bit as important as innovating, and Taake is doing exactly that with Noregs Vaapen.

http://taake.svartekunst.no/

Last month, I covered a demo tape from an excellent raw black metal band known as Blut Der Nacht. Not long after, I was contacted by Mike, the owner of BDN’s label, Fallen Empire Records. Mike told me that BDN also had a couple of side projects up their sleeves that he was planning on releasing. Needless to say, I was eager to hear what else these musicians were capable of, so I waited patiently for any scrap of information regarding these projects.

The wait is over. Fallen Empire have released two limited edition tapes featuring Wylve and The Rain in Endless Fall, the unholy spawn of BDN’s members. Very different than the furiously concise, scathing violence that is BDN, both Wylve and TRIEF explore the more hypnotic, ambient sides of black metal, w/o sacrificing any of BDN’s raw darkness. I especially enjoy the eerie atmosphere of TRIEF.  I’d say more, but I’d much rather let the music speak for itself.

An exclusive preview track featuring songs from both of these excellent demos can be heard below.

Both tapes are out now and available directly from Fallen Empire. The first press is limited to just thirty-three copies of each, and I’m told is already well on it’s way to selling out after just one day of release. Once these are completely gone, a final pressing of thirty-three combining both releases w/ alternate artwork will be released. For those not down w/ cassettes, both demos will be available in MP3 form at Svn Okklt blog as a free download shortly.

Sorrow and Extinction lives up to the hype and then some.  Pallbearer has crafted an emotionally-charged traditional doom album that takes the Black Sabbath template and infuses it with a devastating sense of vulnerability.  It is the soundtrack to withering away and dying, which for most of us is a much more frightening, much more realistic thought than that of ”Satan coming ’round the bend.”

As expected, Mr. Campbell’s distinctive vocals throughout the album are positively sublime, coming off like an amalgamation of Ozzy and Geddy Lee with maybe just a hint of Katatonia’s Jonas Renske.  And just like those three classic vocalists, Campell’s voice is imbued with tremendous pathos.  When he sings lines like ”No more to breathe the air / to feel the warmth of Summer / as I start to slip away / I know my time has come” from “The Legend,” you feel every bit of the gut-wrenching grief pouring out of the speakers, soaking it up into the fabric of your being.  I can’t remember the last time I heard a metal vocal performance so palpably despondent; the lamentations of a wise and weary old soul that has travelled many a desolate mile and can now finally sleep in the eternal arms of the Reaper.

Of course, the performance of one band member alone cannot carry an entire album, and Sorrow and Extinction is every bit as impressive instrumentally as it is vocally and lyrically.  Campbell and lead guitarist Devin Holt lay down riffage that is as emotive as it is heavy; the thousand-ton weight of knowing you are about to die bathed in crackling distortion.  As if that weren’t enough, the rhythm section of bassist Joe Rowland and (now ex-) drummer Zach Stine pile on even more heft.  Each of the album’s five tracks run between eight and twelve minutes, yet there isn’t a single moment that feels wasted or excessive.  There is always something happening that draws you deeper and deeper into Pallbearer’s doomed, damned realm, be it a riff, a lead, a beat or a vocal melody; in listening to Sorrow and Extinction, you can’t help but feel like you’re listening to work of a veteran band that has spent decades perfecting their craft, rather than one that’s only been around since 2008, such is the prodigious depth and profundity of the quartet’s songwriting.

As we continue our long, slow march towards death’s inevitable embrace, we often look to music in an effort to try and make sense of it all. In this respect, Sorrow and Extinction is a very special album, a musical preparation for the funereal journey into the spectral shadows beyond that each of us shall one day make.  Pallbearer don’t necessarily offer answers (who can?), but they do present us with an incredibly heartfelt musical interpretation of life’s final moments.  It is both timeless and affecting, and as close to a perfect debut as I’ve ever heard.

http://www.pallbearerdoom.com/

The cassette is a cheap way of reproducing and distributing music.  I haven’t gone to the trouble of actually pricing tape production and duplication (maybe some readers can shed light on that in the comments?), but I can guarantee that it is much more cost-effective than having CDs and especially vinyl pressed.  In this respect, it is the perfect format for bands that have no interest in dealing with Heavy Metal Inc, and although black metal has long since been absorbed into the establishment, there’s no time like the present to take it back underground.  With that said, it should be noted that some cassette-based labels, specifically Crepusulo Negro and Rhinocervs (probably the two most infamous), have begun working with larger, more established labels such as Profound Lore and The Ajna Offensive to get some of their releases (Dolorvotre, Tukaaria, Odz Manouk) on CD, but this is surely due more to outside interest and demand.  These cassette releases are cheap to purchase (typically $5 – $8) and are often extremely limited, selling out in a matter of days or even hours, and therefore not always readily available.  Also, no matter how much metal fans might want to hear this stuff, many are unwilling to embrace the cassette due to its supposed limitations.  This need for wider distribution and other formats is a consequence of releasing great music that people want to hear, and it’s much better than forcing fans to go scouring the internet for often janky downloads of these sold out releases.  Of course, the fact that the music is being released on a format which many find unacceptable only adds to the clandestine nature of these bands and the music they create, and in my mind a little of that mystique dies every time I hear about this stuff coming out on CD or even vinyl.  Nonetheless, what these bands are creating is some of the most compelling modern black metal I’ve heard in years (much more on this later), and deserves to be heard and made widely available.

Black metal’s emphasis on creating a dark, murky and detached atmosphere is surely another factor in the use of cassettes.  Anyone that’s listened to music on cassette knows that no matter how well produced the music may be, it possesses an eerie, distant quality, like the band is playing in a room down the hall from the recording equipment with the door slightly cracked when played back through a tape deck.  Black metal has long embraced recording conditions and qualities that other genres would deem highly unsatisfactory to say the very least, and used them to the genre’s advantage, so why not also embrace a format that enhances that aural ugliness?  In the this respect, the cassette is the perfect vessel for conveying the “necro” production values that are as inherent to black metal as corpsepaint and tremolo-picking.  At this point you’re probably saying, the lo-fi qualities of cassettes can easily be reproduced with today’s recording/production technology, why not just do that?  But that simply wouldn’t do for a genre as obsessed with authenticity as black metal, not to mention the fact that these artists are recording their music at home on small multi-track recorders, not multi-million-dollar studios, lest we forget that Transilvanian Hunger was recorded on a 4-track in Fenriz’s living room.  The Darkthrone comparison is apt with respect to pure sonics, but in truth many of the cassette-releasing bands, especially the Black Twilight Circle collective who calls Crepusculo Negro their label home, have clearly modeled themselves after France’s Les Legiones Noires (The Black Legions), a group of bands that included Mutiilation, Vlad Tepes and Torgeist, and released a number of obscure and difficult to obtain cassette demos throughout the nineties.  Some of the Les Legiones Noires demos were eventually released on CD (including various bootlegs) and came to be regarded as some of the best black metal ever released.  Sound familiar?

But what of  the actual music?  The Black Twilight Circle/Crepusculo Negro bands, or at least the ones I’ve had the opportunity to track down and listen to so far, all sound quite different from one another, in spite of them all largely consisting of the same core members in different configurations.  Among the most intriguing is Dolorvotre, a duo who’s self-titled debut is a freaky, drug-addled journey to the edge of the abyss.  The album includes songs titled “DMT” and “LSD,” and if that doesn’t give you an idea of what kind of headspace you’re entering when you put this album on, I’m not sure what will.  One thing is for sure, I’m glad to be listening in the comfort of my own home, rather than actually accompanying the band on the pitch-black trip that it must have taken to inspire this hallucinatory black metal mind-fuck.  The CD version of Dolorvotre that was recently released by The Ajna Offensive has been remastered and features a considerably cleaned up sound compared to the tape version (which I’m not sure was mastered at all), but loses none of its inherent weirdness in the translation.  The strange atmosphere of the album has much to do with interesting production choices; the guitar distortion is extremely light by black metal standards, and  the riffs have a bit of reverbed jangle and twang to their tonality which recalls garage rock and even surf music.  Lead lines attempt to rise up from the blackness, but are quickly pulled back down into the album’s hazy miasma.  The drums clatter away in the background underneath the vocals, guitars and even the bass, a feint pulse that’s more felt than heard, yet still manages to drive the music.  The vocals are a fairly typical black metal rasp, echoing above the music and punctuated by the occasional Burzum-esque wailing.  In the world of black metal, the term “hypnotic” is commonly used interchangeably with “psychedelic,” but Dolorovotre’s record legitimately sounds like psych-rock filtered through a black metal lens and is one of the few legitimate instances of such that I’ve encountered.

Also worth investigating is Arizmenda’s Without Circumference nor Center, an album that sounds utterly consumed by madness, the insanity-drenched aftermath of one too many trips through the dark fantastic as detailed on Dolorvotre.  In fact, Arizmenda features the same members as Dolorvotre (multi-instrumentalists Juan Cabello and Eduardo Ramirez aka Volahn, with the addition of drummer Murdunbad), so naturally a lot of that same hallucinogenic vibe does manage to seep in, but Arizmenda turns it up to 11; the music here is much more sprawling and expansive, whereas Dolorvotre’s songs are more concise and riff-oriented.  Arizmenda’s compositions are all about layers and textures, lo-fi symphonies of eerie dissonance swirling out of the void and infecting your brain.  It speaks volumes about the skills of the musicians involved that they were able to harness this lysergic nightmare into a coherent, albeit extremely off-kilter musical narrative.  It’s a harrowing listen, like crawling inside the cranial cavity of a paranoid schizophrenic that’s been dosed with LSD and getting trapped in there for an hour.  I wouldn’t be surprised if prolonged exposure to this album causes permanent side effects.  I’m still working my way through the various BTC full lengths as I write this, but Without Circumference nor Center is easily one of my favorites so far behind Dolorvotre and is highly recommended to those seeking soundscapes that are equally blackened and bent.

Of course, the split release has long been a hallmark of the black metal scene, and Crepusculo Negro has recently put out some very impressive splits in the form of the Ashdautas/Bone Awl and Volahn/Kallathon releases.  Word is that Ashdautas disbanded and is no longer affiliated with the The Black Twilight Circle due to an interview The Boston Phoenix conducted with Volahn that some metal message board jockeys deemed incendiary.  Internet drama aside, if this is in fact the final Ashdautas recording, the band is going out on an incredibly high note with the two tracks presented here, especially the scathing epic “Vermillion Stars in Depths Familiar,” a song that that manages to sound icy, razor-sharp and astral all at once, the perfect soundtrack for slicing the heavens to bloody shreds.  THKD readers should (hopefully) already be familiar with Bone Awl’s crude, punk rock-damaged take on black metal, and although they aren’t a Black Twilight Circle band, they possess a similar “DIY or die” attitude that clearly makes them kindred spirits.  Bone Awl’s seven blasts of ultra-primitive filth are among the best material they’ve recorded to date, and make for an interesting contrast with Ashdautas’ more intricate and traditionally inclined compositions.  As for the Volahn/Kallathon split, to be honest I’m not terribly enamored with the Kallathon material as it’s a bit subpar in the playing department.  The four Volahn tracks on the other hand are quite excellent.  A friend described the songs as “just weird rock ‘n’ roll,” while a message board commenter said they sounded like “black metal Foo Fighters.”  The latter description is a bit of an exaggeration, although there definitely might be some ’90s alt-rock influence lurking within these compositions (Pixies, perhaps? no bad thing where I come from), while the former description pretty much nails it.  This is rock-influenced black metal without falling into the black ‘n’ roll realm that a band such as Midnight occupies.

Of course, this is merely scratching the surface of the Black Twilight Circle; the collective has a slew of other projects to their names, from the Amebix-worshipping Axeman to the hideous blackened death metal of The Haunting Presence and the flute-fueled oddity that is Blue Hummingbird on the Left.  Although many of the physical tapes are sold out, I have seen leftovers occasionally popping up at third-party distros such as Ajna and Hells Headbangers, and there is at least one blog offering high quality, legit downloads of many of these releases, so if you’re late to the party as I was, there are still plenty of opportunities to get your hands on the wealth of great music that Crepusculo Negro has released.

Rhinocervs is the other California-based, Black Twilight-associated cassette label that has recently risen to infamy, releasing a slew of well-received tapes in 2011.  While several of these releases have belonged to bands such as Tukaaria (who’s excellent Raw to the Rapine will be reviewed at a later date) and Nihilobstat, the ones that have quickly propelled Rhinocervs into the upper echelons of USBM are not attributed to anyone at all.  Rhinocervs have released a series of cassettes with no band names, no album titles and (usually) no song titles.  These releases are generally referred to only by their catalogue numbers (RH-01, RH-02 and so on) and give no clues as to the musicians involved, when/where the music was recorded, etc.  For much of its past, black metal has been as much about the personalities involved as the music, with the Vargs, Darkens, Malefics, Wrests, etc often overshadowing their art via outlandish extracurricular activities and “controversial” statements.  The Rhinocervs tapes cut away all the excess baggage that surrounds black metal by shrouding it in anonymity, leaving one with no choice but to focus on what really matters: the goddamn music.

And what great music it is!  Each of the untitled tapes is different (although they share common threads), suggesting that different lineups of musicians are involved from release to release, or perhaps only that the band behind the music is extremely proficient at navigating numerous styles within the black metal paradigm, and the aforementioned anonymity allows them the freedom to follow their muse wherever it may lead.  RH-01 and RH-02 are ultra-malignant descents into the realms of BM orthodoxy, with RH-02 borrowing its drum sound directly from VON’s Satanic Blood demo.  These two early explorations are possessed by a blunt rawness that is distinctly American, yet at the same time is far more melodic and musically varied than the bulldozing, monochromatic attack of archetypal USBM bands such as Black Witchery or Profanatica.  The level of sophistication hinted at underneath the crude exterior of these tapes comes into bloom much more fully on RH-11; which features both improved riffs and a thicker atmosphere.  In fact, these three releases can be seen as something of a musical triptych emphasizing the more traditional, timelessly cult aspects of Rhinocervs’ approach to black metal, as opposed to the spacey yet no less blackened soundscapes of RH-07 and RH-12.

Indeed, just as RH-1, 2 and 11 are intertwined, so too are RH-07 and RH-12 musically and aesthetically linked.  They are characterized by slower tempos, chimerical ambience and artwork featuring a malevolent-looking visage gazing out of the void.  RH-07 is possessed by a ritualistic quality that many bands wish they could muster; it’s the stuff of moonlit ceremonies, drenched in blood and designed to envelop the Earth in cosmic darkness.  When I listen to it, I’m reminded of the insignificance of mankind amidst the vast, vacuous blackness surrounding our feeble planet, stretching out into forever.  I ponder who or what might be lurking out there, beyond that terrible blackness, at the threshold of infinity.  In just twenty-three minutes, the enitre planet is swallowed up into a black hole of buzzing tremolo riffs, sepulchral synths and buried drums, as the malevolent god-figure from the tape cover hurls its curses at you from across time and space.  Other black metal bands have tried to walk similar astral paths, but most only reach for the celestial lyrically or visually, with the music still sounding like the same old tired black metal you’ve heard a million times over the years.  Although the lyrics to RH-07′s songs are of course a mystery, the album is still nothing short of total sensory immersion within clouds of cold dark matter.

RH-12, with its striking blue cover art (pictured above) and sluggish, dreamy musical approach, is even more phantasmagorical than RH-07, if such a thing is possible.  Comprised of three lengthy, meandering tracks, it is the soundtrack to what happens after being drawn into the black hole’s obsidian maw, doomed to wander through strange and terrible new dimensions, forever lost.  As the gauzy waves of distortion wash over me (how I’d love to be able to somehow physically immerse myself in them!), my thoughts instantly drift to Lovecraft’s The Whisperer in Darkness, in which the alien Mi-Go extract human beings’ brains from their bodies and place them in cylinders, whisking them away to frightful worlds beyond the stars.  Perhaps the eyes peering out from the cover art are those of the god-figure adorning RH-07, having finally arrived after a lengthy journey across the cosmos to lead you into the great black emptiness beyond.  Musically, RH-12 can be best described as ambient black metal which takes the astro/metaphysical aspects of a band like Blut Aus Nord or Darkspace and sets them against a warmer, more organic sense of atmosphere.  It is terrifyingly beautiful to behold, as if the void itself is gently caressing your ears, cooing lullabies of destruction.  This is easily the most accomplished of the Rhinocervs tapes, combining the superior riff-craft of RH-11 with the universe-collapsing atmospheres of RH-07.  With RH-13 supposedly being released sometime in February, it will be interesting to see if they continue in this utterly mesmerizing direction, revisit the orthodoxy of their earlier releases, or perhaps unleash something totally unheralded.

Of course, this is by no means meant to be a comprehensive guide to Crepusculo Negro and Rhinocervs.  It’s an awful lot of music to take in, and I’m still digesting much of it.  But the fact remains that these two labels are clearly onto something musically, conceptually and aesthetically, something that could help bring about the paradigm shift that US black metal (and black metal in general for that matter) so desperately needs.  There was a time when words like “cult” meant something, when cassettes weren’t considered kitsch, when black metal was true outsider music, far removed from “the industry” and all the bullshit that goes with it.  Labels like Crepusculo Negro and Rhinocervs are the modern day embodiment of the true black metal underground, far away from the prying eyes of the mainstream.  It is for these reasons that I’m compelled to write, even as I’m still in the midst of exploring them, adding my own voice to the chorus of dissent, not to mention total dissatisfaction with the way black metal has been co-opted, commercialized and otherwise raped by Heavy Metal Inc.  It’s time to take black metal back, and the path to victory is bathed in black twilight.

http://crepusculonegro.blogspot.com/

http://rhinocervs.blogspot.com/

Indeed, the music on Defender, Redeemist is as rad as the album’s Frazetta-esque album art, a blood-thirsty and battle-ready amalgamation of metal sounds with all of their strengths, none of their weaknesses, plus a propensity for kicking out scads of thick ‘n’ chunky riffage like it’s no big deal.  By now it’s no secret that when I listen to metal, I want riffs like people in Hell want ice water, and Behold! The Monolith delivers, aided and abetted by Billy Anderson’s skull-pummeling yet nuanced production.  I’ve always found Anderson’s work to be a tad on the murky side in the past, but that definitely isn’t the case here; each instrument on Defender, Redeemist is clearly audible and more heavy than a mofo (it’s especially nice to hear the bass guitar so well represented in the mix).

But while the riffs on early tracks such as “Halv King” and “Desolizator” are undoubtedly righteous, Behold! Monolith also know how create compelling atmospheres, and Defender, Redeemist begins to take on more grandiose qualities as it progresses.  Things start really getting epic with “Redeemist,” a thunderous track that over the course of eleven minutes serves as a microcosm for everything Behold! The Monolith is about; noises that sound like giant space creatures mating inside a black hole give way to slow, elephantine power chords while vocalist Kevin McDade bellows about slaying demons.  Later on, the song morphs into a thick-as-molasses mid-paced gallop, only to dissolve into clean guitars, spacey synths and eerie, echoing vocals, before finally switching back to bulldozer mode for the final lap.  It’s an absolutely killer track that showcases Behold! The Monolith’s versatility; this band knows about a million different ways to knock your dick in the dirt, and they aren’t afraid to use ‘em.

The rest of the album is equally impressive; “We are the Worm” “Witch Hunt Supreme” and “Bull Colossi” are doom-laden displays of true metallic grit and crippling heaviness, while “Cast on the Black – Lamentor – Guided by the Southern Cross” is another epic, smoked-out slugfest with the Devil.  Each track on Defender, Redeemist has its own character, and the band isn’t shy about lacing their songwriting with hooks aplenty.  Let’s face it, the fucked up fact is that songs you can tell apart aren’t exactly a given in today’s cookie-cutter metal climate (another dead horse I’ve no doubt beaten to a bloody pulp), making it all the more refreshing to uh, behold Behold! The Monolith’s dedication to the craft, which echoes the badass power trio ethos of the aforementioned High on Fire, Hellhammer, etc.  The band not only maximizes the minimal throughout Defender, Redeemist, they also maximize the memorability, and as a result the headbangability.

It isn’t everyday that a band comes storming out of the blue and totally blows me away, but that’s exactly what Behold! The Monolith has done with Defender, Redeemist (seriously, where the hell did these guys come from?!).  Wielding an arsenal of riffs that will crush you to dust amidst a hazy yet ultra-heavy atmosphere, this hellish power trio have created an album that lays waste to the weak and utterly false garbage that “Heavy Metal Inc” continues to attempt to shove down our throats and proves that DIY isn’t dead.  It’s the perfect soundtrack for heading out to war against the forces of evil, or just kicking back to smoke a little space-grass.

http://beholdthemonolith.com

Indeed, Eyehategod’s live shows appear to be just as gritty and violent as their music; the Cleveland show in particular is a tightly packed sea of thrashing limbs and ear-damaging feedback.  The Baltimore show meanwhile is the better-sounding of the two, a testament to the pummeling power of the New Orleans quintet’s glacially-paced twin guitar assault.  That’s exactly what Eyehategod does, assault their audience with a salvo of vomit vox and deep, punishing grooves.  The band infuses their music with a sense of menace and danger that instantly becomes palpable when they hit the stage.  It’s the blues and hardcore punk dosed with quaaludes, armed with broken bottles and taken to their illogical conclusions.

My only complaint with Live is the total lack of backstage and interview footage.  The shows are fantastic by themselves, but with a band as enigmatic as Eyehategod, you can’t help but wish for some sort of glimpse into what the members are like offstage, especially considering their rough ‘n’ tumble history.  They aren’t exactly the sort of band that’s going to make it onto VH1′s Behind the Music (although it would be much, much cooler, if they did), so this DVD feels a little bit like a missed opportunity to give fans some extra insight.

In spite of that one minor gripe, there is plenty to enjoy on Live.  Jam-packed with over ninety minutes of Eyehategod’s  bruising musical belligerence, it’s the goddamn motherload for those of us who’ve been dying to catch a show, but have been denied the privilege for whatever reason (in my case geography and lack of funds).  If you have even the slightest desire to experience the mouthful of broken teeth that is an Eyehategod live set from the comfort of your own home, you need to pick this nasty lil’ fucker up, stat.

http://eyehategod.ee/

You see, Throne of Katarsis is just the sort of band Norwegian black metal needs at this juncture.  They are preservationists who understand their chosen genre implicitly, yet aren’t content to simply repeat what has come before.  Whereas early norse BM largely relied on repetition and a primitive musical skill set, Throne of Katarsis bring dynamic songwriting and instrumental prowess to the established framework.  The music on Ved Graven adheres to tradition, yet never becomes monotonous in spite of the lengthy compositions; the tracks are dark and cavernous with myriad twists and turns, creating a sonic labyrinth for the listener to navigate through.  It isn’t exactly progressive per se, but it does strike an interesting balance between black metal’s inherently barbaric nature and a musician’s desire to master their instrument.

And what about atmosphere?  Ved Graven has it in spades; the music here is as chilling and morbid as the open grave image adorning the album’s cover.  The guitar tone is a jagged and frostbitten buzz, like ice cold winds sweeping through a snow-covered graveyard.  The production scheme is mostly devoid of low end (inaudible bass is a hallmark of Norwegian black metal, after all) without succumbing to dental drill-style treble overload, and is of course reverbed all to hell, as if echoing out of the abyss.  Throne of Katarsis maintain black metal’s grim, lo-fi aura without sacrificing clarity, as each riff and transition is easily discernible in spite of the harsh soundscapes being created.

Ultimately, Ved Graven is a statement of intent, embracing the fundamentals of Norwegian black metal while at the same time refining them.  With the genre being such an integral part of Norway’s identity within the metal scene even as its influence and infamy have continued to wane over the years, it’s refreshing to see Throne of Katarsis make such a thoroughly convincing case for the country’s continued relevance.

http://www.throneofkatarsis.com/

Don’t get me, wrong, Black Pyramid are heavy metal through and through, but their riffs and rhythms possess a swaggering stomp that can only come from rock ‘n’ roll.  You can always tell the rock-influenced metal bands from the metal-influenced metal bands, because metal-influenced metal bands don’t have the first clue about how to make their music swing.  If your riffs can’t at the very least elicit a head nod, get the fuck out of my office.   Black Pyramid’s riffage elicits more than a nod because they’re all about the swing; they’re also about headbanging and fist/beer-raising, things I’m known to hold in high esteem.  Songs like thunderous opener “Endless Agony” and the slow-burning “Dreams of the Dead” are so goddamn electric, one can’t help but react in a physical way.

Andy Beresky’s six-string slinging is pure molten magma, a slow to mid-paced barrage of fuzzy, Sabbath-ian power chords and NWOBHM-style leads arranged for a solitary guitar.  On the whole though, I find myself getting an early Manilla Road vibe (think Crystal Logic) from these dudes, although Beresky’s gruff vocals are often more akin to a cross between Lemmy and Matt Pike in all their whiskey and cigarette-scorched glory.  It’s an amalgamation of influences that works well; a scrappy, blue collar musical foundation for epic, blood-soaked tales of pillage and plunder.

On II, Black Pyramid sound like a band on the verge of big things.  Trouble is, Beresky left the band after the album was completed, leaving drummer Clay Neely and bassist Gein with the considerable task of recruiting a replacement frontman.  How the band will fair as a result of this lineup shift has yet to be seen, but one thing is a for sure, they’ve got one hell of an album on their hands; the perfect cure for anyone who’s had it up to here with the foul-tasting anti-rock ipecac that gets shoved down our throats every time we turn on the radio.

http://www.meteorcity.com/

Wolves in the Throne Room have long had a knack for rounding off black metal’s sharp edges, replacing the genre’s frostbitten hatred with inviting warmth.  It’s the musical equivalent of sitting in the dark next to a crackling hearth, watching shadows dance across the wall to rhythms of flame.  This is especially true of Celestial Lineage; the album is a total environment unto itself that envelops the listener and takes them deep into dense thickets of pure sonic bliss.  Gently buzzing, tremolo-picked guitars, rasping vocals, distant drums, synths and nature sounds are woven together to create a musical tapestry that recalls Two Hunters without being a carbon copy.  Instead, Celestial Lineage is both a refinement  and an expansion of that album’s earthy yet airy approach.

Although the album is intensely organic, it is also otherworldly.  When I listen to it, I can close my eyes and imagine ghosts forever doomed to wander through darkened woods, searching in vain for the decrepit old cabin containing that aforementioned fireplace, hoping to warm their lost souls against the eternal cold of the grave.  But regardless of any phantasmagoric flights of fancy it may conjure when I allow my mind to wander, I think what Wolves in the Throne Room’s music is ultimately about mankind’s tumultuous relationship with the natural world.  In our very short existence, we’ve gone from being completely in tune with Mother Nature to repeatedly gang raping her, and the Weaver brothers have given a voice to her anger and anguish, while at the same time reminding us of her ability to capture our imaginations.

Regardless of any genre tags gone wild, or what you think of their eco-friendly philosophy, there’s no denying that Wolves in the Throne have successfully harnessed black metal’s energy into something that is uniquely their own.  Celestial Lineage is a powerful yet haunting commentary on the deterioration of humanity’s spiritual and physical connection to the Earth that spawned them, a clarion call back to times of simplicity and harmony.

http://www.wittr.com/

In spite of all this talk of insanity and hallucinations, what truly stands out about Xibalba’s Demo 2010 is its stunning originality.  Earlier I said that Xibalba were bending black metal to their collective will, but it goes further than that; the genre’s stylistic tenets are ripped and torn and reconfigured into strange and interesting new shapes, yet you get the feeling the band aren’t trying to be “weird” or “experimental,” this is simply what Xibalba does.  In spite of the frenzied randomness that characterizes the band’s songwriting approach, each track flows seamlessly into the next, as if they composed one long psychoactive funeral procession and divided it into a five movement mind-trip.

There’s a lot of misuse of the word “ritual” within black metal circles.  Xibalba’s Demo 2010 is ritual personified, a chaotic soulside journey painted in psychedelic shades of black.  Its only flaw is that it’s over far too quickly, fading into the aether just as quickly as it appeared.

http://www.xibalbaitzaes.com/

None of the songs on Demo MMXI even breach the three minute mark, yet they are surprisingly dynamic, owing as much to punk as they do to black metal in their utterly ferocious brevity.  Don’t let that description lead you into believing that Blut Der Nacht are yet another entry in the parade of faceless “blackened d-beat” bands that are clogging the scene of late (the same way quarter pounder grease clogs a fat man’s arteries) though, because Demo MMXI is black metal through and through.  It’s a study in pure hatred that’s positively dripping with noxious venom.

Possessing a devastating level of intensity and an ability create catchy riffs and progressions within the traditional tremolo-picked black metal framework, Blut Der Nacht’s staunch traditionalism actually works in their favor.  Whether their music is a militant rejection of the circus that USBM has largely become over the last few years, or just three dudes bonding over a love of Darkthrone and Ildjarn is anybody’s guess, but goddamn if it doesn’t make for some compelling music.  If cassette-based, black metal-centric labels such as Fallen Empire, Crepusculo Negro, Rhinocervs, etc can consistently put out releases of this kind of quality, we could be looking at the beginnings of a (much needed) sea change in the USBM landscape.  Can the rest of the metal scene be far behind?

Stream Demo MMXI on Bandcamp (one continuous track)

Buy the Demo MMXI limited cassette from Fallen Empire

———————————————————————————————/

Our pals over at Invisible Oranges recently posted a mixtape of their favorite “Kvlt Kassettes,” of 2011 which you should read HERE.

So, in the spirit of giving something back to you, the readers, and to kick off another year of THKD with a bang, I am proud to announce our first ever giveaway!

GRAND PRIZE:

The grand prize is a limited edition THKD t-shirt.  These shirts were limited to a pressing of less than 20 copies, professionally silkscreened with plasticol ink on Gildan brand shirts and feature custom-designed artwork by Gary Rasmussen. [Please note, shirts are size large only]

In addition to the shirt, the grand prize winner will receive a mystery pack of goodies from the THKD bunker’s archives.

2ND PRIZE: One second prize winner will receive a t-shirt.

Here’s what you need to do in order to enter the contest:  In the comments section below, tell THKD what your favorite metal album of 2011 was and what metal album you’re most looking forward to in 2012.  Everyone who leaves a comment will be entered into the giveaway, and two winners will be drawn at random.  Entries will be accepted until 01/16/2012 and winners will be announced the evening of 01/19/2012 via the blog as well as Facebook and Twitter.  Winners will be notified directly via e-mail.  The giveaway is open to all, but please only one entry per person.

Thanks again and good luck!!!

Musically, Racebannon throws elements of the aforementioned sludge and noise in the genre blender along with dollops of  hardcore and straight-up rock ‘n’ roll and sets that bitch to puree, but the concoction still manages to come out thick, chunky and reeking of week-old dog shit.  Six Sik Sisters was recorded with the ubiquitous Kurt Ballou at God City Studios and it sounds positively ripping, the songs jump out of the speakers and chase you around with a chainsaw while wearing a pig mask ala Motel Hell.  As I mentioned earlier, the band sounds like they could come unglued at any given moment, but the more I listen to Six Sik Sisters, the more I’m starting to think that the band waited to pick up their instruments until after they had already come unglued.

Bristling with manic tension and drenched in disturbing atmosphere, Six Sik Sisters is a cacophonous roller coaster ride into the gaping bowels of musical perversion.  Racebannon could probably crush you with their twisted heaviness, but if this album is any indication, they’d probably rather get you fucked up on drugs, tie you to a tree out in the middle of nowhere and you use your ass for a cum dumpster.

http://www.tizonarecords.com/

As I got a little bit older, I learned about KISS and Alice Cooper from my uncle, whom I considered to be the epitome of cool.  Of course, both KISS and Cooper would morph into slick, heavily produced acts over the course of their careers, but early on, both bands combined an electric sense of urgency with an uncomplicated musical approach to create rock ‘n’ roll at its most primeval.  It didn’t hurt that they also looked like sleazy superheroes (I seem to remember an MTV commercial with Alice Cooper where he was holding a boa constrictor or something blowing my young mind), but even back then, the music came first for me, makeup, fire-breathing and dragon boots a close second.  All the beheadings and pyrotechnics in the world don’t mean shit if you can’t come up with a three-minute and thirty-second ass kicker of a tune.  I think people tend to forget just how gnarly and garagey KISS was when they first came out.  Here’s a reminder in the form of “Deuce” from their self-titled debut album.

Alice Cooper on the other hand, comes from the same Detroit hard rock tradition that spawned the Stooges (more on them later), The MC5, etc, and the reckless abandon of that particular corner of the rock universe is well documented.  Before going solo, Alice Cooper put out some seriously down ‘n’ dirty rock records, such as Killer and Love it to Death.  The music positively drips with unbridled angst and lust, tapping directly into the hormone-induced dementia of youth.  Just listen to the way Cooper’s classic “I’m Eighteen” seethes with the confusion and desperation that accompanies the awkward transformation from child to adult (“I’m in the middle without any plans / I’m a boy and I’m a man / I’m eighteen and I don’t know what I want”).  Who the hell hasn’t felt like this at one time or another?

By the time junior high and high school rolled around, I was reveling in metal bands like Megadeth, Sepultura and Pantera.  Keep in mind that this was during the nineties, so these bands had grown out of their unrefined beginnings and were releasing sonically pristine albums like Countdown to Extinction and Chaos AD, great stuff, but not what I needed to satisfy my unconscious inner cravings for musical filth ‘n’ fury.

Luckily I discovered punk and proto-punk, which I owe to Metallica.  Thanks to their cover of “Last Caress,” I started investigating a band called the Misfits, which in turn lead to the Ramones and the Sex Pistols as well as their forebears the Stooges and the MC5.  My Misfits worship has been overly documented at this point (here and here), but their importance to my musical evolution really cannot be understated.  Glenn Danzig and his band of ghouls re-awakened my addiction to crude and unsophisticated music, with their direct, catchy approach and ’50s rock swagger.  I was also obsessed with the Stooges’ Fun House; I’m pretty sure that record was the filthiest thing I’d ever heard at the time. Side one is composed of four of the raunchiest rock songs ever put to tape in the form of “Down on the Street” “Loose” “TV Eye” and “Dirt.”  Iggy Pop was directly channeling the depraved fantasies of every sexually frustrated teenage boy (including yours truly) on “Loose,” just check some of the lyrics for proof.

Now I’m putting it to you straight from hell
I’ll stick it deep inside
I’ll stick it deep inside
Cause I’m loose

I’ve often borrowed Henry Rollins’ phrase about wanting to “fuck on the floor and break shit.”  Well kids, Fun House is the soundtrack to fucking on the floor and breaking shit, along with getting completely hammered and doing a shitload of bad drugs.  It wallows in wild-eyed, lowbrow, STD-infested sleaze and chokes on its own vomit.  In other words, it’s one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll records ever made, beaming reptile-brained sex-mania directly into your skull.  Listen to “Loose” below, just try not to let it transform you into a strung out, alcoholic fuck-monster.

It was a long time before I found my next rawness fix.  That fix came from black metal.  As I’ve remarked previously, I wasn’t sure what to make of black metal when I first heard it.  It was like no other metal out there.  It was a whole other kind of raw; cold and ragged and high-pitched and fucking ugly.  Forget about sexual frustration; black metal takes sex out of the equation all together, unless we’re talking about sodomizing someone with a crucifix or an edged weapon.  Black metal replaces (or possibly transforms) rock ‘n’ roll’s unbridled lust with pure hatred.  Sexual frustration turns to misogyny turns to indiscriminate misanthropy.

I dived headfirst into Darkthrone’s now-classic “trilogy” of black metal albums (A Blaze in the Northern Sky, Under a Funeral Moon and Transilvanian Hunger), along with Mayhem’s Live in Leipzig (which I’ve already written about here), to try to get a better understanding of black metal’s unique primitivism.  I can’t say exactly how it all finally came together for me, but if you follow the progression of those three Darkthrone recordings, you can hear the band’s shift from a more traditionally rock/metal-based approach into something totally new and alien, a musical vocabulary made up strictly of hate, sorrow and darkness, rubbed raw and utterly tormented.

With its reverbed-to-hell production scheme, haunting tremolo-picked guitar-work and Norwegian lyrics, “Over Fjell Og Gjennom Torner” from Transilvanian Hunger is a perfect example of black metal’s ability to create a totally frigid and foreign soundscape, a cold and haunting rawness that owes next to nothing at all to rock or punk as most of us understand them (or does it?  more on this later).  Just like Fun House and Love it to Death, Transilvanian Hunger sounds like it was recorded in a pitch-black garage, albeit a garage at the south pole of ice planet Hell.

Black metal is (or was) outsider music in the truest sense.  Its otherness appeals to those of us that have spent most of our lives feeling alone in the crowd, as if no one on Earth can hope to understand the war going on inside our heads.  I know I spent many days and nights feeling that way prior to meeting my wife, utterly convinced that no one would ever truly understand my inner workings.  Black metal, specifically the Norwegian/second wave movement, was born of these kinds of feelings and ultimately resulted in the nihilism and misanthropy that forms the core of the genre.  In spite of finding that deep level of understanding and connection that most of us crave, I still look upon the majority of the human race with nothing but disdain, and this is why black metal’s primitive, scornful sonic attack continues to hold its appeal.  What it often lacks in catchiness, it makes up for with passion and emotional depth.

While black metal is by no means the only genre in modern metal to tap into this primordial vein, I think it represents the purest distillation of the raucous proto-metallic blood that started boiling in the 1950s and 60s.  Bands such as Circle of Ouroborus, Nuit Noire and Aanal Beehemoth have certainly shown us that black metal can seamlessly co-exist with elements of garage rock and punk/post-punk, that they are in fact branches on the same musical tree, in spite of black metal’s aforementioned otherness and deliberately alienating atmosphere.  Hell, one could argue that black metal progenitors such as Venom and Bathory had way more in common sonically with early Alice Cooper and the Stooges than they did with other metal bands, which probably explains why I love them so much.

So there you have it, the whys and wherefores of my eternal subconscious love affair with all things musically simple, direct and raw.  Of course, this isn’t to say that I can’t or don’t appreciate progression and proficiency, lord knows I love me some Atheist, Gorguts and the like.  But, I think a flaw inherent to modern metal is that bands often lose sight of the song in favor of a “hey, look what we can do!” approach to composition and an over-reliance on directionless instrumental wang-dang-doodle that lacks the pathos I’ve discussed so throughly over the course of these fifteen hundred or so words.  A lack of pathos ultimately equals a lack of of impact upon the listener, an anti-song that says nothing at all.  Good music, like all good art, should act as an extension of the different facets of the human condition.  For me, practitioners of the primitive such as Alice Cooper, the Stooges and Darkthrone (as well as the others I’ve mentioned throughout this piece and beyond) hit that emotional sweet spot again and again, balls to bones.

On top of that, I simply couldn’t wrap my head around the appeal of many of the bands/albums that I saw garnering almost universal praise elsewhere…  40 Watt Sun? More like 40 Watt Snooze-fest. Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand? More like Riffless at the Puritan’s Hand. Doom of the Occult? More like Damn, this Album of the Occult sure is Boring. But all bad jokes aside, I don’t mean to single out specific bands or to offend anyone.  What I’m getting at is, for the first time ever in all of my years of listening to metal, I started to worry that I was out of touch.  In actuality, it probably had less to do with me not having my finger on the pulse and more to do with so many so-called journalists also working in publicity.  I mean, if part of how you make the rent every month involves poop-polishing, it’s bound to seep into the rest of your pursuits to some degree. Surely, that’s the only logical explanation for some of this crap getting spun into gold.

But in spite of having to deal with roughly five million publicity e-mail blasts that largely resembled a senior citizen with a case of paint-sprayer butt, I did manage to hear a lot of truly great metal in 2011.  What I thought would be the easiest year ever to compile a best-of list turned into the usual agonizing struggle to narrow things down, but no matter how many great albums there were, you have to draw the line somewhere. Year end lists should spotlight the best of the best, the cream of the crop, not every fucking album you listened to.

If there is an over-arching theme to 2011, it’s the year I burned out on black metal. Bands such as Craft, Taake, Ravencult and Aosoth (to name just a few) all released stellar albums, yet they just didn’t end up grabbing me the way they should have. Blut Aus Nord once again flipped the black metal script with 777 Sect(s) and 777 The Desanctification, but for whatever reason these albums ultimately lacked staying power for me. As the old cliche (sort of) goes, it’s not them, it’s me. I can’t quite say what exactly caused me to tire of black metal in 2011, but I’m leaning towards overexposure.  It seemed like black metal was everywhere, and as a result I found myself slinking away from it (with a few notable exceptions).

So without further ado, I present THKD’s Top 10 Metal Albums of 2011.  Since I’ve already written at length about the majority of these albums and in some cases interrogated the musicians involved, I’ve tried to keep things short and sweet to the best of my abilities.  With the exception of the Album(s) of the Year, these are in no particular order.  Enjoy or die.

Album of the Year (tie)

Mournful Congregation – The Book of Kings (20 Buck Spin)

Loss – Despond (Profound Lore)
For the second year in a row, it was impossible for there to be one clear cut album of the year, especially when two recordings moved me as deeply as Mournful Congregation’s The Book of Kings and Loss’ Despond. Both albums are monolithic, transcendent odes to depression and death, and both albums fall squarely within the doom genre, yet the means utilized to achieve this transcendence, to drag the listener into their respective sorrow-filled worlds, couldn’t be more different.

Mournful Congregation’s mixture of epic song arrangements, stunning lead guitar-work and haunting, ritualistic atmosphere crushes as it mesmerizes. Yet as devastatingly heavy as they are, there is also something totally ethereal and otherworldly about their music, a phantasmagoric sonic landscape where no light dwells. Loss on the other hand, erects monuments of total despair by taking the template of funeral doom and infusing it with elements of black metal, noise and even neo-folk. Their music is very much grounded in the harsh realities of suicide and clinical depression, the soundtrack to an emotionally ravaged worldview, lacking even a shred of hope.

These two very divergent, yet equally compelling takes on doom epitomize the themes that have been central to THKD since day one; a dedication to craftsmanship, the ability to effortlessly whisk away the listener on a musical journey and to ultimately achieve something timeless through total dedication to art.  In other words, The Book of Kings and Despond are absolute masterpieces that will stay with me for years to come.

Read THKD’s full review of The Book of Kings HERE.
Read THKD’s full review of Despond HERE.
Read THKD’s interview w/ Loss HERE.

Azarath – Blasphemers’ Maledictions (Witching Hour)
Easily the most flat-out ripping album of 2011, Poland’s Azarath unleashed a blackened death metal salvo that honors the Polish metal tradition of slaughtering everything in sight, yet at the same time blazes a hellfire ‘n’ brimstone trail that’s all their own with Blasphemers’ Maledictions. If you haven’t heard this album yet, seek it out immediately and prepare to have your ears sliced off upon the altar of Satanic metal sacrifice.

Read THKD’s full review of Blasphemers’ Maledictions HERE.

Exhumed – All Guts, No Glory (Relapse)
2011 saw the rotten return of California gore metal overlords Exhumed after a lengthy hiatus, and what a return it was. All Guts, No Glory is easily the band’s catchiest and most musically accomplished album to date, an eviscerating collection of prime cuts that puts the bulk of modern death metal to shame. The band backed up this great album by touring their asses off and putting on an equally gnarly live show, proving once and for all that Exhumed are indeed back from the dead and ready to party.

Read THKD’s full review of All Guts, No Glory HERE.
Read THKD’s Exhumed live review HERE.

Antediluvian – Through the Cervix of Hawwah (Profound Lore)
Murky and morbid death metal has seen something of a resurgence in recent years, and Antediluvian’s Through the Cervix of Hawwah is the unholy fucking pinnacle of this resurgence. Underneath the grit, grime and slime is a carefully crafted album that isn’t content to just muck about; Antediluvian unleash real riffs and twisted song-structures that seem to take on a life of their own. The spawn of Hawwah’s cervix is utterly terrifying to behold.

Read THKD’s full review of Through the Cervix of Hawwah HERE.
Read THKD’s interview with Antediluvian HERE.

Burzum – Fallen (Byelobog)
Whatever you think of Varg Vikernes the human being (don’t bother telling me, I honestly don’t give a shit), it’s undeniable that Varg Vikernes the musician still has it. By “it,” I mean the ability to craft singularly compelling, hypnotizing black metal of the highest order. Fallen is an earthy, utterly entrancing reclamation of the Norwegian black metal tradition by one of its most gifted architects. Vikernes’ vocals sound as gnarled and ancient as the trees of a snow-covered Scandinavian forest, his riffs the chilling breath of frost giants. This is black metal as it was meant to be played, no more, no less.

Read THKD’s full review of Burzum’s Fallen HERE.

Hell – Human Remains (Nuclear Blast)
In 2011, long lost NWOBHM band Hell released their debut album, almost three decades after their first demo hit the scene. Consisting of re-recorded demo tracks featuring a re-tooled lineup that includes metal uber-producer Andy Sneap and new vocalist David Bower (replacing the dearly departed Dave Haliday), Hell’s Human Remains is a downright devastating exercise in rifftastic traditional heavy metal, replete with symphonic flourishes and a flair for the dramatic that puts them head and shoulders above and beyond the trad metal masses. This is the NWOBHM exposed to nuclear radiation and mutated into a total beast.

Read THKD’s full review of Human Remains HERE.

Vader – Welcome to the Morbid Reich (Nuclear Blast)
Poland absolutely destroyed  this year (see: Azarath, Iperyt, Stillborn, etc), and leading the charge was Vader. A band that’s been active since the early eighties and is nine albums deep into their career shouldn’t sound this fresh and vital, but somehow Vader pull it off and then some on Welcome to the Morbid Reich. This album crushes like a panzer tank rolling over a pile of steaming corpses, decimating everything in its path. In 2011 Vader singlehandedly put the legions of wannabe Swe-death bands on notice; take your Boss HM-2s and shove ‘em, Polish death metal uber alles.

Read THKD’s full review of Welcome to the Morbid Reich HERE.

Disma – Towards the Megalith (Profound Lore)
The HEAVIEST fucking album of 2011. ‘Nuff said.

Read THKD’s full review of Towards the Megalith HERE.

Maruta – Forward into Regression (Willowtip)
Maruta’s masterful sophomore album turned out to be their swan song, but what a swan song it is. A brutalizing mix of vicious lightspeed grinding and wacked-out, Obscura-esque (that’s Obscura the awesome Gorguts album, not Obscura the crappy band) technicality, Forward into Regression splits the difference between grind and death metal in a way that few bands have achieved, a pummeling yet musically dazzling display of total dedication to their craft. On several occasions I referred to Maruta as the future of grindcore, and although that future came to an abrupt end in 2011, Forward into Regression is nonetheless a fitting epitaph for one of the most forward-thinking bands in extreme music.

Read THKD’s interview w/ Maruta HERE.

Wolvhammer – The Obsidian Plains (Profound Lore)
On The Obsidian Plains, Wolvhammer conjures up a bruising, hellhammered take on black metal, straight from the frozen wastes of the American Midwest. It’s the soundtrack to broken ribs, black eyes and multiple stab wounds, a nicotine and booze-fuelled exposition of blue-collar America’s seedy underbelly, splayed out for the world to see and to most likely recoil from in abject terror. While other black metal bands want you to cut your flesh and worship Satan, Wolvhammer wants to pound whiskey and beat the living shit out of you.

Read THKD’s review of The Obsidian Plains HERE.

And now on to the random awards… because honorable mentions are for sissies.

Best Non-Metal Metal Album

Opeth – Heritage (Roadrunner)
I absolutely love Heritage. In my opinion, this was the change in musical direction Opeth needed to take, a uniquely progressive album that still manages to retain the dark and heavy spirit of metal without being heavy in a conventional sense. Heritage is the sound of a band defying fan expectations and following their own muse without giving a shit about the consequences. In other words, it is the sound of true artists at work, and the results are nothing short of brilliant.

Read THKD’s review of Heritage HERE.

Best Debut Album

Deafheaven – Roads to Judah (Deathwish)
Deafheaven’s debut album is as venomous and visceral as it is beautiful; black metal, post rock and post hardcore collide to create the musical accompaniment to a fever dream of total debauchery. Some metal heads have labeled Deafheaven with the bullshit “hipster black metal” tag; apparently the idea of dudes who don’t feel the need to don corpsepaint, spikes and inverted crosses identifying with and creating great black metal is somehow intimidating, which is the only logical explanation for such silliness. If that’s indeed the case, then black metal traditionalists should be afraid of Deafheaven, very, very afraid.

Read THKD’s review of Roads to Judah HERE.

Best Comeback Album

Pentagram – Last Rites (Metal Blade)
The story of Pentagram mastermind Bobby Liebling is the ultimate heavy metal redemption story. It’s only fitting that Liebling should front one of the world’s greatest doom metal bands, since doom is, at its core, all about the inherent dangers of messing with the forces of darkness and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. And so it is that Liebling has triumphed over his personal demons, resulting in the first Pentagram album in several years, as well as the return of riff-master general Victor Griffin. The fact that Last Rites is a wonderful slab of traditional doom is just icing on the cake.

Read THKD’s review of Last Rites HERE.

Best Album That Not Enough People Talked About

Today is the Day – Pain is a Warning (Black Market Activities)
Pain is a Warning was easily the year’s most underrated album. My theory on why no one was really talking about it is a simple one. Pain is a Warning hit too close to home. It cut through the horseshit facade of “change” Obama and his cronies have been attempting to shove down our throats since day one and showed us the American Dream circa 2011 for what it really is, the burned out shell of a foreclosed home, mired in blood, shit, piss and vomit. This is the new protest music.

Read THKD’s full review of Pain is a Warning HERE.

Best Album Released In The US In 2011 That Europe Got In 2010

Kvelertak – s/t (Indie Recordings/The End Records)
True Kvlt Norwegian Party Metal.  But seriously, if you don’t like this album, you must be some kind of soulless, fun-hating wanker.

Read THKD’s full review of Kvelertak HERE.

Best EPs
Fiends at Feast – Shadows of Extinction (self released)
Passive Aggressive – Untired (self released)
The Ash Eaters – The Cruel Side (self released)

Best Reissues
SunnO))) – 00 Void (Southern Lord)
Conqueror – War.Cult.Supremacy. (Nuclear War Now!)
Uncanny – MCMXCI – MCMXCIV (Dark Descent)
Mournful Congregation – The Unspoken Hymns (20 Buck Spin)

Best Live Sets
Exhumed @ Vaudeville Mews
Katatonia @ First Avenue
The Lurking Corpses @ Bombay Bicycle Club

And so that wraps up THKD’s Top Metal Albums of 2011.  I’d like to take a moment to thank you guys that read THKD, leave comments, follow me on Twitter and Facebook etc. YOU are what make this blog what it is.  Without you, I’m nothing.  2011 has been THKD’s best year yet, and for that I can’t thank you enough.  I’d also like to thank my lovely wife for her continued love and support of this godless endeavor.  I’d like to thank everyone who has shown support for THKD in this or any year, including Umesh Amtey, Brandon Duncan, Danhammer Obstkrieg, Jordan Campbell and the Metal Review crew, Mike Nelson and Invisible Oranges, Dave and Liz at Earsplit PR, Clawhammer PR, Catharsis PR, Nathan T. Birk, Brian Rocha and Fresno Media, Lars Gotrich at NPR, Dave Schalek, Mike Meacham and Loss, Mitchell Luna and Maruta (RIP), Roger Lay, Andy O’Connor, Alex C, Full Metal Attorney, Adam Lewis and The Lurking Corpses, Serbian Maniac, Steve57, those crazy kids at Lurker’s Path, The Inarguable and Mind Over Metal, Atanamar Sunyata, and anyone and everyone I might be forgetting. Thank you so much for making 2011 another phenomenal year!

Oh, one last thing.  Inquisition’s monumental Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm does not appear on this list, because it was already my co-album of the year for 2010.  Ghost’s Opus Eponymous also appears on that year’s list.  Damned labels and their dubious release dates. Read 2010′s list HERE.

Josh Haun: For our readers who might not be familiar, can you tell us about how Iperyt started and what your motivations were for forming the band?

Shocker: Hi! To make a long story short: it all started a long time ago when I met Hellhound (guitar). I was coming from a speedcore/hardcore techno world and he had been involved in black metal for a long time. We found a common ground on our views, music and world and we decided to experiment a bit and try to compose some music together. And that’s how the whole idea of Iperyt came to life. Later Black Messiah (guitar) joined and finally People Hater (vocals) and Abuser (bass). Our first EP Particular Hatred was released. Then some gigs, some problems, new releases and so on. Typical stuff for a band.

JH: Is it correct that the word “iperyt” is a reference to the mustard gas used by the German army in World War I? Why did you choose this moniker for the band and what does it represent for you personally?

Shocker: Yes, this is the word for mustard gas in the Polish language. For me personally the name is more in connection to the whole chemical warfare notion and even to all weapons of mass destruction. The thing with such a means of warfare is that, on the contrary to conventional weapons, the results and the consequences of its usage cannot be fully predicted. I mean when they are used the situation gets complicated, not only for the ones under attack but for the aggressors as well. Because extreme means usually means extreme retaliation.

So on the more subtle level this goes as well for us. We create but we don’t know what the final outcome will be. And what final impact it will make on us too. On the other hand the word ‘iperyt’ sounds quite harsh for me, which is, well, a nice thing hehe.

JH: No State of Grace is Iperyt’s second album. What were you looking to accomplish with this recording, and how has the band evolved since 2006′s Totalitarian Love Pulse?

Shocker: I think that NSOG is more metal orientated. The arrangements and song structures are more similar to metal songs than to industrial or hardcore techno tracks. The whole sound is more in your face and there are also more melodic riffs. Of course it is still aggressive, fast and full on sonic impact. But this is the main difference to TLP – the structures of the songs.

So far reviews and opinions vary. Some say it is for a better, some that it is not. But that’s fine with me. We wanted it this way. I really like NSOG and next time we will make something different again.

JH: Tell us a little about Iperyt’s writing and recording process for the new album. How would you describe the experience and how did it differ from previous recordings?

Shocker: In general we try not to put any limitations on our creative process. Usually it happens this way: I get riffs or whole tracks from our guitarists and then chop them up like hell and try to really rape the guitars with a drum machine. Thanks to that completely new ideas arise and we can add new things. But sometimes it is all different: I deliver a rhythm and then riffs are created. Sometimes we are just jamming and so on. So there is not just one way. A lot of things happen spontaneously and it was no different during NSOG recording session.

JH: What can you tell us about the album’s lyrical themes? I’ve noticed a lot of apocalyptic, anti-religious and extreme sexual (rape, sodomy) themes in reading the lyrics. How do the lyrics reflect your worldview as a band?

Shocker: Well you should ask People Hater this question because he’s the author hehe. I think that just observing the world really gives a lot of inspiration. But for me the main idea behind all of this is a nihilistic attitude and nihilism is a negation of the world as we know it, the reality we are forced to live in. So these apocalyptic themes are just kind of metaphorical nihilistic hymns. As the title says: No State Of Grace here. But of course your mileage may vary hehe. That’s how art should be – you should find interpretation on your own.

JH: Everything about No State of Grace, from the music to the lyrics to the artwork, seems to suggest that mankind is heading towards some kind of apocalypse, whether it is literal, spiritual, sexual, etc. What are your thoughts on the end of the world and do you believe it will happen soon? Does your music reflect mankind’s downward spiral?

Shocker: There’s one rock song with the title: the end is the beginning is the end. I agree with such a point of view. I believe in cycles. Some things end, others are born and so on. I mean – I don’t care whether there will be the end of the world or not, a crisis or not, because after every storm there’s silence, and after silence there’s storm again. The cycle always takes place. What is really important is what is inside you and what you are doing with it. Change yourself and your world will follow.

I agree that there’s so much stupidity in the world right now that you can really just sit down and have a devilish laugh watching all of this. But I think that unfortunately it was always this way and probably always will be.

JH: The artwork for No State of Grace compliments the music perfectly. Who created the artwork and what does it add to the album? What do the gas masks symbolize?

Shocker: It was created by our friends from Mental Porn Prods. It has this kind of ‘Fall Out’ feel to it. You know that computer game with a really deep atmosphere of seclusion and world demise? And the gas masks symbolize on the one hand us – Iperyt – on the other hand the whole thing with unknown consequences I talked about answering your second question.

JH: Iperyt mixes elements of black metal and industrial music. What is the common ground between the two styles? Why do you think they compliment each other so well? Do you think there is any conflict between the two styles, being that industrial music tends to embrace technology, whereas black metal tends to shun it in order to remain raw and lo-fi?

Shocker: It went differently for us, because first we realized that we’ve got similar views on different things and similar things inspire us in music as well. Because I came from this speeedcore/hardcore techno side and Hellhound was always into black metal we ask ourselves what would happen if we mixed the styles together. The result was a surprise. It went really well together. So to sum it up: we just tried and it worked. We are still exploring this mixture of black metal and industrial, seeing many different ways we can still discover. But this absolutely doesn’t mean that raw black metal or strictly electronic industrial should disappear! There’s a place for every experiment. I think there are no borders or limits in the progress of music.

JH: Have you been influenced by other bands combining industrial music and black metal, such as Aborym, DHG, Axis of Perdition, etc? What bands do you consider to be your contemporaries? Are there any key bands or albums that inspired Iperyt?

Shocker: We of course know and like these bands you mentioned. And we must add Mysticum and all early black metal bands to the list. But in our case it was really a natural process. I’m a terrorcore dj so I know these bass drums and drum machine stuff from my own experience. I hope we don’t copy anyone. We’ve got a lot of inspirations, not just a few key bands or something. We’re always seeking something new and fresh in extreme music and in music in general.

JH: It’s my understanding that Poland is a very religious country. How does this influence your music, if at all? Is Iperyt a reaction to your location/environment and the world around you?

Shocker: Yeah, in Poland catholicism is still very strong and priests mess with politics, want to have more control and so on. There is also a lot of corruption in Poland, I think that it is a general rule that catholic countries are rather poor and full of corruption. Of course this annoys us, the power and influence on politics of the Church. But it will change. You can see that Christianity is quite weak in the world right now. But then again there’s Islam which seems to get stronger. We talked about that. Cycles.

JH: Iperyt wears ski-masks in band photos. Why do you choose to hide your identities?

Shocker: We chose to hide our faces in the beginning because we didn’t want people to know that some musicians from Infernal War are also members of Iperyt. We wanted people to pay attention to the music in the first place, not to who is involved. It didn’t work to the max because some gossip concerning our lineup was spread. But on the other hand we thought that wearing masks during gigs would give a more dehumanized feel to it, the bigger madness, the bigger impact. Again – some people enjoy it, others find it dull. Right now we sometimes use masks and sometimes not. No rules here. Probably depends on our mood.

JH: Does Iperyt perform live? Will you be playing any shows in support of No State of Grace? What would the ultimate Iperyt live experience entail?

Shocker: Yeah from time to time we play a gig here and there. The most important thing during our performance is a proper sound system. Because we use a drum machine the PA must be powerful enough to make people feel these bass drums. The rest is pure insanity. I mean during performing I become a little “possessed” and let myself be just a tool. Hard to explain, you’ve got to see it hehe. But we like that energy of playing live. When the music is loud, when there’s a wall of noise, your brain starts to work differently and you behave differently and this is what I like!

JH: What are you currently listening to? Do you have any recommendations for our readers?

Shocker: Oh damn! I listen to a lot of different music all the time so it is hard to choose just a few things. Lately I’m getting into the French scene. Black Lodge, Merrimack, Vorkriest, Antaeus, Arkhon and so on. You can also check my project at www.saviour-syndicate.org. Underground electronica. And of course have a listen to my pals’ bands: VoidHanger, Infernal War and Mastiphal. Just a few ideas.

JH: Are there any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Shocker: Thanks for the interview! Lets hope to meet somewhere at a gig. Don’t believe the hype and stay hard!

http://www.witchinghour.pl/

According to Genesis, Eve was fundamental in “the fall of man,” being seduced by the serpent to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge, and in turn convincing Adam to do the same.  Upon discovering what transpired, God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden, so that Adam would be forced into a lifetime of labor and Eve would repeatedly suffer the pain of childbirth as the mother of all human life.  Adam and Eve were the first to defy God, and in turn Eve birthed a race of imperfect, defiant and “sinful” beings that can ultimately be seen as an affront to any sort of “divine plan” that God may have had.  This, combined with the fact that childbirth was a traumatic, painful, bloody and sometimes even deadly affair during the times when the biblical stories were conceived, makes for some pretty interesting musical fodder.

Canada’s Antediluvian tap into that traumatic, bloody, defiant energy and harness it into some seriously compelling death metal on Through the Cervix of Hawwah.  Antediluvian’s sound might seem quite primitive at first due to the album’s raw production scheme, but with that rawness comes a clarity that reveals a level of complexity which wasn’t always apparent on their excellent but rather murky demo material.  There is something primal about the way the music heaves and lurches, something painful and violent that seems more akin to brutally ripping the titular cervix apart as opposed to simply passing through it, yet there is also a terrifying precision to the album’s twists and contortions.  Antediluvian are somehow able to control the ancient miasma that pours out of their amplifiers and instill it with purpose.  That purpose is total musical annihilation.

Just like those prehistoric humans that supposedly passed through Hawwah’s cervix, Antediluvian’s music is alive.  It seethes and rages, expands and recedes as if infused with its own terrible sentience, more akin to the malformed spawn of Lilith than to any offspring found in biblical fables.  It is a descent into the depths of depravity; this cervix is no product of the almighty but rather a rotten cesspool of sickening musical grotesqueries, bursting out in fits of slime-covered, bestial tumult.

Whether due to the prevalence of the aforementioned murky production schemes or  a genuine lack of instrumental prowess, many of the bands using Incantation as a jumping-off point into the death metal abyss have a tendency to put atmosphere above musicianship and songwriting.  Not so with Antediluvian.  There is indeed a fetid atmosphere present on Through the Cervix of Hawwah, but the band also brings real riffs to the table and exhibits a compositional aptitude that borders on progressive.  It’s a far cry from the predictable, weak death metal that plagues the genre of late, making Through the Cervix of Hawwah the kind of album that offers something new each and every time you listen to it, even as it kicks your teeth in and covers you in viscera.

But for as bloody and bludgeoning as Through the Cervix of Hawwah is, there is also subtlety.  A filthy and frightful ambience that can only be described as Lovecraftian coats the album; the band imbues their music with the same foreboding sense of dread that Lovecraft weaved into stories such as The Shadow over Innsmouth and The Whisperer in the Darkness more capably and palpably than just about any other contemporary death metal band I’ve encountered.  The few relatively calm moments where the ambience takes over make it that much more horrific when those gnarled, withered riffs come shambling back into the mix.

Through the Cervix of Hawwah’s near-perfect combination of dirt and clarity in the production department, mixed with its progressive tendencies, makes Antediluvian a band to watch.  Instead of just vomiting out yet another death metal retread, this band is tapping directly into the genre’s primordial ooze and re-shaping it into something totally their own.  Just as Eve took fruit from the forbidden tree in defiance of her so-called god, Antediluvian have defied the death metal gods, and in the process created a timelessly enthralling slab of excruciating, primeval ugliness.

http://www.profoundlorerecords.com/

Interview w/ Antediluvian

Alice Cooper’s immortal Welcome to My Nightmare and its sequel Welcome 2 My Nightmare are a classic example of a sequel being hopelessly outgunned by the original.  Welcome 2 My Nightmare isn’t a bad album by any means.  In fact, I think it’s one of the most twisted pop albums I’ve ever heard.  It’s simply that it has the misfortune of being tied to what is arguably one of the greatest concept albums ever created in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.

Released in 1975, Welcome to My Nightmare was Alice Cooper’s first solo album, and a step away from the stripped-down ‘n’ dirty hard rock of albums like Love it to Death in favor of a more eclectic and lushly-produced sound.  In this respect the two nightmare albums are similar; more recent Cooper albums such as Dirty Diamonds and The Eyes of Alice Cooper were also more hard rock-oriented in comparison to Welcome 2 My Nightmare.  But, there is a dark vitality to the original nightmare; that album drips with palpable lust and anxiety and a hint of vulnerability, occasionally teetering on the edge of madness.  Alice’s new nightmare on the other hand, feels manufactured and synthetic.  In other words, it feels like a modern pop record, and I have more than a sneaking suspicion that this is intentional.  I’ve always viewed Cooper as something of a warped genius, and I think it’s entirely possible that he crafted parts of Welcome 2 My Nightmare as a thinly veiled commentary on the atrocious state of popular music.

The new album is coated in a glossy pop sheen thanks to producer Bob Ezrin, who also produced the original nightmare.  Even when Cooper slips into hard rockin’ mode, as on “I’ll Bite Your Face Off,” it still sounds slick and radio friendly.  Moments that are supposed to be dark come off as light and saccharine. Granted, Welcome to My Nightmare had three singles that landed on the Billboard Hot 100 (“Welcome to My Nightmare” “Only Women Bleed” and “Department of Youth”) but it also had the borderline-psychedelic weirdness of the final four tracks (“Years Ago” “Steven” “The Awakening” and “Escape”), which tell the story of Steven, the young boy trapped inside the titular nightmare.  It had a song that made necrophilia seem hilarious (“Cold Ethyl”). It had a creepy/humorous Vincent Price monologue (“The Black Widow”). Nothing on Welcome 2 My Nightmare is anywhere near as funny, unsettling, or memorable.

It sounds like I’m trashing Welcome 2 My Nightmare, but that’s not my intention.  The album certainly has its moments, such as “When Hell Comes Home,” one of the album’s few genuinely sinister-sounding moments that recounts a tale of child abuse and revenge.  ”Last Man on Earth” finds Cooper in vaudeville villain mode and “The Congregation” has a catchy classic rock flavor, both songs sound like they could have appeared on the ’75 nightmare.  When Cooper tries his hand at electro-pop is when things get really interesting.  On “Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever,” the shock rocker spits rhymes using slang terms you’d never in a million years expect to come out of his mouth, such as “bling” and “playa” before the track switches gears to showcase some guest shredding from John 5 (Rob Zombie, ex-Marilyn Manson).  ”What Baby Wants” features a “controversial” guest vocal turn from pop princess Ke$ha and is Cooper’s bizarre take on an MTV-friendly pop single, replete with a Gary Numan-esque robot beat and lyrics about bathing in blood and eating flesh.  Believe it or not, Cooper makes it work, provided you have the stomach for that type of thing.  I myself enjoy a good ass-shaker from time to time and would love to see a music video for this track.

Welcome to 2 My Nightmare is a fun listen and proves that Alice Cooper is still a capable stylistic chameleon four decades into his career.  The album could certainly use some dirt in the production department and not all of the songs are keepers, but longtime fans should at least get a kick out of hearing Cooper revisit the electronic sounds he originally touched on with 1980′s “Clones (We’re All), as well as collaborating with original band members Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith and Michael Bruce on three tracks.  It doesn’t hold a candle to Welcome to My Nightmare, but hey, not every sequel can be The Empire Strikes Back.

http://alicecooper.com/

But how does Mournful Congregation accomplish this musical out-of-body experience?  By creating an atmosphere that is both primal and complex, appealing to both the head and heart.  The arrangements may appear simple upon cursory listens, but listen closer.  Listen to the sustained drones that ebb and flow throughout the album’s almost eighty minute run-time, creating a rich tonal backdrop for Mournful Congregation’s dynamic take on funeral doom.  The drone is one of the oldest harmonic devices in music; it resonates with the most primeval parts of the human soul and casts a hypnotic spell upon the brain.  Here, the drone is just one part of a broad musical palette, the foundation upon which the band builds those aforementioned worlds.

Soaring gracefully above and sometimes merging with the drone is the lead guitar, which often sounds like the New Wave of British Heavy Metal on quaaludes, shredding away lethargically through endless caverns of sound.  The leads act as hooks within Mournful Congregation’s lengthy compositions, latching onto your astral body and burrowing in deep, drawing it out of its physical confines and into the ethereal realm the band’s music inhabits.  But all this talk of astral projection and ethereality isn’t meant to paint The Book of Kings as light or airy.  Quite the opposite; the album is incredibly dense and overpoweringly heavy, yet there is a haunting, ritualistic quality to it that causes me to imagine leaving my body behind and venturing into the realms of the spirit (although I am an avowed atheist, this doesn’t prevent me from believing in the paranormal) on some kind of ghostly journey into the black.

Earlier, I stated that Mournful Congregation’s funeral doom was dynamic.  Dynamics probably aren’t the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about this style of music, but that’s what separates Mournful Congregation from the pack and pushes them into the genre’s upper echelons.  The tempos of The Book of Kings may be sluggish, but sluggishness doesn’t equal stasis.  The songs drift like storms, with the drums acting as thunder behind the rolling obsidian clouds of distortion, slowly driving each of the four lengthy tracks and acting as an anchor to the earthly plane, lest one should stray too far into the album’s crushing musical abyss.  The vocals range from a deathly growl, to a whisper, to a droning chant that falls somewhere between sacred music and gothic rock, providing the album with an eerie narrative of dark spirituality.  Guitars take on innumerable forms; soothing acoustic arpeggios give way to colossal distorted chords and those fantastic leads that act as your guide through the phantasmagoric audial dimensions.

In listening to The Book of Kings, one gets the feeling that if you were to strip the songs down to just vocals and the aforementioned acoustic guitars, they’d still be every bit as compelling.  This is evidenced by “The Bitter Veils of Solemnity,” an all-acoustic track that’s every bit as rife with emotional heft, in spite of its lack of musical weight relative to the rest of the album.  In this respect, Mournful Congregation are just as indebted to folk music as they are to their doom metal forefathers, and there is a subtle earthiness and warmth at work here that contrasts itself with the album’s otherworldly traits.  It serves as a reminder that no matter how far we may venture into the realms of the unreal, we are still tethered to this primitive physical existence.

Ultimately, The Book of Kings is the most stunning and soulful metal album I’ve heard this year, an unearthly invocation of sorrowful majesty.  But sorrowful and depressive though it may be, it doesn’t make me feel that way.  Instead I find it quite soothing, an escape to a higher level of consciousness through art, worlds away from the mountains of bullshit that threaten to overwhelm and suffocate me on a daily basis. Mournful Congregation have crafted a doom metal gesamtkunstwerk, an album that not only exemplifies the genre but ultimately transcends it.  Hail to the kings.

http://www.20buckspin.com

Here’s what I said about it at the time:

“Maruta’s In Narcosis was undoubtedly the record that restored my faith in grind. Sure, the Floridian trio adheres to many of the genre’s hallmarks, yet they also possesses a drive to expand and evolve the style that permeates their debut album from start to finish. Not content to stick with the “blast blast blast” template, Maruta offer a take on grindcore that is as thoughtful and progressive as it is brutal and ugly. Unfathomably ahead of the genre curve, Maruta is the future of grindcore, plain and simple.”

I still stand by those words.  I wasn’t listening to a lot of grind at the time, and In Narcosis came out of nowhere and caved my skull in, it still does every time I listen to it.  Its blend of classic grindcore filth, skewed technicality and misanthropic lyrics sounds fresh and vital three years later, which is saying something in this age when 99% of so-called “extreme” music is every bit as disposable as the average radio pop shit shingle.

Fast-forward to 2011 and Maruta have released their second album, Forward Into Regression, a hyper-active mix of grindcore, Gorguts-ian instrumental wizardry and crushing heaviness that will once again land the band a spot on my year end list when the times comes.  I interviewed Luna a second time in August of this year to discuss the album.  Unfortunately, 2011 will also be remembered as the year that Maruta decided to call it a day.  When I heard the announcement, I was saddened; I had always thought that Maruta would be a band I’d be writing about for years to come.  Furthermore, I met my wife at that show back in ’08, so it might sound odd, but the band has a sentimental place in my heart forever for that reason.  When I contacted Luna in order to get his blessing for this post, he added:

“I feel like Maruta was capable of more than what we were able to accomplish in 6 years… but a variety of shitty circumstances/ life’s bumps in the road ended up choking all the life out of the band prematurely. What’s sad is that there was material that we were working on that will most likely never see the light of day, but it is what it is. Not sure what else to say, other than the cliche “thanks to all who supported in any way, shape, or form”. Members will be starting new projects, you can count on that!”

Maruta will be playing one final show before being committed to past history; they will be remembered as a band that was unbelievably far ahead of their time.  Below are the two Maruta interviews I conducted in their entirety.  Enjoy them in remembrance and celebration of one of the most unique and forward-thinking bands in grindcore.  RIP Maruta.

Interview I: Originally written for Sonic Frontier.net(RIP) sometime in 2008, actual date of publication unknown.

Josh Haun: For readers that might not be familiar with the band, tell us a little about how Maruta was formed and what you were doing prior to joining.

Mitchell Luna: I met Nick through DIY shows, old bands of ours would play together… I used to play in a band called Tyranny of Shaw at the time. He played in a doom band called Entropy, and in a death metal/grind band called Implosive Disgorgence. Eduardo was living in El Salvador (he has only lived in the U.S. for about 3 years). At the time we wanted to just get together and jam some straight forward powerviolence/grind, But we ended up getting a bit bored and started experimenting with wierd riffs, dissonant elements, and even some doom parts. We still like playing the more punk sounding shit sometimes too, so we kinda blend it all together in our own way.

JH: The band takes its name from the brutal medical experiments conducted by the Japanese army during WWII. What was it about this atrocity that you find interesting and/or inspiring?

ML: To be completely honest, it was just a name I came up with really quick. Maruta has always kinda been going full speed ever since we got together. I remember we played our first show in Miami alongside our friends in Torche, Capsule, etc just a mere 2 weeks after our first rehearsal. We just had to pick something to throw on the flyer. I am a pretty big nerd when it comes to reading up on wars, biological experiments and whatnot, and I thought Maruta had a cool ring to it. We wanted a name that didn’t sound too “brutal”

JH: In Narcosis is easily one of the year’s standout grindcore releases. Tell us a little about the writing and recording process behind the album. Are you pleased with the results?

Mitchell Luna: First of all, thanks for the kind words! That album was actually written over about a period of a year and a half. Some of the older songs were written with the help of our good friend and former member Jeff Stevenson. In Narcosis was originally only 10 songs. Willowtip decided to pick us up, but that meant that we had to go back into the studio and record more material to make it a real 30 minute full length. We encountered several technical and engineering difficulties and to be honest the completion of the album took a lot longer than we anticipated. There are a couple small things I wish I could change about it, but overall we are all happy with the outcome.

JH: In listening to In Narcosis, it’s clear that there is much more at work than the traditional grindcore influences. What inspires Maruta to create such an innovative take on the genre?

Mitchell Luna: We just like to experiment and kinda keep things fresh in our own way. We are all big fans of different genres of extreme music or whatever the hell you want to call it, so we kinda mix grindcore, doom, punk, and death metal elements. We are pretty open minded during the song writing process, throwing something new on the table is never a problem for us if it is tasteful. We love bands like Benumb or Gorguts just as much as we love Los Crudos, Crowbar, Assuck, or a band like Creation is Crucifixion. For us its all about writing shit that would be exciting to both play and listen to once we are done.

JH: Maruta operates as a trio, with a distinctive lack of bass guitar. Was this a conscious decision on the band’s part? Does this lack of low end ever present any difficulties for the band from a musical standpoint?

ML: To be honest we never intended on being bass-less. It just kinda worked out that way. It helps out that Eduardo tunes down really low, so we get that heavy low end in the overall guitar sound. We might be incorporating a bass player into our line-up in the near future though.

JH: Your lyrics seem to come from a pretty misanthropic place, what is your take on the current social and political climate in the US, as well as that of humanity in general?

ML: I try my best to write lyrics that are meaningful, whether they be personal or about social issues that disgust me. I am a person that is strongly bothered by closed mindedness, backstabbers, or people that exploit others for their own personal gain. Most of Maruta’s lyrical content deals with my views on organized religion, or any other sort of establishment that directly dictates how people like you and me should live our lives, and what we should deem as moral or immoral. George W. Bush cut funds on stem cell research because the “bible says its wrong” for crying out loud. I do not understand how something beneficial to man through tons of medical benefits would be against “god”. If someone looks down upon someone else because of their religious beliefs, race, sexual orientation, etc, I am pretty much here to say fuck you and get off that imaginary pedestal you are standing on. Move forward, think, evolve.

JH: With that said, grindcore is a style of music that has long been associated with politics. To what, if any extent is Maruta a “political band”?

ML: I wouldn’t really say that we are a political band… we may touch a subject or two that involves politics, but like I said earlier most of our lyrics deal with social issues or our views on humanity, etc.

JH: Willowtip Records has made a name for itself as the “thinking man’s” label for metal and grindcore, and Maruta definitely falls into this category. How did you get hooked up with the label?

ML: We have always been a hard working band, and the type of dudes that do things ourselves. The connection with Willowtip was pretty much all just about sending our recorded material over, and being at the right place at the right time I guess. We were speaking to a couple other indie labels at the time, but once Willowtip was interested that was the obvious choice for us. We are pretty big fans of a lot of the material Willowtip has put out, not to mention that they are really cool dudes and treat us well. We are still stoked to this day about working with those fellas.

JH: Florida was once known as a hotbed for extreme music, and the state is pretty much the birthplace of American death metal. What is the scene like these days?

ML: Well, it’s definitely not the same nowadays that’s for sure haha, but then again I wasn’t around for all that stuff in the late ’80s/early ’90s. While florida has a ton of solid bands and great people… the metal scene somewhat feels jaded in a weird way…. or it just could be myself that’s a bit jaded. Fuck if I know, dude! Florida’s metal scene is cool and all, but we fit in a shitload more with all the DIY and punk kids.

JH: When I caught you guys on the War on Everything Tour with Impaled, Phobia and Illogicist, I was really impressed with the sheer ferocity of your performance. What is it about this music that inspires such a high level of intensity?

ML: Thanks a ton for coming out to that show, man. We all just really love what we do. We think, eat, shit, and sleep grindcore. It’s all about getting pumped as hell and just playing fast and playing pissed.

JH: Do you enjoy touring and performing live? What are the pros and cons of life on the road?

ML: Touring is great… but yeah it always has its ups and downs, The ups are that everyday is a new city and a new adventure…. Hanging with old friends and making new ones. The downside is the financial side of things. Quite honestly we don’t make any money when we tour, we barely broke even last time. We were out for two months ( one month was one we booked ourselves and did independently, the other was the war on everything tour, playing a total of 54 shows). Also, it is really difficult to keep a job in between touring. It’s not like we play the music we do in hopes of making vast amounts of money… but a little bit to cover some bills/rent while we are out on the road would be nice.

JH: What’s next for Maruta? When can we expect some more new material to surface? Is there any more touring in the works?

ML: Well, we have already written about 6 new songs (2 of which we played live on tour last time). It would be great to keep the momentum going, record another album for Willowtip in 2009. As far as tours, we are most definitely going to do something in may of 2009 to coincide with our performance at Maryland Death Fest, and hopefully another tour or two after that. We are in the process of finding a good booking agent to back us up and keep us busy. Thanks alot for your time, and to anyone who read this. Cheers and grind on!!

Interview II: Originally posted to THKD on 08/04/11

Josh Haun: What were you looking to accomplish with the new album, Forward into Regression?

Mitchell Luna: We were honestly just trying to challenge ourselves a bit. Put together a grind/metal album that is not traditional or predictable. When we sit down and write, we pretty much only compose stuff that is pleasing to our ears. We have no regard for what others think when they give it a listen. I guess you can say we are a “sonically selfish” band. What sounds great to us, might just be ok to you… and that’s fine. We are all really happy with the outcome, and I think Forward into Regression is the best representation of Maruta yet.

I don’t expect everyone into grind to like Maruta, but as long as you hear us, or see us live and say “well, these guys are fucking really into what they do”.. if we get that point across, to me it would feel like we musically suceeded.

JH: You recorded the new album at Mana Studios. How would you describe the experience?

ML: The recording process was pleasant. Brian and Erik were very cool, down to earth, and cracked tons of jokes. There also happened to be a total wine and liquors store nearby. I spent most of my time (when I was not recording vocals) hanging out and sipping on micro brew beer while playing playstation, so it was pretty laid back to say the least (for myself haha). We tracked drums and vocals over there, and recorded the D.I. tracks for the bass and guitar at my house/Mauro’s house, then re-amped them at the studio. Definitely some good vibes in that studio. I would say we are all pretty pleased with the outcome and the experience in general.

JH: After the great response In Narcosis received, did you feel any pressure while conceiving the follow up album?

ML: Well, In Narcosis got a good response as far as blogs, and smaller zines are concerned… we are extremely grateful for that. But for the most part I think it was pretty overlooked by all the “bigger” metal publications. It didn’t sell all too well either, haha… but that is probably just due to the times.

As far as pressure, I would say no…we played a few songs off Forward into Regression even as early as 2008 live, and the response was always positive. Forward into Regression is basically In Narcosis on steroids. If you liked that album, you will like this one as well or even more.

The pressure will be on for full length number 3 though. I would like to change things up a bit, for the sake of variety. And no, don’t worry we don’t aim to alienate our listeners. No clean singing or cheesy breakdowns will be involved. It will still be a grind record.

JH: What was your mindset while crafting the songs that make up Forward into Regression? How would you describe your approach to creating new material?

ML: The songwriting process was all over the place for this record. I’d say half of it was written by Eduardo on his own (sometimes with my help, I would sit there and hum riffs because I can barely play an instument haha)… Our new bassist Mauro wrote 3 songs off of it, and there were several songs/ parts of songs that were written on the spot at practices.

Our mindset was like what I said earlier. To put together music that is pleasing to our own ears before anyone elses.

JH: How do you think the band has progressed since In Narcosis?

ML: Well… we have a bass player for starters. The songs on Forward into Regression flow together better as a cohesive whole I think. There is a lot more going on musically this time as well.

JH: The songs on the new album seem a bit more technical. Was this a conscious effort or just a natural progression for the band?

ML: It honestly just happened naturally. Eduardo writes riffs that are very tech-y, but in his head they are not… I don’t know if that makes any sense to you, but what I am trying to say I guess is that we don’t aim to be technical. It sort of just seeps out on its own.

JH: What are some the of the lyrical themes being explored on Forward into Regression?

ML: Most of Maruta’s lyrical content touches social themes, and the same applies to Forward into Regression…. there are a couple of songs on the new album that are extremely personal though, and a few that venture to the abstract. I personally think that lyrics are left best for interpretation, it takes the fun and “art” out of it if I just sit and talk about what they really mean to me, and what I felt when I wrote them.

What’s weird is that I never really discuss the actual lyrics or their subject matter with my bandmates.. I am really closed off and reserved when it comes to that for some odd reason, and I am never truly comfortable speaking about what I wrote. I’d even go as far as saying that no one in the band usually even knows 75% of the song titles until we are in the studio recording them. Either way, the rest of the guys are usually too caught up in all that is going on musically, and have enough on their plate to sit and be worrying about what I am going to write.

JH: Who created the cover art for the new album? How does the artwork tie into the themes of the new album?

ML: Our friend Alex Eckman Lawn handled the art duties. He has pretty much been our go to guy as far as artwork goes. He has desgned a shit load of shirt designs for us in the past, but this is the first time he actually puts together album art for us. I am extremely happy with the results, and we are going to stick with him from now on.

The art is very gloomy. We were aiming for a “crumbling dystopian city“ type look, and Alex achieved it well.

Forward into Regression definitely has a dark theme to it. It conveys our views of society and humanity in general. These are strange and difficult times for everyone… greed and close-mindedness are not just abundant, but it seems as that in times of ecomonic frustration and unrest, man’s negative traits have flourished. Therefore it feels like we are moving forward into regression, we are making the opposite of progress.

JH: You’ve added a bass player since the last album. How has this changed Maruta’s approach?

ML: We always wanted a bass player…. Finding an individual that was on the same page as us on a both muscial and personal level was what prevented us from having one before. Mauro is a great guy, and we couldn’t be happier to have him. He is very skilled, fun to be around, and shares the same “open minded” mentality that we have in regards to songwriting. He has brought more “energy” to the band, of that makes sense.

JH: This is also your first recording with new drummer Danny Morris. What does he bring to the band and the new album?

ML: We actually got very lucky finding Danny… he is actually Mauro’s (bassist) roomate and they have great chemistry together as far as music goes. A lot of the songs on Forward into Regression were originally written with our old drummer (Nick Augusto, who left the band to persue more commerical musical endeavors with Trivium)… and then he basically had to re-write most of the drums, with certain old parts in mind. I love Danny’s style, it is definitely more “relentless” sounding to me, and I am very happy to work with that bastard. He is extremely tight, and always manages to throw in creative fills here and there that are very pleasing to my eardrums.

I would say overall, the drums on the new record have a different feel to them, and I believe it is a step in the right direction.

JH: With that said, I have to ask: What was your reaction Nick Augusto leaving to join Trivium(barf)?

ML: It was pretty odd at first, but it was a good move for him financially. He lives off playing drums now, so if he is happy then I am happy for him. It must be weird playing in a band that you don’t think is good, but then again it must be nice not having to work a day job and do things like travel around in tour buses and make good money.

I personally have invested a couple grand into Maruta, and we barely even break even most of the time. So yea, this band is something that so far has provided very little financial gain. Things like that can take a toll on you over time, and make you wonder why you still keep getting back in a rusty van and losing jobs to play in front of 8 kids in some moldy basement somewhere in middle America. You have to really love what you do to keep going. It is not for everyone.

Back to the subject of Nick, I still talk to him from time to time, and there are no hard feelings. It ended up working out for the best, because I think Danny made the band sound tighter.

JH: Maruta is often mentioned as one of the bands that is pushing grindcore forward. Where do you think the genre is going? What are your thoughts on the current state of grind?

ML: Well, first of all thanks for those kind words! We experiment alot, and will throw in riffs from the death metal side of things, or let doom influence seep in from time to time. The way we see it, is if we write a riff.. and it sounds good, but a little too death metal… or a little too hardcore.. or a little too whatever.. it would be an absolute shame not to use it because it doesn’t sound “grind” enough. We listen to all sorts of different styles that the muscial spectrum has to offer, and for us I feel it would be dumb to close ourselves off to experimentation just for the sake of fitting in neatly into a certain mold or genre…. don’t get me wrong either, we all fucking LOVE traditional grind.. but there are plenty of other bands holding that genre down and keeping things going alot better than we ever could. Experimentation is not something that is necessary, it just happens to be what we are into.

I have said this in other interviews, but we are usually that band that death metal fans consider too grind, and grind fans consider too death metal, haha.

As far as the current state of grind: 2011 has been pretty crazy. Tons of great records have surfaced (new Noisear, Wormrot, Gridlink, Weekend Nachos, Rotten Sound, etc.).

I still get psyched when I hear new music that blows me away. Whatever it may be, as long as it is played with passion and it comes from the right place.

JH: What are you listening to right now? What bands/albums do you find inspiring?

ML: As far as heavy music is concerned: The latest Noisear album is fucking great like I mentioned earlier. For those who have slept on listening to it, I would highly recommend it. Same goes for the new Sulaco record (even though I do not think it is officially out yet) My good friends Erik and Henrik who used to be in Crowpath started a new band called Tellusian that is pretty awesome as well.

JH: Will you be doing any touring in support of Forward into Regression?

ML: Yes sir. We have a 5 week tour planned in Europe that we will be doing with Wormrot. It will be the first time we head overseas, so I am stoked as hell. We have some off dates here and there in the US, 2 of them being Scion sponsored shows alongside Phobia and Gridlink.

I would have loved to do a full U.S. Tour, but things really did not pan out this time. Perhaps in 2012 we can tour and do things right this time. I still self book all of our tours, which has both helped and hurt us in the past.

Unfortunately, even on a decent label and with 2 full lengths under our belt, we have not had much luck as far as finding a booking agent to work with us full time.

JH: What’s next for Maruta? What does the rest of 2011 have in store for you guys?

ML: Like I said, we are doing that lengthy European tour in Sept/October. Our friend David Hall actually just finished wrapping up shooting a new music video for a song featured on Forward Into Regression, so you can expect that to surface soon. He does great work, and has shot videos for Today is the Day, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Fuck the Facts, Jucifer and others, as well as the MDF films. The vinyl version of the album also finally comes out late this month through Power It Up records. It will be gatefold and limited to 500.

JH: Are there any final thoughts you’d like to add?

ML: Thanks for the interview, Josh, and thanks to those that took the time to read it Cheers!

Those of you familiar with The Ash Eaters’ Cold Hearts demo (also available via bandcamp), will instantly notice a distinct progression in playing and composition (as well as the return of Amtey’s Cthulu-esque vocal assault); indeed, the beautiful thing about this music is that it is constantly progressing, changing, morphing into something beyond the confines of extreme music.

I could say a lot more, but I’d rather let the music do the talking.  Go grab this now!

http://theasheaters.bandcamp.com/album/the-cruel-side-ep

I’d also highly recommend stopping by The Ash Eaters’ blog to download their cover versions of the Misfits’s “Angelfuck” and “Death Comes Ripping.”

http://theasheaters.blogspot.com

The key components of Mortician’s sound aren’t uncommon to extreme music on their own.  Distorted, down-tuned guitar and bass, guttural vocals and even the use of drum machines and samples are all well-worn tools of the metal trade.  It’s the way Mortician uses these tools that makes them so interesting.  We can examine each of these tools individually and how they fit together in order to get a better sense of what Mortician’s music is and what it does.

Probably the most talked about aspect of Mortician’s sound is the drum machine.  It lends a mechanized, almost industrial vibe to the music that recalls bands like Ministry or Godflesh more than it does other death metal bands.  There is absolutely nothing flashy about the synthetic drums, they serve only to keep time and push the songs forward; this is rhythm at its most basic, yet it is executed with inhuman precision and speed.  When Mortician dials up a blastbeat, it is the very definition of OTT, the music degenerating into a blurry wash of jack-hammering noise and distortion more akin to something you might hear on a Prurient album.  I’ve often postulated that there is nothing more extreme than noise when discussing the merits of artists such as Merzbow and the aforementioned Prurient, and the same line of thinking can be applied to Mortician’s patented hyper-speed blasts.  They sound like an automobile factory gone homicidal, a rush of ear-damaging din in the midst of the down-tuned death/grind assault that significantly ratchets up the extremity factor in a very unexpected way.

Mortician is known for their extensive use of samples from cult horror films.  There was a period of time when it seemed like every band on Relapse Records incorporated samples on their albums, but Mortician was the band that used them the most effectively, since they were actually writing songs about the movies they were sampling.  The band’s critics claim that the samples are there so that listeners can tell Mortician’s songs apart, but they’re missing the point.  Mortician’s music isn’t about individual songs you can tell apart.  It’s about unrelenting violence in the tradition of classic grindcore, and the samples serve as a breather between beatings, in addition to adding to the horrific atmosphere.

Will Rahmer’s bass playing and tone is probably one of my favorite aspects of Mortician.  I’m not sure how far down Mortician are tuning on their recordings, but Rahmer’s bass is so low and filthy that it barely sounds like any actual notes are coming out from it, just globs of sludgy, amorphous frequencies that give the recordings a strange low-end rumble.  The bass’ distortion sort of creeps around the edges of the songs and for some reason always makes me think of the television set in Poltergeist, that spectral electronic snow being harnessed into music.  It adds an eerie character to Mortician’s sonic framework, a ghost in the machine.  Listen to the track “Inquisition” from Hacked up for Barbecue for a great example of Rahmer’s bass in action.

To call Rahmer’s vocal approach guttural is an understatement; his cavernous gurgle adds almost as much low-end to Mortician as his bass playing.  If you buried a still-animate zombie under six feet of dirt and recorded its grunting and groaning through a sewer pipe, you might come close to replicating it.  The vocals are totally unintelligible, often blending in with the music to the point where they could be mistaken for yet another layer of distortion.  Rahmer’s lyrics are brief and to-the-point, an exercise in minimalism perfectly suited to Mortician’s simplistic musical attack.  The lyrics to “Bonecrusher” from Domain of Death are a perfect example of the vocalist’s verbal economy.

“Sledghammer, bash your skull
Head explodes, brains and bone
Swinging mace, cracks your face
Nose smashed in, teeth kicked in
Baseball bat, breaks your back
cracked rib cage, shattered legs”

With just thirty words, Mortician paint a lyrical picture of violence that’s every bit as blunt and harsh as the music.  The use of the word “your” indicates that you, the listener, are the the intended victim.  This is typical of Mortician lyrics.  ”You” are the one being attacked, killed, butchered, mangled, etc, the object of the band’s murderous obsession.  There is a desire to dominate the listener exhibited in the band’s depraved lyrics, as well as the pummeling sonic techniques they incorporate.

Of course, no dissection of Mortician’s sound would be complete without discussing Roger Beaujard’s guitar-work.  His playing is chunkier than the exploding head scene in Scanners and thicker than the black goo of unknown origin that covers the Tarman in The Return of the Living Dead.  Beaujard rarely strays from hefty power chord riffs that sound like they’re emanating from the bowels of hell; things like leads and solos simply do not exist in Mortician’s world.  Earlier recordings, such as the aforementioned Hacked up for Barbecue saw Beaujard occasionally incorporating pinch harmonics and whammy bar abuse, but the six-stringer has simplified his playing over time, in keeping with Mortician’s musical philosophy of every note in the service of sheer brutality and heaviness.  To fans of shredding and technicality, Beaujard might as well be the antichrist.  ”Ghost House” from Darkest Day of Horror perfectly illustrates his bare-bones approach to the instrument.

Mortician are often unfairly dismissed as some sort of death metal troglodytes, but their unwillingness to evolve or overcomplicate their sound is integral to the very fabric of the band’s oeuvre.  Like the slasher films that inspire much of their work, Mortician’s music is rife with themes of dominance and submission that tap into mankind’s most sadistic instincts.  This primal quality can be found in the  instrumental blunt force trauma created by the crushing simplicity of the guitar and bass arrangements.  The cruel, calculating exactitude of the drum machine juxtaposes itself against Mortician’s barbarous human element, degenerating into total berserker rage whenever one of those death-factory blastbeats engulfs a song.  Underneath the music’s deceptive austerity and devastating heaviness are two men bending technology (drum machines, electric instruments) to their collective will in order to create primitive, brutal art, humanity’s inherent subconscious bloodlust brought to the surface and taken to its illogical conclusion.

Whether or not Mortician is truly “the heaviest band in the universe” might be up for debate, but there can be no doubt that they’re among the most idiosyncratic and interesting.  Here’s to hoping they return from suspended animation to cave our skulls in and grant me an interview.

http://www.morticianrecords.com/

The album sounds every bit as disgusting as the films it evokes.  Guitars vomit out ultra-distorted power chords, coating Stoned in a thick layer of sonic zombie-chunder, while the Goblin-on-LSD keyboards conjure up a sleazy, drugged-out haze of an atmosphere  that perfectly compliments Acid Witch’s musical black mass in praise of lowbrow culture.  The grooves laid down by the band on tracks like “Sabbath of the Undead” and “Thundering Hooves” are deep, dark and dirty, evoking the Michigan-bred proto-metal stylings of The Stooges, The MC5 and Alice Cooper.  It’s a bizarre amalgam of sounds that works amazingly well and is at times  genuinely creepy, as on “Trick or Treat,” a disturbing yarn about a child murderer/cannibal who preys upon trick or treaters.

Stoned is a Satanic/psychedelic journey into the rotten bowels of doom, drenched in blood, guts and graveyard stench; the ultimate soundtrack to a night of horror VHS tapes, vintage EC comics, cheap booze and copious amounts of the devil’s weed.  Burst-beating manifesto-writers, corpse-painted crybabies and post-everything beard-cultivators need not apply.

http://www.hellsheadbangers.com/acidwitch/

———————————————————————————————-/

Here’s a really cool fan video for the track “Witchfynder Finder”

“When it’s cold and when it’s dark, the freezing moon can obsess you!” – Dead

By and large, live albums are unessential affairs.  They typically consist of sonically inferior versions of a band’s “greatest hits,” with lame between song banter, distracting crowd noises, and more often than not, so many overdubs that the album is no longer “live” at all by the time it hits the record store shelves (or these days, the world wide thieves network, aka the internet).

Not so with Mayhem’s Live in Leipzig.  Recorded at a club called Eisfeller in Leipzig, East Germany on November 26th, 1990 (the day after my 11th birthday), this document captures the true essence of the infamous Norwegian black metal progenitors unlike any other recording I’ve heard from the band.  Granted, I haven’t yet been inclined to sift through the numerous bootlegs that are floating around the underground (Dawn of the Black Hearts, Vomit from Helvete, etc.) but I am extremely familiar with all of Mayhem’s studio recordings, and I can honestly say that Live in Leipzig is the truest representation of the band (and quite possibly of Norwegian/2nd wave black metal itself) ever to be pressed onto plastic (and wax).

Two things, or more accurately, two persons make this so.  Dead and Euronymous.  The presence of these two black metal iconoclasts is absolutely immense on Live in Leipzig, and although they departed this mortal coil in 1991 and 1993 respectively, that haunting presence is still epalpable wherever the album is spun (although it tends to work best in total darkness on a cold winter night), to the point that it feels like they’re speaking to you directly from beyond the grave.  Dead’s positively possessed vocals prove that his pseudonym was apt; the man sounds like he just crawled out of a rotting, dirt-covered casket, returning to the land of the living with the sole purpose of shredding his throat in the name of black metal.  Euronymous’ guitar-work dominates the mix along with the vocals, his playing some of the most unholy racket you’re ever likely to hear.  The guitar solos often sound like Euronymous is on the brink of losing control, yet somehow he harnesses all of that swarming, distorted filth into some of the darkest, most downright wicked six-string sorcery ever recorded.  One can’t help but wonder if “Chainsaw Gutsfuck” is actually a reference to the sickening guitar tones he so effortlessly conjured here.

The album’s unquestionable pinnacle is “The Freezing Moon,” a perfect black metal song if ever there was one.  It is here that everything comes together for Mayhem; the bloodcurdling vocals, the malevolent riffage and the horrific, deathly atmosphere that hung over the band like a grim reaper’s shroud intertwine in a way that other black metal bands could only hope to achieve and are still chasing after over two decades later.  This song alone proves that Mayhem should be considered legendary for their music, not for the tragedy and sensationalism that would eventually engulf the band and change it forever.  The rest of the set is equally harrowing; Mayhem’s total dedication to sonically manifesting black metal’s inherent morbidity and misanthropy borders on something resembling religious mania, such is the intensity of the performance.  I can only imagine what it was like to physically witness such wrath and ruin.

Black metal is many things. It is the musical incarnation of chaos and hatred and perverse lust.  It is the soundtrack to a lifestyle, a world view and an attitude.  It is an escape to another plane of existence, where life is a curse and only death is real.  I hear all of these things and more when I listen to Live in Leipzig.  For at least one night in 1990, Mayhem was black metal personified.

THKD’s Top 100 Metal Albums
1. Celestial Season – Solar Lovers (+ an introduction to THKD’s Top 100 Metal Albums
2. Type O Negative – October Rust
3. Grand Belial’s Key – Judeobeast Assassination
4. Mayhem – Live in Leipzig