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Happy Paddy’s Day 2012

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Sure, Patrick was a Catholic saint and Ostara, Easter’s namesake, was a pagan goddess, but it’s what you do on a holiday that really marks its significance. So let pious men paint crosses on long-impotent eggs; the damned still have their days. For me, spring begins with a pint of Guinness bright and early on March 17th.

For a few years now I’ve started out Paddy’s Day with the goal in mind of researching and recounting the history of some of my favorite Irish songs, and the spirits of the season have always gotten the better of me. But inebriation brings its own cryptic wisdoms, and this year, as I searched and fumbled through disjointed google results, it was the chronology of the music that really stood out to me. Ireland writes its history in song.

1984: Streams of Whiskey

Every song has an author–a source of origin. Though it may evolve into something entirely unrecognizable, it has to start somewhere, and even when its most distinguishable features are additions, someone has to add them. What distinguishes a traditional song from a cover has a lot to do with the mentality of the individuals copying it, which is in turn dictated in part by the DNA of the song itself. Covers acknowledge authorship–both of the original performer and of the artists performing the new rendition. Traditional songs do not. They are for the masses, and belong to everyone equally. Shane MacGowan and The Pogues authored many traditional songs. Streams of Whiskey, off of their 1984 debut album, can be considered one of their first. Its subject, Irish nationalist, poet, and playwright Brendan Behan, died of alcoholism twenty years prior, but the song is by no means “tragic”.

Last night as I slept I dreamt I met with Behan. I shook him by the hand and we passed the time of day. When questioned on his views–on the crux of life’s philosophies–he had but these few clear and simple words to say: I am going, I am going any which way the wind may be blowing. I am going, I am going where streams of whiskey are flowing.
I have cursed, bled, and sworn, jumped bail and landed up in jail. Life has often tried to stretch me, but the rope always was slack. And now that I’ve a pile, I’ll go down to the Chelsea. I’ll walk in on my feet, but I’ll leave there on my back.
Oh the words that he spoke seemed the wisest of philosophies. There’s nothing ever gained by a wet thing called a tear. When the world is too dark, and I need the light inside of me, I’ll go into a bar and drink fifteen pints of beer.

~1960: Come Out Ye Black and Tans

The Behans were themselves a source of Irish tradition. Brendan’s brother, Dominic, composed two particularly lasting staples: Come Out Ye Black and Tans and The Auld Triangle. Black and Tans recounts their father Stephen’s active role in the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), and as best I can gather was written by Dominic after his own release from prison for political dissent.

I was born on a Dublin street where the Royal drums did beat, and the loving English feet walked all over us. And every single night, when me dad would come home tight, he’d invite the neighbors outside with this chorus: Come out ye Black and Tans, come out and fight me like a man. Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders. Tell her how the I.R.A. made you run like hell away from the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra. Come, tell us how you slew those brave Arabs two by two; like the Zulus, they had spears and bows and arrows. How you bravely faced each one with your sixteen pounder gun, and you frightened them poor natives to their marrow.

1919: Foggy Dew

Stephen Behan’s war officially began in 1919–the same year in which Canon Charles O’Neill wrote Foggy Dew. His song was a reflection on the 1916 Easter Uprising, and a sign of future struggles. The Allies of the First World War’s promise of independence to small nations created previously non-existent nationalist identities around the world, but Ireland’s exclusion from the deal reinvigorated sentiments which had existed for generations. Foggy Dew, and the many songs that appeared alongside it, revitalized a lyrical tradition which, while separated by the 19th century’s period of emigration, was never fully forgotten.

As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I, there armed lines of marching men in squadrons passed me by. No pipe did hum, no battle drum did sound its dread tattoo. But the Angelus bells o’er the Liffey’s swell rang out through the foggy dew.
Right proudly high over Dublin Town they hung out the flag of war. ‘Twas better to die beneath an Irish sky than at Suvla or Sud-El-Bar. And from the plains of Royal Meath strong men came hurrying through, while Britannia’s Huns, with their long range guns, sailed in through the foggy dew.
Oh the bravest fell, and the requiem bell rang mournfully and clear for those who died that Eastertide in the spring time of the year. And the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless men, but few, who bore the fight, that freedom’s light might shine through the foggy dew.
As back through the glen I rode again, my heart with grief was sore. For I parted then with valiant men whom I never shall see more. But to and fro in my dreams I go and I kneel and pray for you, for slavery fled, o glorious dead, when you fell in the foggy dew.

~1870: Spancil Hill

Michael Considine was an Irish immigrant to Boston, who moved to California in his early 20s and died shortly thereafter. The history of his song is steeped in myth. It supposedly made its way back to Ireland through family connections and came into the possession of Michael’s six year old nephew, John Considine, who kept it safe for 70 years and confirmed its authenticity upon hearing it performed by a stranger in 1953. Whatever its true story, it preserves a memory of departure after the fact, shedding any semblance of optimism about a land of opportunity.

Last night as I lay dreaming of pleasant days gone by, my mind being bent on rambling. To Ireland I did fly. I stepped on board a vision and I followed with the wind, and I shortly came to anchor at the cross of Spancil Hill.
It was on the 23rd of June, the day before the fair, when lreland’s sons and daughters in crowds assembled there, the young and the old, the brave and the bold, their journey to fulfill. There were jovial conversations at the fair of Spancil Hill.
I went to see my neighbors, to hear what they might say. The old ones were all dead and gone, and the young one’s turning grey. I met with the tailor Quigley, he’s a bold as ever still. He used to make my britches when I lived in Spancil Hill.
I paid a flying visit to my first and only love. She’s as white as any lily and as gentle as a dove. She threw her arms around me saying “Johnny I love you still.” She’s Ned the farmer’s daughter and the flower of Spancil Hill.
I dreamt I held and kissed her as in the days of yore. She said, “Johnny you’re only joking like many’s the time before.” The cock he crew in the morning; he crew both loud and shrill. I awoke in California, many miles from Spancil Hill.

~1850-1860: The Rocky Road to Dublin

D. K. Gavan’s mid-19th century depiction of emigration was a bit more optimistic. It remains persistently playful, presenting an Irish youth’s boastful account of his relocation from Galway to Liverpool as an adventure rather than a loss. Perhaps of some significance towards this end is that it was written by an Irishman who does not appear to have ever left for good or entered into the working class.

In the merry month of May, from me home I started. Left the girls of Tuam so nearly broken-hearted. Saluted father dear, kissed me darling mother, drank a pint of beer, me grief and tears to smother. Then off to reap the corn, leave where I was born, cut a stout black thorn to banish ghosts and goblins. Bought a pair of brogues to rattle o’er the bogs and frighten all the dogs on the rocky road to Dublin.
In Mullingar that night I rested limbs so weary. Started by daylight next morning bright and early. Took a drop of pure to keep me heart from sinking. That’s a Paddy’s cure whenever he’s on the drinking. See the lassies smile, laughing all the while at me darling style, ‘twould leave your heart a bubblin’. Asked me was I hired, wages I required, till I almost tired of the rocky road to Dublin.
In Dublin next arrived, I thought it such a pity to be soon deprived a view of that fine city. Then I took a stroll, all among the quality. Me bundle, it was stole, all in a neat locality. Something crossed me mind, when I looked behind. No bundle could I find upon me stick a wobblin’. Inquiring for the rogue, they said me Connaught brogue wasn’t much in vogue on the rocky road to Dublin.
From there I got away, me spirits never falling. Landed on the quay, just as the ship was sailing. Captain at me roared, said that no room had he. When I jumped aboard, a cabin found for Paddy down among the pigs, played some hearty rigs, danced some hearty jigs, the water round me bubbling. Then off Holyhead. I wished meself was dead, or better far instead on the rocky road to Dublin.
The boys of Liverpool, when we safely landed, called meself a fool. I could no longer stand it. Blood began to boil, temper I was losing. Poor old Erin’s Isle they began abusing. “Hurrah me soul” says I, let the Shillelagh I fly, some Galway boys were nigh and saw I was a hobblin’ in. With a load “hurray” joining in the fray, till we cleared the way on the rocky road to Dublin.

~1820: The Wild Rover

The mere existence of The Wild Rover as a drinking song is a testament to Ireland’s independent spirit, and it marks, perhaps, the tail end of another era in nationalist-themed music. It was originally composed as a temperance song, and the lyrics indeed tell of a repentant alcoholic prepared to give up the drink for good. But with a nuance difference. Early printings of the lyrics (at least, one I read dated between 1813 and 1838) have the subject of the song testing the landlady with money to see if she will sell him whiskey and then refusing to actually drink it, extolling the virtues of sobriety. In the popular, surviving version, the wild rover slips into his old ways just one last time.

I’ve been a wild rover for many a year, and I spent all my money on whiskey and beer. Now I’m returning with gold in great store, and I never will play the wild rover no more. And it’s no, nay, never, no nay never no more, will I play the wild rover. No never, no more. I went to an ale-house I used to frequent, and I told the landlady me money was spent. I asked her for credit, she answered me “nay, such a custom as yours I could have any day.” I took from my pocket ten sovereigns bright, and the landlady’s eyes opened wide with delight. She said “I have whiskey and wines of the best, and the words that I told you were only in jest.” I’ll go home to my parents, confess what I’ve done, and I’ll ask them to pardon their prodigal son. And if they forgive me as ofttimes before, I never will play the wild rover no more.

~1800: Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye

My personal favorite Irish traditional song, Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye, is best known in the United States in its bastardized American Civil War form: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again. The American version welcomes home a brave warrior, who fought with valor and served his cause dutifully. Life was a bit more realistic in Ireland. This song first appeared some time after the 1798 Irish Rebellion–a movement sparked by the recent American and French Revolutions–at a time when the British Empire was shipping Irishmen off to Sri Lanka to fight their senseless colonial wars. It is a brutally honest depiction of the reality of war that surpasses any modern attempt.

While goin’ the road to sweet Athy, hurrah, hurrah
While goin’ the road to sweet Athy, hurrah, hurrah
While goin’ the road to sweet Athy with a stick in me hand and a drop in me eye
Well don’t you laugh now, don’t you cry
Johnny, I hardly knew ye.

With your guns and drums and drums and guns, hurrah, hurrah
With your guns and drums and drums and guns, hurrah, hurrah
With your guns and drums and drums and guns, the enemy nearly slew ye
Why darling dear, you look so queer
Johnny, I hardly knew ye.

Where are the eyes that looked so mild? hurrah, hurrah
Where are the eyes that looked so mild? hurrah, hurrah
Where are the eyes that looked so mild when you at first me heart beguiled?
What have you done to me and the child?
Johnny, I hardly knew ye.

Where are your legs that used to run? hurrah, hurrah
Where are your legs that used to run? hurrah, hurrah
Where are your legs that used to run when first you went to carry a gun?
Indeed you dancing days are done
Johnny, I hardly knew ye.

Well you haven’t an arm and you haven’t a leg, hurrah, hurrah
You haven’t an arm and you haven’t a leg, hurrah, hurrah
You haven’t an arm and you haven’t a leg. You’re an armless, legless, boneless egg.
You ought to ‘ve been born with a bowl to beg
Johnny, I hardly knew ye.

I’m happy for to see you home, hurrah, hurrah
Back from the island of Ceylon, hurrah, hurrah
I’m happy for to see you home, though indeed you cannot see your home.
Why on earth were you inclined to roam?
Johnny, I hardly knew ye.

~1500s: The Parting Glass

There’s something profoundly assertive in the lot of these songs. They aren’t the mindless jingles for which America is only one of many guilty parties. Even the most seemingly mundane, say, The Wild Rover, carries with it a hidden rejection of artificial restrictions on human nature. Perhaps that’s why they bear such a strong cross-cultural appeal. St. Patrick’s Day isn’t a celebration of Irish tradition; it’s a celebration of what Irish tradition understands best–the human experience. One of my favorite lines in any song comes packaged in the oldest Irish song I know. It could be a simple statement of fact, but I fancy it a tongue-in-cheek play on words. Because Irish tradition understands that loss is not a thing experienced prior to the fact. Preemptive expressions of sorrow are bullshit, and our recognition of that fact in the moment is part of the experience. So, since it falls unto my lot that I should rise and you should not, I gently rise and softly call, good night and joy be with you all.

necromoonyeti’s 10 Favorite Songs of 2011

Posted on by necromoonyeti

I want to hop on the bandwagon. It would be a little silly for me to post my real top 10; for one thing, it would include four Krallice tracks. That aside, nearly everything I’d put on it I’ve either posted on this site as a Song of the Day or included in both my review of its album and my top albums post. So to make this a bit different from my past posts, I’m going to limit myself to one song per band, stick to stuff that I imagine might appeal to people who aren’t interested in extreme metal, and keep it on the catchy side. I’ll list a more honest top 10 at the end.

10. Powerwolf – Son of a Wolf (from Blood of the Saints)

As such, my tenth place selection is about as metal as it’s going to get. Powerwolf’s Blood of the Saints might be simple and repetitive, but it’s about the catchiest power/heavy metal album I’ve ever heard. It indulges the same guilty pleasure for me as Lordi and Twisted Sister–two bands that inexplicably pump me up despite being entirely tame. It also offers some amazing operatic vocals and Dracula keyboards, the cheesiness of which can be easily forgiven. Son of a Wolf might be one of the more generic tracks in a sense, but it’s the one most often stuck in my head.

9. Alestorm – Barrett’s Privateers (from Back Through Time)

The only thing I love more than traditional folk and sea chanties is folk punk and metal. When the latter covers the former, I’m in bliss. Alestorm are emerging as the sort of Dropkick Murphys of metal with all their covers lately, and I hope they keep it up. I loved Barrett’s Privateers before what you’re hearing ever happened, and the metal version delights me to no end.

8. The Decemberists – Rox in the Box (from The King is Dead)

The Decemberists really toned it down this year. Where The Hazards of Love could be described as an epic rock opera, The King is Dead sticks to simple, pleasant folk. But Colin Meloy thoroughly researches pretty much every subject he’s ever tackled, and The King is Dead pays ample homage to its predecessors. Rox in the Box incorporates Irish traditional song Raggle Taggle Gypsy with delightful success.

7. Nekrogoblikon – Goblin Box (from Stench)

With a keen eye towards contemporary folk metal like Alestorm and Finntroll, melodic death classics like In Flames and Children of Bodom, and much else besides, former gimmick band Nekrogoblikon really forged their own unique sound in the world of folk metal in 2011. At least half of the album is this good. Stench is the most unexpected surprise the year had to offer by far.

6. Korpiklaani – Surma (from Ukon Wacka)

Korpiklaani almost always end their albums with something special, and 2011 is no exception. The melody of Surma is beautiful, and Jonne Järvelä’s metal take on traditional Finnish vocals is as entertaining as ever.

5. Turisas – Hunting Pirates (from Stand Up and Fight)

I couldn’t find a youtube video that effectively captured the full scope of Turisas’s sound in such limited bitrates, but believe me, it’s huge. Go buy the album and find out for yourselves. Unlike Varangian Way, not every track is this good, but on a select number Turisas appear in their finest form. Adventurous, exciting, epic beyond compare, this band delivers with all of the high definition special effects of a Hollywood blockbuster.

4. The Flight of Sleipnir – Transcendence (from Essence of Nine)

Essence of Nine kicks off with a kaleidoscope of everything that makes stoner metal great, while reaching beyond the genre to incorporate folk and Akerfeldt-esque vocals. A beautifully constructed song, it crushes you even as it floats through the sky. I could imagine Tony Iommi himself rocking out to this one.

3. Boris – Black Original (from New Album)

From crust punk to black metal, there’s nothing Boris don’t do well, and 2011 has shown more than ever that there’s no style they’ll hesitate from dominating. I don’t know what’s been going on in the past few years with this popular rise of 80s sounds and weird electronics. I don’t listen to it, so I can’t relate. But if I expected it sounded anything nearly as good as what Boris pulled off this year I’d be all over it.

2. Tom Waits – Chicago (from Bad as Me)

Bad as Me kicks off with one of my favorite Tom Waits songs to date. It’s a timeless theme for him, but it feels more appropriate now than ever, and his dirty blues perfectly capture the sort of fear and excitement of packing up and seeking out a better life.

1. Dropkick Murphys – Take ‘Em Down (from Going Out in Style)

In a year just begging for good protest songs, Flogging Molly tried really hard and fell flat. Dropkick Murphys, another band you’d expect to join the cause, released perhaps their most generic album to date (still good mind you, but not a real chart topper). Take ‘Em Down is kind of out of place on the album, but it’s DKM to the core, and as best I can gather it’s an original song, not a cover of a traditional track. If so, it’s probably the most appropriate thing written all year. (The video is fan made.)

If you’re interested in my actual top 10, it runs something like this:

10. Falkenbach – Where His Ravens Fly…
9. Waldgeflüster – Kapitel I: Seenland
8. Liturgy – High Gold
7. Endstille – Endstille (Völkerschlächter)
6. Blut aus Nord – Epitome I
5. Krallice – Intro/Inhume
4. Liturgy – Harmonia
3. Krallice – Diotima
2. Krallice – Telluric Rings
1. Krallice – Dust and Light

And that excludes so many dozens of amazing songs that it seems almost pointless to post it.

Song of the Day: Tom Waits – New Year’s Eve

Posted on by necromoonyeti

I never did get around to writing a review of Bad As Me. It’s a shame, because it’s pretty damn good. The old man’s always been in a league of his own, and Tom’s seventeenth studio album feels no less legitimate than anything else he’s created. If anything it’s above average in his discography quality-wise, and that says a lot for someone who released his first album nearly 40 years ago. An entirely accurate representation of his style, here’s 13 anthems to homeless bums, trailer trash, vagabonds, and the starry-eyed refugees of an unforgiving society. I’ve been listening to the closing track, New Year’s Eve, on repeat ever since my deluxe edition pre-order showed up in the mail, and now’s a good day to pass it along.

It’s typical Tom fassion to make the joyous out of the bleak and vice versa. New Year’s Eve might not be as gut-wrenching as Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis, but it carries on his tradition of looking at the holidays from the perspective of those who’ve got little left in life to celebrate.

The door was open; I was seething
Your mother burst in; it was freezing
She said it looks like it’s trying to rain
I was lost; I felt sea sick
You convinced me that he’d left
You said keep talking, but don’t use any names
I scolded your driver and your brother
We are old enough to know how long you’ve been hooked
And we’ve all been through the war
and each time you score
someone gets hauled and handcuffed and booked

It felt like four in the morning
What sounded like fire works
Turned out to be just what it was
The stars looked like diamonds
Then came the sirens
And everyone started to cuss

All the noise was disturbing
And I couldn’t find Irving
It was like two stations on at the same time
And then I hid your car keys
And I made black coffee
And I dumped out the rest of the rum

Nick and Socorro broke up
And Candice wouldn’t shut up
Fin, he recorded the whole thing
Ray, he said damn you
And someone broke my camera
And it was New Years
And we all started to sing

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind
Should auld acquaintance be forgot for the sake of auld lang syne

I was leaving in the morning with Charles for Las Vegas
And I didn’t plan to come back
I had only a few things
Two hundred dollars
And my records in a brown paper sack

I ran out on Sheila
Everything’s in storage
Calvin’s right, I should go back to driving trucks

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind
Should auld acquaintance be forgot for the sake of auld lang syne

My Top 15 Metal Albums of 2011

Posted on by necromoonyeti

The years I most actively indulge my musical interests are the ones I find most difficult to wrap up in any sort of nice cohesive summary. December always begins with a feeling that I’ve really built up a solid basis on which to rate the best albums of the year, and it tends to end with the realization that I’ve really only heard a minute fraction of what’s out there. I’m going to limit this to my top 15. Anything beyond that is just too arbitrary–the long list of new albums I’ve still yet to hear will ultimately reconfigure it beyond recognition.

15. Thantifaxath – Thantifaxath EP
Thantifaxath’s debut EP might only be 15 minutes long, but that was more than enough to place it high on my charts. The whole emerging post/prog-bm sound has been largely a product of bands with the resources to refine it, and it’s quite refreshing to hear sounds reminiscent of recent Enslaved without any of the studio gloss. That, and I get a sort of B-side outer space horror vibe from it that’s not so easy to come by. (Recommended track: Violently Expanding Nothing)

14. Craft – Void
This is the straight-up, no bullshit black metal album of the year. It doesn’t try anything fancy or original. It’s just good solid mid-tempo bm–brutal, evil, conjuring, and unforgiving. Hail Satan etc. (Recommended track: any of them)

13. Turisas – Stand Up and Fight
Stand Up and Fight doesn’t hold a candle to The Varangian Way, but I never really expected it to. As a follow-up to one of my all-time favorite albums, it does a solid job of maintaining that immensely epic, triumphal sound they landed on in 2007. It lacks their previous work’s continuity, both in quality and in theme, but it’s still packed with astoundingly vivid imagery and exciting theatrics that render it almost more of a movie than an album. (Recommended tracks: Venetoi! Prasinoi!, Hunting Pirates)

12. Endstille – Infektion 1813
Swedish-style black metal seldom does much for me, and it’s hard to describe just what appeals to me so much about Germany’s Endstille. But just as Verführer caught me by pleasant surprise two years ago, Infektion 1813 managed to captivate me in spite of all expectations to the contrary. Like Marduk (the only other band of the sort that occasionally impresses me), they stick to themes of modern warfare, but Endstille’s musical artillery bombardments carry a sense of something sinister that Marduk lacks. The dark side of human nature Endstille explores isn’t shrouded in enticing mystery–it’s something so thoroughly historically validated that we’d rather just pretend it doesn’t exist at all. The final track, Völkerschlächter, is one of the best songs of the year. Stylistically subdued, it pummels the listener instead with a long list of political and military leaders responsible for mass murder, named in a thick German accent over a seven second riff that’s repeated for 11 minutes. It’s a brutal realization that the sensations black metal tends to arouse are quite real and quite deplorable, and it will leave you feeling a little sick inside.

11. Nekrogoblikon – Stench
Nekrogoblikon released a folk metal parody album in 2006 that was good for laughs and really nothing else. The music was pretty awful, but that was intentional. It was a joke, with no presumption to be any good as anything but a joke. They’re the last band on earth I ever expected, a full six years after the fact, to pop back up with a really fucking solid sound. But Stench is good. I mean, Stench is really good. It’s still comical in theme, but the music has been refined beyond measure. Quirky, cheesy guitar and keyboard doodles have become vivid images of little flesh-eating gremlins dancing around your feet, whiny mock-vocals have taken the shape of pretty solid Elvenking-esque power metal, pretty much everything about them has grown into a legitimate melo-death and power infused folk metal sound. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not meant to be taken seriously, but they’re now of Finntroll caliber. (Recommended tracks: Goblin Box, Gallows & Graves, A Feast)

10. Týr – The Lay of Thrym
I thought By the Light of the Northern Star was a fairly weak album, and because The Lay of Thrym maintains some of the stylistic changes they underwent then, a part of me keeps wanting to say it can’t be as good as say, Land or Eric the Red. But of all the albums I acquired in 2011, I’ve probably listened to this one the most. Týr have one of the most unique sounds on the market, and it’s thoroughly incapable of ever boring me or growing old. Heri Joensen’s consistently excellent vocal performance alone is enough to make them perpetual year-end contenders. (Recommended track: Hall of Freedom)

9. Waldgeflüster – Femundsmarka – Eine Reise in drei Kapiteln
This is some of the most endearing black metal I’ve heard in a while. Intended as a musical reminiscence of Winterherz’ journey through Femundsmarka National Park in Scandinavia, it’s a beautiful glorification of nature that takes some of the best accomplishments of Drudkh and Agalloch and adds to them a very uplifting vibe. Someone made an 8 minute compilation of the album on youtube which does a good job at previewing without revealing all of its finest moments. (Recommended track: Kapitel I: Seenland)

8. Ygg – Ygg
Ygg is an hour-long trance, evoking ancient gods in a way that only Slavic metal can. You could probably pick apart the music and discover plenty of flaws, but that would miss the point. I think that a lot of these Ukrainian and Russian bands are true believers, and that the purpose of music like this is more to create an experience in the listener than to be good for its own sake. This is a spiritual journey, and if it fails to move you as such it will probably come off as rather repetitive and generic, but I find it impressively effective. (Recommended track: Ygg)

7. Blut aus Nord – 777: Sect(s)
I don’t know where to put this really. I could just as easily have labeled it second best album of the year. Dropping it down to 7th might seem a little unjustified, but eh, this is a list of my top albums, not of the “best” albums of the year. There’s no denying Sect(s) credit as a brilliant masterpiece, but it’s an ode to madness. I mean, this music scares the shit out of me, and if that means it’s accomplished something no other album has, that also means I don’t particularly “enjoy” listening to it. (Recommended track: Epitome I)

6. Altar of Plagues – Mammal
I never did listen to Mammal as actively as I would have liked. I never sat down and gave it my undivided attention from start to finish. But it’s served as a background piece for many late nights at work. It zones me in–stimulates my senses without ever distracting them from the task at hand. I don’t feel like I can really say much about what makes it great, because that’s not the sort of thing I’ve considered while listening to it, but I absolutely love it. It’s a big improvement from White Tomb, which was itself an excellent album, and more so than most other releases of 2011 I will probably continue to listen to it frequently in years to come. (Recommended track: Neptune is Dead)

5. Primordial – Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand (track: No Grave Deep Enough)
Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand is by no means perfect. It’s got a few sub-par tracks detracting from the full start to finish experience, but when it’s at its best all else can be easily forgiven. Call it folk metal or call it black metal, whichever you prefer, but first and foremost call it Irish, with every good thing that might entail. The vocals are outstanding, the music rocks out in folk fashion without ever relenting from its metal force, and while the lyrics don’t always make sense, they always hit like a fucking truck. Where they do all come together, delivered with Nemtheanga’s vast and desperate bellows, the result is overwhelming. O Death, where are your teeth that gnaw on the bones of fabled men? O Death, where are your claws that haul me from the grave? (Other recommended tracks: The Puritan’s Hand, Death of the Gods)

4. Falconer – Armod (track: Griftefrid)
Prior to 2011 I’d largely written Falconer off as one of those power metal acts that were just a little too cheesy to ever excite me. Maybe it was bad timing. Maybe I just happened to hear them for the first time while Kristoffer Göbel was filling in on vocals. Or maybe Armod is just their magnum opus–a spark of genius they’ve never neared before. Flawless if we ignore the “bonus tracks”, Armod takes that early folk metal sound Vintersorg pioneered with Otyg, merges it perfectly with power metal, and offers up 11 of the most well-written and excellently produced songs of the year. Mathias Blad’s vocals are absolutely phenomenal. (Other recommended tracks: Herr Peder Och Hans Syster)

3. Falkenbach – Tiurida (track: Sunnavend)
A lot of people might voice the legitimate complaint that Tiurida, Vratyas Vakyas’s first studio album in six years, sounds absolutely indistinguishable from his prior four. For me, that’s exactly why it ranks so high. Vakyas landed on a completely unique, instantly recognizable sound which, alongside Bathory, defined viking metal as a genre, and he’s refused to change it one bit. I fell in love with this album ten years ago. (Other recommended tracks: Where His Ravens Fly…)

2. Liturgy – Aesthethica (track: Harmonia)
Yes, Liturgy. It’s immature, childish, and imperfect, but it’s uplifting in a completely new way. No matter how far Hunt-Hendrix might go to embarrass himself and his band mates, behind all of his pompous babble there just might be some truth to it. (Other recommended tracks: True Will)

1. Krallice – Diotima (track: Dust and Light)
More than the album of the year, Diotima is one of the greatest albums ever made. I can’t fathom the amount of skill it must take to perform with the speed and precision that these guys do, but if they battered down a physical barrier to metal in 2008, they finally grasped hold of what lies beyond it in 2011. They claim that the songs on their first three albums were all written at the same time by Mick Barr and Colin Marston, before their self-titled debut. If that’s the case, then it must be the experience of performing together and the creative contributions of Lev Weinstein and Nick McMaster that raised Diotima to a higher level. It’s not just that they’ve improved in every way imaginable; the songs themselves are overwhelming, breathtaking, and chaotic to a degree they’d never before accomplished. Krallice perform an unwieldy monster that took a few albums to thoroughly overcome. Now they’re in complete control, and their absolutely brilliant song-writing can shine through. With the exception of the dubious Litany of Regrets, this is possibly the greatest album I have ever heard. (Other recommended tracks: Inhume, Diotima, Telluric Rings)

Review: Deafheaven – Roads to Judah

Posted on by necromoonyeti

It’s not really a coincidence that the two genres of music I’ve listened to most over the years are black metal and post-rock. Something about tremolo guitar very consistently inspires me, and these are the two styles that most frequently and effectively utilize it. But post-rock is one of the most diverse styles of music on the market, and if it employs techniques found in black metal to capture its most intense moments, its other reaches are inexhaustible. It’s characterized more by the effect it produces in the listener than by the means it employs towards this end, and tremolo guitar just happens to be the best–certainly not the only–technique suited for it. The effect it produces is, you might say, a general sense of awe.

When we speak of post-black metal we’re suggesting a branching out from something that is much more locked in place. Technically black metal means tremolo guitar and blast beats, plain and simple. Thematically it goes a bit beyond post-rock, exploring and reveling in a very wide array of human emotions which, to conform to a cultural misconception, might be generally described as negative. Sometimes a post-black metal tag suggests bands that break out from tremolo and blast beats but stick to the same “negative” themes, as in say, Agalloch. Sometimes a post-black metal tag suggests something more like “progressive black metal” which finds creative new ways to employ blast beats and tremolo picking, like Ihsahn or Krallice.

Obviously musical classifications are dubious, sometimes illogical, and only really practical as a shorthand for “you might like this band if you like x”. But with a great deal of discretion they may also be employed to track the general evolution of music–the emergence of new methods and themes, the passive and active influences of any of these upon another, etc–and to predict where it is headed next.


Violet

Deafheaven are a brand new band out of San Francisco. They haven’t been releasing demo tapes unnoticed for a decade like a lot of “new” bands; they only just formed in 2010, and Roads to Judah is their debut album. It was the logical next album for me to review, in a sense. I love Krallice, I was told if you like Krallice check out Liturgy, Liturgy’s popularity lead me to reconsider Wolves in the Throne Room, and a broader consideration for “popular” black metal meant the next band to listen to was Deafheaven. (I would imagine I’ll be completing this path by checking out Ash Borer some time next week.)

Now, stylistically none of these four bands have very much in common. Furthermore, I am standing by my opinion that Wolves in the Throne Room are overrated, mediocre, and generic. But Krallice, Liturgy, and Deafheaven all deserve acute attention. Each, in very different ways, is completely redefining black metal. Krallice are doing so by pretty much perfecting everything I’ve ever loved about the style. Liturgy are doing so by embracing a subtle theme within it. Deafheaven, the band I am exploring now, are something of a grand amalgamation of pre-existing genres of music which have often shaken hands but never before so fully embraced each other. As regards my opening observations, they could just as easily be described as “blackened post-rock” as “post-black metal.”

I think the significance of this has been obscured by people calling them shoegaze black metal. Yes, one of their guitarists, Nick Bassett, was in a shoegaze band prior to Deafheaven (Whirr), but you can’t honestly tell me you hear it in this music. Post-rock is greatly in debt to shoegaze in a lot of ways, but it’s not the same thing, and you can’t tell me this sounds more like The Jesus and Mary Chain than Mono. Not that shoegaze black metal isn’t itself a creative new genre, the fact that Alcest already did it (though Neige denies any direct influence) and a lot of bands copies him drastically downplays its significance. But calling Deafheaven shoegaze is like calling it classic rock, because, you know, somewhere down the line The Who influenced metal. No, this is an amalgamation of post-rock and black metal. That is why it’s on the cutting edge. That is why there’s no obvious term with which to describe it.

I’m not sure exactly what all to take from it. Violet doesn’t inspire me in the way that a lot of black metal does, but that’s not to say it falls short. I almost want to say I’d have to see them live to fully appreciate them. I mean, very few post-rock bands deliver on their studio albums. With the exceptions of Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed! You Black Emperor I almost always have to see a post-rock band in concert to appreciate them, and even then no matter how much they blow me away I don’t necessarily enjoy their albums. I get the same vibe from the four opening minutes of Violet that I get from bands like Mono and This Will Destroy You–a pleasant bore through my stereo and a total mindfuck live. You have to feel this sort of music encompassing you and see the musicians creating it to fully take it in.


Language Games

The second track, Language Games, is much more accessible and immediately appealing. What’s more, it progresses into something which feels an awful lot like screamo to me, most notably in the emotionally tortured screams laid over a simple undistorted melody at 3:50 and the drum roll that follows. I wouldn’t be the first to describe Deafheaven as a screamo black metal crossover, and they are, after all, on Converge frontman Jacob Bannon’s record label, Deathwish Inc. Am I then to call this blackened post-screamo? That’s fucking stupid. I think what you can really take from Deafheaven is something a little more inspiring. Like Liturgy, it is a grand realization of hidden trends growing within music in general, and as such it fits no “genre” tags at all until more bands come along that sound like it.

Whatever you want to call Liturgy’s sound, I’ve been pointing out signs of it for a while now, here in an Ulver song, there in an Alcest song, and many other places besides. As regards Deafheaven, black metal and post-rock have always shared a bit in common, and I would argue that screamo is no foreigner either. It’s a word I’ve been hesitantly coughing up to describe more and more black metal recently. Ars Poetica by Drudkh bewildered me with its likeness to Envy, I explicitly noted a post-rock/screamo vibe at the end of The Puritan’s Hand by Primordial, and I pointed out similarities in Altar of Plagues as well, to name a few. Deafheaven took up a growing theme and ran with it.


Unrequited

Deafheaven are definitely at the top of my bands to see live list, and Roads to Judah is an exceptional album, but it’s kind of a downer in so far as none of the tracks deeply move me. I can get into the vibe but I can’t latch on to any particular moment. It’s significance for me is more in what it accomplishes as the most pronounced and maintained example of a combination of stylistic crossovers long in the making.

But let’s end this on a cautionary note. To suggest black metal broke out of its shell in 2011 would be ridiculous. If I turn to Sagas by Equilibrium in 2008, Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor by Peste Noire in 2009, Luna by Boris in that same year (the Chapter Ahead Being Fake split with Torche), or Blut aus Nord right now, I can find plenty of examples of older bands doing much more progressive (and impressive) things with black metal than what you’re hearing on Roads to Judah. Deafheaven (and Liturgy for that matter) feel pretty immature when competing in the big leagues. The uniqueness of these bands arises from their willingness to shout out something previously only whispered, not from their having perfected anything. (Mind you I am not suggesting they sound remotely similar.)

This act of shouting is only one of many features which have given rise to a lot of derision. With Deafheaven boldy embracing screamo, Liturgy sounding like the Neutral Milk Hotel of black metal, and both bands dressing like trendy assholes, it’s no wonder “hipster” denunciations are flying right and left. “Emo” and “black metal” go together like two gay cowboys at a Texas Republican convention. But really, the more we admit that black metal has always been a little emo the more we detract from the power of subtlety, and there’s some legitimate concern that their appearance is more likely to catch on than their performance. Liturgy and Deafheaven are both great, and some really shitty bands are going to follow in their wake. But it was there all along. This was all bound to happen.

Review: Wolves in the Throne Room – Celestial Lineage

Posted on by necromoonyeti

I heard this band before you did. No, really. It was completely by accident, to be honest. I had just found out about Agalloch bassist Jason William Walton sideproject and indisputable worst band in existence Especially Likely Sloth. Youtube didn’t exist yet so I had to actually go to the Vendlus Records website, where they were really pushing preorders of Wolves in the Throne Room’s debut album. It was only like $8 so I threw it in the cart. Two years later I almost saw them live, opening for Jesu on their 2007 US tour. I thought it would be kind of cool, being the one kid in the house who had actually heard of them (I had no idea Southern Lord picked them up), but they made the mistake of scheduling all their Texas stops the exact same areas/days as Finntroll, and the opportunity to see the latter two days in a row won out.

Next thing I know they’re the most popular black metal band in the world. Go figure.


Thuja Magus Imperium

I guess what shocked me most about that was I never thought they were very good. I mean, I had heard Diadem of 12 Stars plenty of times, and to me they were just another black metal band, with no distinguishing features to speak of.

By the time I found out about their success though, they had just released a third album. I hadn’t heard about the second, I didn’t remember the first (because it is very forgettable), and I was not feeling up to the task of attentively engaging three albums which I didn’t have high hopes for. All of the hype was coming from outside of metal circles, and sure, Pitchfork has pushed good metal before (Mastodon for one outstanding example), but nine times out of ten their selections are borderline arbitrary–the first metal experience of ‘experts’ completely foreign to the genre or maybe even just the newest release from a record label helping to pay their bills. No, when metal bands become popular in non-metal crowds, it usually has nothing to do with their music.

Last week though, I heard Liturgy. Hyped by all of the same dubious sources, it was comparisons to Krallice and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s outlandish interview that ultimately compelled me, but in light of the fact that Aesthethica is fucking amazing, I thought it high time I gave a few other “Pitchfork metal” bands a try. For obvious reasons both in fame and personal experience, Wolves in the Throne Room were the first casualty.

I had Celestial Lineage on repeat for two solid days trying desperately to derive something, anything special and significant out of it. I couldn’t. At the surface they were the same generic status quo black metal act I heard demo recording samples of back in 2005. But as it always goes, when it came down to actually spelling out what in particular I found boring about them I finally found myself noticing some of the appeal. Not much, mind you, but a little bit.

Let’s look at this opening track. I hear a chick singing to some simple piano and synth, some basic tremolo lurking in the background–a mood setting introduction, like 50% of the genre. Nothing in particular sets it above average. I’m not really feeling it yet, still just hearing a recording studio session. The black metal fades out of the ambiance rather than exploding, and I like that. Once again, it’s nothing unique, but always an effective way of stating your intentions up front. There’s an obvious Agalloch influence, most distinct in the guitar solos, and by the time they end I’m definitely getting a dark, reflective vibe–nature themes, something really earthy. The transition back into a female chant, a synthy night sky with chime-spawned stars, a slow resurrection of guitar painting the celestial horizon in different shades of black, blotting out the stars in an auroral haze… It’s exceptionally visual, and it’s visual in a distinctly American way. You know: earth spirituality; something native to the soil; American folk metal, which possesses virtually no stylistic commonality with its pantheon-laden European namesake.

The second track is a two minute ambient piece, and I find it irritably overdone. It is accented by a vocal chant which just doesn’t fit the picture, and I think if they’d left that out it would have been perfect. At any rate, the third song explodes back into black metal.


Subterranean Initiation

This is what I remember forgetting about their first album: really generic black metal. A mix of second wave and Ukrainian sounds, it is moody and scene-setting only to the extent that all black metal is, and offers absolutely no leads as to what the band had in mind beyond “Ok dudes at this part let’s sound like Emperor or Drudkh or some shit, it’ll be cool.”

A little over 4 minutes in the song comes to a standstill, and the residual distortion and drums kind of scrape along in a not particularly coherent mishmash. Out of it emerges a shamefully obnoxious guitar hammering the same meh chords over and over and over (and over) and I would probably have shot myself at this point, but beneath it all the drummer is actually tearing it the fuck up with subtly accented blast beats that I found simultaneously intense and relaxing. The guitar eventually goes post-rock kind of out of nowhere and ends a mostly boring song on a pretty good note.


Astral Blood

I kind of wanted to end this on Woodland Cathedral, a 5+ minute ambient track that impressed me in ways similar to the latter half of the opening song, but since it’s mainly their black metal that I’ve been bashing, Astral Blood is probably the better choice. Here they do it right, and I never need to question their originality because I’m already too caught up in it to care. The mood sets in instantly, unleashing black metal’s potentially soothing effects–the sort of feel good in the cold contemplative darkness track that I like having on as a background piece. When the ambiance returns it’s gorgeous, and the song doesn’t really go down hill until 5:30 (at which point the guitar repeat is once again merely obnoxious), periodically recovering and digressing through to the end.

So, what’s the final verdict? On the surface, generic. In depth, too diverse for its own good. The first track, Thuja Magus Imperium, is really brilliant, but it is perhaps the only track I can say such things about. There is a fine line between meditative repetition and a broken record, and Wolves in the Throne Room seem pretty oblivious to it. What’s more, their fastest metal moments lack emotion and intensity, and their slowest lack subtlety. Their ambient tracks are nice, but they have a habit of overdoing them, especially vocally (including the female vocals at times), where once again a little subtlety could have saved the day. I was pretty impressed by the drummer the few times I tuned in to him, and perhaps another listen as attentive as the few I put in writing this would position me to praise him more thoroughly, but I am out of time and patience.

It’s because Celestial Lineage does possess a few moments of brilliance, however, that a thorough critique is even possible. The album as a whole is not at all generic in the sense of say, the new Demonaz album, and, while I might enjoy listening to that one slightly more, it’s got a lot less to appreciate. Celestial Lineage is only generic in its methods for creating complexity; it’s not generic at its core. But it is also nothing special, as I’d originally perceived.

Wolves in the Throne Room have reportedly claimed that their music is meant to be meditative rather than aggressive, and that they play black metal on their own terms. They’re fooling themselves with the latter claim, and while I’ll grant that it’s meditative, those non-metal fans who think it is exceptionally so simply have not experienced much of the genre.

Review: Liturgy – Aesthethica

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Two months ago I thought I could actually finish reviewing every album I wanted to before it came time for the year-end lists. Then I got hooked on Diotima by Krallice again, bought Skyrim, and had finals. (Yes, I will be a student until I’m pushing 40 at this rate.) So much for writing the rest of the reviews I’d intended to. But there remains one band that’s just too loud to pass up, and I am not necessarily referring to their music.


Returner

In certain ways, Aesthethica is the triumphal conclusion to a seed I first noticed begin to sprout on Ulver’s Nattens madrigal, recorded back in 1996. Hymn VI: Of Wolf and Passion accomplished something completely unprecedented in the history of black metal up to that time. The song began with a frightfully fleeting glimpse at something beautiful; it wasn’t an “introduction” to the song, prefixed for the purpose of defilement. No, it was an ecstatic jubilation shouting out from the depths, proclaiming a profound sublimity hidden beneath this shroud of loathsome chaos. Almost a decade later, in 2005, Neige found himself transfixed upon a fleeting vision of a word of pure light and recorded Le Secret. This is, roughly, a description he himself has used in attempting to articulate his muse. Feeling that the original recording failed to capture this, he recently released a new version of the EP. It, like Souvenirs d’un autre monde and more so Écailles de Lune, has a tendency to overemphasize the aural light, with angelic vocals and an uplifting shoegaze fuzz drowning out the cold death of traditional black metal. He has turned to what you might regard as stereotypical representations of purity in order to recreate his vision.

But this sense of something whole and eternal falls on deaf ears. To me it is merely pretty, never spiritual, because it fails to capture what made the original Le Secret so profound. There, the black metal never made amends. It was an ever present, undeniable force, fulfilling its original purpose and not merely conforming to a new creative whim. The beauty rested within it, perpetually fleeting, not beyond it and eternal. Neige was never aware of his own masterpiece. Perhaps that sort of innocence is what made it possible in the first place. I applaud him for seeing through his own vision to completion and not settling for mine, but the future of Alcest is of no further relevance to the musical progression I have been anticipating these past few years.

For that I turn to Liturgy. On Aesthethica we hear one of the first conscious recognitions of that seed I detected in Ulver, which has been slowly blossoming in the darkness ever since.


Harmonia

In case the video to Returner did not suffice, Liturgy’s frontman, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, made a complete fool of himself in an interview last year while attempting to explain the philosophy behind his music. I will make no apologies here; he deserves every ounce of ridicule he’s received from it. At one point he suggested that fans read his ‘manifesto’, which is free to download, and I did. It is crammed to the hilt with pomp and self-righteousness, amidst which the following constitutes, I believe, his main idea: He describes metal as a pursuit of maximum intensity. The closer music evolves towards that end, the more apparent it becomes that “totality is indistinguishable from nothingness” (Hideous Gnosis: Black Metal Theory Symposium I, 57). Black metal long embraced nihilism as the ultimate end, but nihilism is a hollow reward. The true apex of humanity lies in the penultimate, one step from the void, reveling in the finite.

What I find interesting here is not what he’s saying (well, I do find it interesting, but I’ll keep those thoughts to myself), but rather the fact that paradigms are beginning to emerge which attempt to define the sensation I expressed in terms of my experiences with Ulver and Alcest. I call Aesthethica a triumphal conclusion because it is the first thoroughly self-conscious result of a musical trend I’ve been following for quite some time now–triumphal because, well, it’s pretty damn good. It marks the end of an evolutionary process, from which a new cycle will begin. Transcendental black metal is going to happen whether we like it or not, and in the process we will witness a very peculiar clash of values. I mean, just look at these guys:


High Gold

Aesthethica isn’t always this good. Some tracks bore me to tears. It’s in their intense moments that Liturgy really shine, and while these comprise the bulk of the album, the band seems to have little else to offer. Generation is a rhythmic plod which dreams of being post-metal but feels more like my cd is skipping. Glass Earth is a vocal chant that inspires only laughter; it sounds like something off a really bad indie rock album, and this amidst a genre as intimately connected to folk as metal. The intentional 60 seconds of silence at the end of Sun of Light is annoying, though forgivable in the wake of the album’s best track; but the three minute doodle filler track that follows seems to serve no purpose whatsoever.

Its finest moments though, such as High Gold, are amazing. I can’t say that the album is great, because it’s so inconsistent, but I will acknowledge that it contains some of the best songs written this year, and moreover, it is unique in what it attempts to accomplish. Perhaps a lot more could be said on its behalf had Hunter Hunt-Hendrix declined all interviews and published no ‘manifesto’, but I’m kind of glad he did what he did. It confirmed a message which I’ve been preaching for years now; not, that is, his precise philosophy, but at least a feeling. There has been something entirely positive and uplifting lurking out there in the black metal scene for a very long time. Liturgy are the first band I know of to not merely incorporate it but embrace it as the fundamental focus of their entire sound. Other bands have occasioned to evoke it in passing more effectively (Krallice for instance), or have consistently approximated it without ever fully cashing in (post-Le Secret Alcest and associated acts), but Liturgy provide me with something solid to point at and say unequivocally that is what I was talking about.

Song of the Day: Goblins’ Dance (by Ensiferum)

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Ensiferum’s self-titled debut in January 2001 was a prophetic landmark in metal, and I remember the feeling I got when I first heard it, probably about a year later. It wasn’t groundbreaking in its originality. No, I’d heard music like it before, here and there, scattered throughout my earliest mp3 collections. Blind Guardian and Rhapsody (of Fire), with their epic folk-infused triumphal marches and war cries, Thyrfing, with their stomp-along anthems to some Nordic specter, that peculiar absurdity Finntroll, so difficult to describe at the time… these bands had all been brought to my attention before Ensiferum.

I did not perceive at the time a common thread connecting them all. I was just frantically whipping my 28.8 kilobit per second modem headfirst into a musical fog, oblivious as it began to coalesce around me. Napster was dead, and with it passed my inclination to only pirate the most popular metal and grunge’s dying embers. Audiogalaxy was the new center of musical civilization, and with it came enlightenment. You didn’t just type in what you wanted and download it. You discussed it in chatrooms. You discussed it in forums. You carried the discussions over to more general-purpose forums. The internet became more united among music enthusiasts than it has ever been before or since.

Thus it was that 2001 served as a landmark year for me. I would look up Blind Guardian, and an hour later (well, this was 2001, so more like a day later) I would be enjoying Elvenking’s To Oak Woods Bestowed demo, Within Temptation’s Mother Earth, Therion’s Deggial… I didn’t know that these were all relatively new releases, I couldn’t categorize them into genres, and I had no real means of becoming informed about the bands save word of mouth (like anyone had heard of Wikipedia or Google back then). All I knew, or at least thought I knew, was that certain people had an incredible aptitude for finding and recommending music I would consistently love. I had not yet recognized the phenomenon at work here–the significance of the fact that all of this music was appearing at around the same time.

It must have been around the end of 2001 that I stumbled upon Ensiferum. By then I had heard dozens, maybe a hundred non-mainstream metal bands that I loved, and I was starting to pick up on their common themes, but I hadn’t fully put my finger on it. Then I saw this album cover, heard this song, and went “Ah ha! This is viking metal.” It might not be the precise term I would use today, and it might sound rather trivial, but at the time it was a sort of epiphany. This was the amalgamation of all of the metal Audiogalaxy had offered me under one roof. All of the amazing new things going on between about 1996 and 2001 suddenly took form as a conscious whole; Ensiferum was a glorious sign of things to come, heralding a new age of metal.

“From the three ascending moons,
moonshine was spilling onto the ground.
Gruesome trophies were all around,
in the halls of the Goblin King.
Now the victory is ours!
Let us dance the dance of immortals!”

Happy Halloween!

Review: Marduk – Iron Dawn EP

Posted on by necromoonyeti

I woke up this morning thinking “I want to listen to some new black metal.” I pulled up my usual sources and subsequently spent about 20 minutes scrolling through “shoegaze black” and “post-black” and “progressive black” “transcendental esoteric aesthetic neo-black” and, well, I was getting annoyed. Then I remembered I’d overlooked a new Marduk EP back in May, and now I am happy.


Warschau 2: Headhunter Halfmoon

Because Marduk never disappoint. They certainly aren’t among my favorite black metal bands, but they come with a sort of guarantee. When you see “Marduk”, you hear violent, completely unforgiving Swedish-style black metal, pretty much without exception. Even their mellow moments are by average standards brutal. That has at least been the case since I started listening to them (Panzer Division Marduk, 1999), and it certainly holds on Iron Dawn.

Typical Swedish-style black metal has always been a little bland to me, and I think that’s the only reason I don’t sing their praises more. Within that limited genre, of the bands I’ve heard they’re second only to Endstille.

Modern warfare has been a common theme in their music for a long time now, and they don’t necessarily bring anything new to that perspective on Iron Dawn, but I do think this EP, especially this song, makes exceptionally good use of sound effects. The sirens and exploding bombs seem to meld with the relentless blast beats perfectly to maintain the song’s intensity.


Prochorovka: Blood and Sunflowers

The album progressively mellows out, though “mellow” is a very relative term here. For the sake of not posting the EP in its entirety, I’ll go ahead and skip the middle track. (Though I must say, until I read the track title, “Wacht Am Rhein: Drumbeats of Death”, I thought he was screaming “droppings of death”, as in a broken English attempt at describing aerial bombardment, and had in mind a vision of especially volatile poop.)

Prochorovka is a slow plod that maintains the brutality in spite of dropping the blast beats. Again the warfare sound effects serve as percussion and paint a nasty vision of sub-human slaughter. Good times.

I don’t have much to say about Iron Dawn, or any other Marduk album for that matter. They’ve just kept doing their thing over the years, and if you like one album there’s a good chance you’ll like them all. In a time when straight up brutal black metal with no pretentious trappings is getting harder and harder to come by, it served my momentary mood well.

Opeth and Summoning: Music for October (part 7)

Posted on by necromoonyeti

October has always been my favorite month. It marks the beginning of a seasonal reclamation of man by the world, in which civilization’s mask of sensibility begins to slip away. Tasteless architectural symbols of control over nature digress to their more appropriate forms, as frail refuge against forces beyond our control or comprehension. It is, to misappropriate Agalloch, “a celebration for the death of man… …and the great cold death of the Earth.”

Last year I posted a six part series on some of my favorite black metal, folk metal, and related genres for the season. I had intended to do something similar this year, but time just did not allow for it. I never got around to coming up with a central concept on which to focus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the two bands I have listened to the most this month, Opeth and Summoning, both defy all standards of classification.

I would like to showcase both, but I can’t imagine doing so properly without embarking on a project way beyond the scope of my time and desire to write at the moment. So I will keep this short and sweet, featuring only Opeth’s Orchid (1995) and Summoning’s Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame (2001), and perhaps in the process still introduce you to some amazing music you had not heard before.


Opeth – The Apostle in Triumph

Everyone has heard Opeth, right? Their fame is fairly unprecedented among metal bands that are actually worth a damn. Yet, out of touch with what is and is not popular today as I am, I still get the impression that what I think of as Opeth is just as relatively obscure as it had been when I first heard them well over a decade ago.

Opeth as a popular band, in fact, is entirely foreign to me. Their first album to make the US charts, Damnation, came out right around the time I stopped listening to them altogether, and long after my interest had begun to wane. I was introduced to Opeth, like everyone around the turn of the century, via Demon of the Fall. My Arms Your Hearse was one of the most emotionally charged and breathtaking albums I’d ever heard. At the time, if you wanted to hear more, you had to look backwards, to Orchid and Morningrise, both of which were very different beasts. With them, if no one reminded you of the distortion and growled vocals, you might forget, amidst Akerfeldt’s soft, subtle lamentations, that you were listening to metal at all.

It took both a long time to grow on me. It’s not that they were inaccessible, but that peculiar teenage ability to focus in on a single masterpiece with no appreciation whatsoever for its surroundings had hold of me. There I was covering My Arms Your Hearse from start to finish on my new guitar (sure wish I could still do so now), and I’d listened to Morningrise maybe five times. Orchid never broke through the cellophane. I finally turned to them just barely in time to soak them up before history left them in the dust, a last minute love affair I was conscious of at the time. They ended up becoming my two favorite Opeth albums, and still are.

Even though My Arms Your Hearse was, alongside Blind Guardian’s Nightfall in Middle-Earth, easily the most influential album in my life, Orchid and Morningrise are the two I look back on most nostalgically, and their melancholy beauty always reverberates the sensation.


Opeth – The Twilight is My Robe

So maybe Orchid isn’t really Opeth’s best album. Perhaps I am biased beyond reconciliation. But at any rate, my obsession with it certainly isn’t some subconscious desire to show I am an “old school” fan–the sort of accusation I tend to see on those rare occasions that the album is mentioned at all. Whether you find my placement of it at the top of Akerfeldt’s discography unjust or not, I encourage you to give The Apostle in Triumph and The Twilight is My Robe long hard listens. Agalloch being a decidedly winter-oriented band, I have experienced no music which captures the melancholy side of the autumnal season better than this.


Summoning – A New Power is Rising

I obsessed over The Hobbit as a child, the Lord of the Rings as a teen, and The Silmarillion in my earliest adult years. J.R.R. Tolkien pretty well haunted most of the formative years of my life, and I am forever indebted to him. A few months ago I picked up one of his books for the first time in perhaps a decade, committed to reading them all, but time simply did not allow for it. As with all undertakings though, it influenced my taste in music for the time at hand. I spent much of the summer re-exploring Summoning–a band I’d never actually encountered until Oath Bound in 2006. Thus they were readily at hand at the start of October, and since then they’ve comprised over half of everything I have listened to.

I dare say no single author has had more impact on music than Tolkien, and while I will always regard Nightfall in Middle-Earth as the greatest relevant triumph, Summoning’s discography is a close second. The one band I know of which has taken Tolkien as their lyrical and musical muse pretty much exclusively, they have forged an entirely new style of music over the years that captures that feeling I always got reading him to perfection.


Summoning – South Away

Summoning emerged from black metal, but from the very beginning they stood apart. By Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame in 2001, my favorite album of theirs, this connection had dwindled to little more than the vocals and some tremolo guitar. The constant use of keyboards (often set to replicate brass) and the heavily reverberated, slow drumming are what characterize them best, along with frequent spoken vocal loops.

Perhaps they intend to sound fairly sinister, with lyrics focused more often than not on the darker forces of Tolkien’s tales, but the effect for me is nothing of the sort. The drums paint a vast, diverse landscape of mountains, forests, rivers and plains that are entirely neutral–dangerous to be certain, but more enticing than aversive. They beckon you out to explore the unknown, steeped in mystery–a fantasy world which is here Middle-Earth, but could just as soon be your own back yard on an autumn day, when the changes at hand call on you to leave humanity behind and wander off into the amoral wilderness.


Summoning – Runes of Power

I love black metal, horror, and everything of the sort, but I think the word “neutral” best describes what I have been tapping into this Halloween season. No real glorification of evil for its own sake, nor any embrace of bygone cultures and values here. Orchid and Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame both tap into the individual’s relation to the world absent civilization’s presumptions and impositions–to the mystery of nature and the manifold possibilities within it which mundane daily life denies–be the experience melancholy or thrilling.