This is by far the most disturbing song of my series, but what’s wrong with this picture is not remotely obvious from a distant, inattentive listen. On the surface you’ve got a pretty dark, melancholic guitar; soft, soothing female vocals; a love song’s refrain; and a slow transition into a sort of Planet Caravan chill out. Relaxing and mournful. Is that all?

But what’s this business about a whip? And what exactly is Anne Lise Frøkedal, frontwoman for Norwegian indie pop band Harrys Gym, saying? And what the hell is she doing singing with Forgotten Woods?

Let me preface this with something else that shouldn’t be remotely obvious. Forgotten Woods are a lo-fi Norwegian black metal band. Don’t just take my word for it. Pause the song and click. The song I’m linking here appears on the same album. (Race of Cain, released in 2007, is also the source of the avatar I’ve been sporting on most sites for the past year or two.)

I hope you clicked. Just in case you didn’t:

Are we good and thoroughly confused just yet? Go ahead, put the song back on again from the start, and pay close attention now. “Indeed, we’ve seen the serpent rise. Six-legged triumphant reptile”? Is that guitar slide just an effect, or is it simulating a bomb falling through the sky? What exactly is this love song about, really?

Founding member “R” had this to say about the song in a Vampiria magazine interview: “The track itself is about discovering your true self, shedding your former suit of denial and fear and simply embrac[ing] the ultimate ego. Individuality, intolerance, indulgence. That’s what it’s all about in that song.”

They’re juxtaposing humanity at its most brutal to humanity at its most tender and calling attention to the similarities. Make what you will of them. The medium as best I interpret it: A woman reflecting on her experiences in the Third Reich with a sense of nostalgia. She acknowledges that it was the total social upheaval, dehumanization, and mass destruction, not the shallow ideologies used to justify them, from which she derived the highest state of personal fulfillment. But she has no regrets.

Indeed, we’ve seen the serpent rise
Six-legged triumphant reptile
Success! Chakra! I love you like no other
Totalitarian regards
The principle and the whip
Silence the mutant mind
Success! Chakra! I love you like no other
Inside, inside this dormant cyst
Outnumbered, writing in his presence
Reinventing the myths
Reversing the symbols
It is inevitable