EKPYROSIS "Mensch aus Gold" (Paradigms, 2008)
Black metal: rebellion, longing, alienation. Soundtrack to the torn psyche of the rebel with a cause intangible but oppressive, with means few or none. Where ends its personal journey, that road from primitive rebellion and blasphemy to alienation from society and a spirit saturated with bitter truth, Mensch aus Gold stops, turns its back to the future and gazes longingly at the past. This is bitter music. Post black metal in the truest sense -- it is black metal music written with the awareness of the influence of black metal music on the self. Where a band like SUMMONING or BURZUM, disillusioned with modernity and with the failure to therein find anything of real worth, would yearn for some imagined glorious past of honesty and truth -- this album yearns for exactly that yearning. Recommended listening for nights when wide-awake dreams come carrying brief glimpses of past glories, forgotten kingdoms, youth lost. "Man of Gold. Old mountains of my youth. Black Metal Thrash. Man of Gold. Where you walk, men fade. To their true size they shrivel. Man of Gold. You see through them, right into space. There they suspect their God. But you just behold emptiness and beauty."
ABYSSIC HATE "Suicidal Emotions" (No Colours, 2000)
Most things that with time turned into intolerable, insipid trends, started as something honest, interesting and genuine. "Suicidal", "depressive", "bedroom" black metal -- a narcissistic outlet for teenagers with more spare time between PlayStation games than actual depression, with more Metal Archives points and MySpace friends than artistic visions to communicate -- an unspeakably disgusting manifestation of the current zeitgeist; but it is as with most things: for people to be able to do it wrong, someone must have done it right at some point. Shane Rout, one of the true purveyors and masters of the "digital multitrack recorder, distortion pedal, alcohol and loneliness" style of black metal, once did. This is music that could never have been made but in the self-indulgence of the one man band -- music so personal, so completely lifeless and resigned that it could never have survived in the presence of, much less with the input of, other band members. Yes, Suicidal Emotions is steeped in perhaps pathetic self-pity, but it is real self-pity. The suicidal emotions are really there. It is not an album designed to conform to someone's standards of what "suicidal black metal" should sound like, it is naturally, or out of necessity, non-conformist -- and therefore relevant and interesting as art.
WALKNUT "Graveforests and Their Shadows" (Stellar Winter, 2007)
Bones, soil, roots -- this music rises like vapor through various stages of life and death, from the undergrowth of the forest, and resonates like the voice of a ghost in pitch black night, dense and oppressive. It is rare today, and welcome, to find a band so utterly unconcerned with the state of the material world, so willing to turn their backs to it to walk the more beautiful, more fantastic haunted burial-grounds of the mind. Graveforests and Their Shadows is completely detached from reality, fully contained within that dream-world we enter when we walk an ancient forest at night, where nameless horrors lurk behind the trees, and the past echoes through every rock and root. Not fiery and confused like many old black metal albums, but calmer, more deliberate -- conceived through a rare level of purity of vision, and crafted with commendable skill and aesthetic awareness.
KATATONIA "Viva Emptiness" (Peaceville, 2003)
Concrete churches piercing featureless grey skies, endless rows of tower blocks, empty eyes in the moment of giving up. Isolation, resignation, prostitution. Aimless, restless walks through any one of thousands of identical grey cities, anywhere but home, minds broken down through systematic abuse and betrayal. Concepts well communicated but never articulated -- this is an album subtle and direct, obvious but obscure. KATATONIA did well in completely turning around from the contrived, saccharine blandness of Last Fair Deal Gone Down. Here, the emotions resonate real again, though shifted into a new lyrical-musical sphere where the band's trademark displays of sorrow and desperation have moved from introspective abstractions to fully tangible tales of hopelessness as experienced by people cast out from, and shunned by, modern society. It is with suitably modern, grey, cold precision that the songs are presented, but underneath: a sense of bleeding urgency, sight-blackening desperation, of overburdened hearts bursting, fragile chests hardly able to contain them. Very accomplished and coherent.
WOODS OF BELIAL "Deimos XIII" (Firebox, 2003)
A textbook example of the type of epic narrative many of the more ambitious extreme metal bands aim for, but seldom achieve. This is unpretentiously presented music that knows exactly what it wants and where it is going. Riff follows logically upon riff, (machine) drum patterns vary to aid dynamics at expertly calculated points in the compositions, and well-timed changes in key and keyboard-aided texture make sure the listening experience never bores. Deimos XIII is a trek through a mountain range of ever higher summits, each new one only visible from the top of the last. Original and true, though with a deeply Finnish feel to the melodies, the BEHERIT-esque occultism and the THERGOTHON doom, WOODS OF BELIAL have here crafted, with unflinching workmanship, one of the most overlooked metal albums of the decade.
URFAUST "Geist ist Teufel" (Goatowarex, 2004)
Particular strains of black metal have been subject to an ongoing process of simplification and purification ever since BATHORY decided that even the sparseness of VENOM and MOTÖRHEAD was not nihilistic enough. Transilvanian Hunger is the archetypal modern example of minimalistic black metal, and where DARKTHRONE themselves have since gone on to elaborate on the Metal (capital M) parts it contains, URFAUST has taken as their own that other part – the obvious folk music influence – and derived from it what essentially amounts to post-modern folk music, presented in the aesthetic guise of black metal. Geist ist Teufel is as primitive, as stripped down as metal can probably get – with only a single guitar and a single drum track remaining underneath the haunting (and catchy!) vocals, there is nothing left to remove, nothing veiling the essence. If traditional folk music was sung around a campfire the evening after battle, URFAUST might be sung by hoarse throats gathered around some burning barrel in nights following the nuclear holocaust.
DARK TRANQUILLITY "Fiction" (Century Media, 2007)
After a pair of relatively lifeless and transient albums in Haven (2000) and Damage Done (2002,) DARK TRANQUILLITY found their way back to, if not originality and relevance, then at least vitality and interest, with 2005's Character. What was started there has come full circle here. What DARK TRANQUILLITY has seemingly rediscovered on Fiction is that they are a metal band, that there is nothing wrong with being a metal band, and that it is still okay to be riff oriented, play solos, and play blast beats. There was a time when "melodic death metal" was in some circles an insult so grave that even the purveyors of said genre started feeling ashamed -- this is the time where DARK TRANQUILLITY decide to tell those factions to fuck off, and to do what they do best. Fiction is sophisticated without being pretentious, and fits snugly within a style without becoming parody of the same. Where each of DARK TRANQUILLITY's other albums of the decade had its share of less than inspired material, Fiction has worthy and memorable songs from start to end, with at least one true classic in "Inside the Particle Storm", a menacing, brooding -- and fully brilliant -- anthem of total death.
AGALLOCH "Ashes Against the Grain" (The End, 2006)
After years of experimentation, with factions of the band seeming to nearly tear its fabric apart by pulling fiercely in different directions, it seemed with Ashes Against the Grain that AGALLOCH was determined to produce a cohesive, solid whole again. To some observers at the time, it appeared doubtful that AGALLOCH would even return to doing metal music again, but as it turned out, this album might be less threatening to the typical metal fan than either of the other two full-lengths. Ashes Against the Grain has the aftertaste of a band in the midst of the realization that they have developed -- and come to be associated with -- a particular style and sound. Therefore, they stand in the unenviable position of having to, at least partly, choose between retreading old water -- doing what is expected of them -- and entering unknown territory completely, maybe failing.
Though it is not the entire truth, much of Ashes Against the Grain’s musical journey is travel along safe paths. It is neither Pale Folklore nor The Mantle part 2, but it is lyrically and musically unmistakably AGALLOCH. You expect AGALLOCH to write a line like "you long to die in her pale arms, crystalline", and they do. It appears, to some extent, an album of forced, not natural progression, and in 2006, AGALLOCH do not perform with as fiery a spirit within their original paradigm of snow-and-woodsmoke metal as they once did -- where Pale Folklore transcended simple listening to conceive worlds and voyages, Ashes Against the Grain is an album of good songs, recorded in a studio, by human musicians. It is sober where Pale Folklore was intoxicated, experienced where Pale Folklore was naïve -- therefore, weaker. Let the fact that this is still on the list, that this is one of the most well-crafted and thoughtful albums of the decade, then stand as testament to AGALLOCH’s uncommon creative ability and zest.
THE ANGELIC PROCESS "Coma Waering" (Paradigms, 2007)
Embodying the dual nature of fire, Coma Waering rages like a firestorm of purification burning away all falsity, sweeping the mind with flames of passionate catharsis, but is at the same time warm, welcoming, comforting. Like organic, decaying GODFLESH, or an uncontrolled, destructive MY BLOODY VALENTINE run through a filter of the most abstract, atmospheric black and doom metal, the album teeters on the very edge of rock-based music, extracting, expanding upon and turning into its essence the atmospherics that exist only as involuntary but essential companion in more traditional works. Welcoming, comforting – the soul shivers in awe as Coma Waering pulls into its bittersweet inferno, establishing sobering distance to usual reality. At times confused and unfocused, it is not a perfect album, but genius somewhat unrefined is still genius.
DOLORIAN "Voidwards" (Wounded Love, 2006)
Of the manifold sicknesses plaguing our present time and culture, narcissism is one of the most rampant. The possibility of everyone to now make their voice heard is often confused with duty, and so every slobbering idiot of the world now loves to emphasise the emptiness of their skulls by writing “blogs” of monumental meaninglessness. In the same manner, members of black metal bands love to write “manifests” in broken middle English “explaining” (confusing) their supposed “ideology” in booklets and on MySpace. In a nearly completely rotten extreme metal scene, where it is more important to establish a pretty façade than to stuff it with substance; where substandard music is frequently accepted and lauded as long as it is referred to as “anti-cosmic ritual chaos magick,” it is refreshing to know a band uninterested in advertising themselves or their superiority, uninterested in anything except exploring a world of art and obscurity entirely their own.
DOLORIAN as a band, the music they create, the lyrical themes: all enigmas solved only with considerable effort. The musical style, obviously at one point derived from Nordic black and death-doom metal but now far from any paths well-travelled, is one of crushing heaviness though performed mainly with clean, heavily chorused psychedelic-dreamy guitars and whispered vocals. Voidwards is one of the least immediate albums I have ever come across, but for those that its alluring mysticism call into its depths, a rewarding and entirely unique experience awaits that will last well into the 2010’s. DOLORIAN is one of the most profoundly real and relevant metal bands active today.
DRUDKH “Forgotten Legends” (Supernal, 2003)
Now that DRUDKH has become a household name to most versed in the world of underground metal, it may be hard to recall how special this album really was when it came out. There was a time when I was amazed, there were nights and days when I would completely lose myself in the waters and woods, in the warm worlds of autumn. Seven albums later, the magic this band once had has faded somewhat, and looking back, Forgotten Legends is still the standout – perhaps for its modesty, its plainness and lack of pretension. A simple, melancholy ode to nature, performed with zest, love and conviction; seven albums later Forgotten Legends still stands proudly as DRUDKH’s most essential work; the pure, untainted, coherent vision, the canvas that they have since painted and painted over.
DESTRÖYER 666 "Terror Abraxas" (Iron Pegasus, 2003)
It takes quite some self-confidence, quite some knowing that your band is probably the most METAL AS FUCK MOTHERFUCKERS on the planet, before you can cover Australian female singer-songwriter Wendy Rule with not only a straight face, but with superb results and a retained amount of underground credibility. Terror Abraxas is a tour de force in superior, faultless metal songwriting, ranging from the primitive to the refined and epic, flowing seamlessly from thrash through death and black metal. It is a lesson in how to fully embrace the ideals of metal without ridicule or parody. It is the standard work on how to stand defiant, spit in the face of opposition, kill and fuck, yet do it all intelligently, with rhyme and reason. DESTRÖYER 666 succeed where MANOWAR never will; in defending heavy metal as a lifestyle, in proving that there is still fire, still danger, still relevance in the medium.
CELTIC FROST ”Monotheist” (Century Media, 2006)
Few bands other than CELTIC FROST, standard bearers of uncompromising avant-garde innovation (and, once, of that particularly atrocious misstep we do not speak of,) could resist doing the obvious and instead pen a “comeback” album that uses the sound of its “glory days” only as an initial blueprint for a foundation barely visible from the heights of the finished monument. There is still a twisted mutation of HELLHAMMER here; simplistic power-chord riffing systematically beaten into submission and forced though coarsely cast molds in fuming, dark satanic mills, but that is the weaker part of the construction. Among the newer elements: slovenly sludge, heavier than the ‘FROST ever managed to be in the 80’s, marries to both obvious thematic and musical influences from contemporary Nordic black metal and vulnerable goth moments. It is actually in these more heartfelt, fragile moments that Monotheist truly succeeds: songs like “Drown in Ashes”, “A Dying God Coming into Human Flesh” and particularly “Obscured”, are highlights of not merely the album, but of the band’s entire career. While certain of the more primitive ideas are less accomplished (this is what usually happens as musicians age), overall Monotheist is remarkable and unique, not solely in the way it manages to be a continuation of a spirit rather than a style, but as a vital and relevant work.
SÓLSTAFIR "Masterpiece of Bitterness" (Spikefarm, 2005)
It may be extraneous to write about an album which already contains its own accurate review in the album title itself. Three words – there it is. Further words are just elaboration on details – details like how SÓLSTAFIR are masters of balancing order with chaos – rigid, sophisticated structure and punk looseness – fire with ice – or pride and glory with despair and defeat. This album is the song of the Icelandic cowboy, lone wolf on desolate plains, riding towards some bitter end with heavy heart but head held high. SÓLSTAFIR are master songcrafts, wizards of dynamics, of sequencing moods and energy levels, building up and tearing down, making nine minutes, twenty minutes, disappear like nothing. Masterpiece of Bitterness is vast and earthy like barren Icelandic expanses, celestial in scope, yet profound in its introspection. Thoroughly well-made, enjoyable music.
NEGURÃ BUNGET "Maiastru Sfetnic" (Bestial, 2000)
Judging from almost every review of NEGURÃ BUNGET, it seems difficult to discuss their music without referencing their Transylvanian heritage and band name and drawing similes between the music and the misty Transylvanian woods of their homeland and moniker – I don’t particularly feel it tempting to fall into that particular trap again, but the truth is that there is a fair deal of accuracy in the comparison. This music is indeed misty, obscure, and black to the point of impenetrability. There is nearly nothing accessible about Maiastru Sfetnic, even to the seasoned underground black metal fan – its atonality, or at least unconventional tonality, occasionally recalls previous innovators like MÜTIILATION or VED BUENS ENDE in feel, but is generally the band’s own. Consciously avoiding the obvious is often a recipe for pretentious novelty music, but in these careful, consistent hands the idea succeeds, and succeeds to the extent that a new stylistic conventionality – their own – arises from their reinterpretation of black metal riffs, rhythms and atmospheres. The intricate web of loose drum patterns, fragmentary riffing, discordant leads and wavering Theremins takes time to unfold, but does eventually reveal itself as one of the most interesting, ambitious and original black metal works of the decade.
