More mediocrity

Continuing with the matter of black metal themed documentaries, here is ..... Black metal Satanica (feel free to laugh at anytime).
Not as bad as Black metal - A documentary, that would be a miracle, but nevertheless equally unimportant and even worse completely misleading.
Though it starts with a Watain track (Darkness and Death), a fine way to kick the proceedings off, what follows is total disappointment. The producer manages to spend a good 20 min. with stupid talk about the Vikings and the way the christian religion was established in Scandinavia. I hope this is the last time to stress that black metal has nothing to do with Viking or heathen beliefs. Dance around the fire or drink all the liquor you can handle, but this would make a dizzy Neadherdal but in no way a black metaler or a satanist.
And also to all our Scandinavian friends...here's some news for you. It is really irritating listening to the "proud warriors of the north" whining about how violent and brutal the Christians were towards them. Christianity established itself by force throughout all Europe. Same thing happened to my fucking country (Greece). They killed, they pillaged and most importantly destroyed monumental and unique works of art and of cultural heritage in order to erase what was. But to strive for the reestablishment of the ancient Pantheon of Olympus would be twice as ridiculous as christianity is. And again, this happened to all Europeans, don't flatter yourselves.

The rest of the film is no better as it continues to stay out of focus, with childish and shallow talking about how bad christianity is as it wages war and causes death etc. A little bit more of this bullshit and I would convert myself to a christian.

The plague of irrelevant and completely unimportant bands, strikes again. I can't imagine any person with a basic knowledge of the whereabouts of this music, creating a black metal film with interviews by bands as Vreid, Svartahrid, Rimfrost, Mordichrist or one individual that calls herself Lilith and appears talking from the shadows (o, so evil). Someone has a fucked up idea about what black metal is.

Unfortunately the (as always) excellent, focused and well thought presence of Watain's Eric Daniels, doesn't save the case as the film is already ruined by the rest of the out of place and topic bands. Also a good and interesting presence is Shining's Niklas Kvarforth with his always provocative and manipulative views. Finally worth mentioning is Ondskapt's Acerbus that does not appear often and at least represents a band that breaths the essence of this music.

As long as films keep coming, that are made by persons that are irrelevant and clueless about black metal I should realy find a better way to spend my time as I think noone has 90 minutes to through away.

Post Scriptum : For anyone interested or with a screwed up view of things ..... black metal is for the glorification of the adversary, the opening of the abominative gates of chaos. So leave your plastic hammers at home. They won't be of any help here.

AMSG

The king of black metal

Schizophrenic, pedophile, paranoid, eccentric to the point of death, insane, totaly fucked up...

What a shame he wasn't making black metal.

A cockumentary

During the last years I have seen many a bad "documentaries" about black metal. None of them though is as bad as Black Metal - A documentary a film made by one Bill Zebub or something like that. Shallow as fuck, with no point at all, no concept, including irrelevant and Z-rate bands (Tristania!, Lacuna Coil!!, Grom, Korova, Dark Funeral... what the fuck?). Seriously this is rediculously bad, in fact it is totaly unacceptable. Piss off...


What is disappointing is that the flood of black metal related documentaries doesn't seem to come to an end. What is the point of this all? Why do worthy artists and individuals participate and give credibility to bellow average efforts that completely fail to even come close to the essence of black metal?

Get serious now.

USBM: trailer trash or Western mystery school? (repost from deathmetal.org)

The following text is taken from www.deathmetal.org and is refered to USBM. I myself would gladly sign this text, as it reflects a lot of my thoughts and views. In fact I wish I had written this text.

When black metal became in popular perception “the next big thing”, around 1992, it was rightly considered an European phenomenon which contained a cultural bias based on tradition, arts and society impossible to spiritually clone in the American way of life, even in the underground which had spawned death metal. Bands like Profanatica and VON showed that it is possible to create the blasphemy spewing minimalistic barbaro-black metal in USA as well as anywhere else, but the Romanticist type of black metal bands from USA were for a decade, if not more, the laughing stock of even American BM maniacs themselves. There was something wholeheartedly absurd about Sumerian sorcerers from Texas, druids from Minnesota and vampires from California. David “Blackmoon” Parland of the insipid Dark Funeral waged verbal war in zines against Proscriptor of Absu, who cast curses and spells in return. Judas Iscariot printed Nietzschean statements in German and moustached overweight pro-wrestling fans took pictures of themselves corpsepainted in suburban woods. Whereas musical quality grew through the times, so did the amount of excess people circulating in the American BM underground, leading to the explosion of “bedroom black metal” in the turn of the millennium, while black metal messageboards became populated with people whose IQ would be statistically rather rare in Norway and Sweden.

The dilemma seems to lie in the artificial distance between the sophisticated intellectual and man of the street which characterizes also the separation between the art and entertainment of 20th century America. Whereas the Oslo or Bergen black metaller would have been raised with equal awareness of Ibsen’s plays, American movies and classical music as well as punk, the US black metaller often came from the background of very little cultural perception besides TV, baseball, horror movies and aggressive competitive values. The obsession with social standing is such that looking or behaving different would easily be seen as gay or the sign of a wimp or nerd, but what fan of black metal would want to represent normality in every piece of action? Scandinavian, Austrian or even Polish metalhead did not and does not share this pressure of having to be a regular conservative guy because there are more different roles and stereotypes available in the society to identify with. Thus most of the US youth involved in black metal came to view themselves as either depressive, perverted losers or occult maniacs oriented to conjure the otherworld dressed in robes and armed with litanies of every available ancient magick tradition and spellcasting culture.

As case studies, take for example Crimson Moon from San Diego and Night Conquers Day from New York. Both are bands with respectable instrumental skill, dedication to the black metal arts beyond the normal “scene kid” wannabe interest and an intuitive grasp of the Romantic and Faustian in black metal. Yet, both are bands hard to take seriously at face value, because there is so much absurdity, alienation from reality and bad aesthetic choices involved. Crimson Moon presented themselves as a magical collective of energy vampires but the music was often a too simplistic rip off of influences from Cradle of Filth to Ancient, damaging the beauty, while their reputation suffered a blow from public arguments on online messageboards not at all fitting for the sorceric image - even splitting the band in two factions, Gorgoroth-style. Night Conquers Day posed in full daylight near a storage building with one of the members wearing corpsepaint (and the infamous moustache!) and the personal history of the members included getting into headlines for stealing gravestones and a keyboard player who disappeared but returns now and then to play a piece over the phone (I think I would go that way too if I had to live in the American society) and the 10-15 minute epic songs quoting several eras of metal from Mercyful Fate to Burzum remained unmemorable because of sounding like too many parts had been stitched together with no spiritual theme arching to wrap up its diverse aspects into a continuous whole.

New crop from old and new breed

It was a long time till I had a look to Swedish death metal. In fact it must be over 11 or 12 years (with the exception of Kaamos' Lp's that always caught my attention). For the last couple of months there are 3 Lp's that have reinforced my interest for said scene.
These can act as a worthy antidote to today's worthless plastic death metal, so heavily endorced by the mainsteam press like Terrorrizer and co.


Necrophobic - Death to All

One of the old breed, that are still making it until today. I only have heard their first Lp The Nocturnal Silence from 1993 and then none of the rest. The band have been a little too overexposed with their new album so I gave it the almost mandatory listen. This is blackened death metal in the melodic vein of Dissection. I like it although sometimes it strikes me as a tad too easy listening for death metal and I can't help it but have the feeling that the lyrics are too naive for my taste.


Karnarium - Karnarium

A record from last year and the band that alongside Kaamos has been my favourite Swedish death metal band for the last years. Karnarium don't strike you immediately as being swedish, as Incantation's death metal is for them equally important as Entombed's. Totally recommended.


Maim - From the Womb to the Tomb

Gore themed death metal has never been my cup of tea but I can't help but recognise the sickness that this new band's debut exhales. A band that is said to be taking up Repugnant's legacy and with the obvious Autopsy reference, this is an interesting case.

The great cessation

Crushing, oppresive, fucking heavy.
That's how I like my doom.

This granny tells dark tales - Τα παραμύθια της βρωμόγριας

Dirty Granny Tales is one of the most interesting acts to emerge from Greece for the last few years. A well balanced combination of puppet theatre and music, experimental and acoustic, with dark and gothic lyrics/stories. All these are wrapped in a carnivalesque atmosphere topped with the black metal influenced shrieks of the narrator. The outcome reminds of groups like Tiger Lillies or the much loved Residents.
Recently they have released their second album, 'Didi's Son' that continues the story told on their debut 'Inversed World'. As much as their records are truly amazing, one cannot capture the group's true essence and brilliance without witnessing one of their shows.



What happens when music brings puppets to life?
http://www.myspace.com/dirtygrannytales

Head on the stake

I'm not into the band (Kult of Azazel), but I'm into the picture. Besides a little blasphemy never harmed anyone.
Except of course the ones it is meant to harm.

Curses to y'all.

Playlist for the fiery days

Spiritus Mortis - The God Behind the God Traditional doom metal from the Finnish masters with vocals by Sir Albert Witchfinder of Reverend Bizzare, The Puritan and fucked up black metalers Armanenschaft. Great record.


Oranssi Pazuzu - Muukalainen Puhuu

You have heard a lot of wannabe psychedelic, progressive black metal. Forget all of them. This one , again from Finland, embodies everything you expect to listen when you think of progressive or experimental or psychedelic black metal. Much more than just a tag.


Mortuus Infradaemoni - Imis Avernis

Raw black metal from Germany by skilled and experienced musicians. One of the best pure and raw bm records I've heard recently.


Miasma - Spirit Death

Lately I realy love American bands like Miasma and the ones that follow. Raw, atmospheric, dark, excellent.


Malkuth - Sefirah Gevurah

Malkuth fall to the category mentioned above. Their music is raw yet experimental. One of the few cases of a band with no background in black metal, with members coming from the avant garde/experimental scene, that seem to have a feeling for black metal.


L'acephale - Stahlhartes gehäuse

L'acephale divide opinions as far as I can say but I realy like their blend of black metal, folk and martial rythms.


Katharsis - Fourth Reich

One of my all time favorite bands who I follow blindly. This is their most focused and organised work, yet the chaos they create is ever present and prevalent. Katharsis are twisted geniouses, I humbly kneel before them.


Chaos Moon - Languor into Echoes, Beyond

A band in the same vein as Miasma, evoking darkness in similar ways, using prety much the same weapons. Recomended.


Impiety - Terroreign

The mighty Impiety strike as we would expect them to strike. Fierce death/black/thrash with exceptional quality. Vientos de holocausto.

Dead man

I wanted to write something about this awesome soundtrack for quite a while now but I was either lazy or forgot about it. Now that I remembered I am still lazy. So I won't say much other than whoever hasn't listened to it is a cunt. And I wouldn't like any cunt listening to music I like. And normaly I don't really like soundtracks. And Neil Young is god. And I'm not the one to usualy deify anyone.

1000 Curses.

Total fucking revelation

I never really paid any attention to 1349. They always seemed to me like a fairly average band, one of the tones coming out of Norway, playing the same tired (and tiring) things, recycling the same members that have been doing this thing in100 other bands before (or at the same time).
What was always a mystery for me is the friendship and support that Tom Gabriel offered to the guys. I was never an admirer of persons into the metal scene. Nevertheless Tom Gabriel was always a figure so special and different that couldn't be but the exception to the norm.
What the fuck this guy was seeing into 1349 I never knew.

Until now....
Now I see. To deny the magnificence of the new 1349 cd would be mere stupidity. Or just incapability to truly comprehend the dark and gloomy nature that black metal shall have.
But who cares about what the fools have to say?
Gabriels influence is present in all it's dark glory, even if he didn't have any direct involvement to the creation of the music. To be around such a figurehead is a blessing by itself.
This is arguably one the biggest surprises I had in all those years I am involved with music.
My highest recommentations.

AMSG