Norway’s Wordless Abyss

Studies have shown that listening to instrumental music while writing, studying, doing accounting, or any other productive task can increase stimulation without the distraction that the words of vocals provide.  But for Hessian, Templar, Heathen and other true metalheads instrumental works can be difficult to come by as extreme metal has not dabbled much into the realms of instrumental savagery.  But thanks to the necrophiliac obsession that many have had with Norwegian black metal and its culture, there are a few enjoyable demos and early rehearsals from Norway’s finest that can provide a motivational grim instrumental experience without demanding too much from the attention of the listener.

Join me if you will for a vocal-less adventure through some of Norway’s best kept foreboding hidden secrets.

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Hipsters Discover That Black Metal Musicians Are Bad

Another scandal!  Yes folks, for the fourth time in the past two or three weeks, hipster journalists and fake metal fans are shocked and appalled that a black metal musician has done something immoral.  Despite black metal being a music genre for 30 years, smelly neckbeard losers and dreadlocked trust fund crusties are figuratively (though literally in some cases) throwing their own feces every time they catch a mid-tier black metal musician doing something not socially acceptable.  This time, the horrific act came from Marduk, whose purchasing of German World War II merchandise from a sketchy online retailer made them too evil for a fest called Stockholm Slaughter (who apparently think slaughter is cool, but just not when it pertains to 1940s Europe).

Because millennials are too dumb to learn any history that doesn’t involve student loans, let’s quickly look back and see if any criminal or immoral things were done by the original black metal bands.  Maybe there’s something that we can learn from  that fateful 1990s Norwegian scene:

Band                   Criminal/Immoral Act

Burzum                Murder, violating parole with a shitload of explosives, arson, Nazism, white supremacy

Dimmu Borgir    Using the N word in an interview/proclaiming the desire to genocide Africans

Emperor              Hate crime murder of a homosexual, arson

Gorgoroth           Rape, battery and torture, violation of Poland’s animal rights laws, homosexuality

Immortal             Arson

Mayhem              Murder, 2nd degree murder, arson, public mutilation, trashing hotels

Satyricon            Rape, arson, rape

Thorns                2nd degree murder

I’m sorry to break this to everyone living in a liberal bubble, but a painfully obvious truth exists:  black metal musicians are bad men.

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Fake And Gay: Nergal, Halford Want BM Supergroup

< Famed Judas Priest singer and gay fashion icon Rob Halford has been recently vocal about starting a black metal supergroup.  A longtime fan of the genre, Halford has named Ihsahn of Emperor and Nergal of Behmoth as potential collaborators, with the latter jumping at the opportunity to use his cartoon-black-metal brand to pocket even more mainstream metal dollars.  Unfortunately for Halford and anyone dumb enough to be duped into thinking something like this will be good, Nergal will not have much to offer in terms of a black metal supergroup as he has not played black metal since 1994's Sventevith despite masquerading around in corpse paint whenever it’s time to roll out the red carpet.

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The Imperial Reign of Emperor

The most technically and musically gifted band of the Norwegian black metal scene, the legendary Emperor are also the most well known outside of the documentary-level engagement that plagues most who know of Burzum and Mayhem.  Formed in the small rural town of Telemark Norway as a side project to a soon-forgotten death metal band, the group overcame the imprisonment of 75% of it’s lineup to deliver the most grandiose album of early 90s black metal.  Though Emperor’s career was far from perfect, it made a profound impact on the young genre and ultimately proved it’s limitless developmental possibility.
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