Danzig – Archive de la Morte

by Enda Miller on August 3, 2009

(Music Video Distributors, 2004, 60 Min, $10)

Few underground bands will achieve a video document of this quality. It consists entirely of MTV-style song videos, professionally filmed and edited, which are either miniature movies in which the band is featured or high quality live recordings. The sound quality is excellent, as is the image quality, but having someone take the time to edit and shape the video experience as one might find in a cinema puts these in a different league. However, this DVD has a weak spot, and it is the choice of material. Where a disc of sloppier and less coherent videos from classic Danzig, namely the first two albums, would be a gigantic hit, there’s only one song from that era on here, and while the material from his later albums is good, it’s also more typical hard rock/heavy metal and thus does not show this band at their most adept and inventive phase. Furthermore, this DVD is literally an archive, and gives us six songs with up to three versions of the video for each, which makes it not only unsuitable for casual viewing but very limited. Couldn’t someone tack on some crappy handheld video of a live set at the end, as, well, that would be more the whole of the Danzig experience than this narrow snapshot? The videos are quite artistic, and feature heavy symbolism and plenty of evil moments. It culminates in “Mother ’93,” which is essentially the album track dubbed over some hammy but expertly edited live video. If you are a Danzig fanatic, this provides you with the videos you saw on MTV and the uncensored versions that you probably wanted desperately at the time. For the more casual fan, this video will probably seem like a hasty and unthinking compilation of material that documents the less triumphant moments of an otherwise influential act.

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Bones – “Mayhem on a Cross”

by Enda Miller on August 3, 2009

(Fox, Episode 421, 4-16-09)

Covering metal as a setting presents a problem for television because it’s nearly impossible to reveal much about the genre from a mainstream perspective, especially since it’s not the topic of the show. On Bones, the topic is murder and the setting is an underground of black/death/nu-metal bands who use the corpse of a murder victim as a prop.

Having followed Temperance Brennan in Dr. Kathy Reichs’ books for some years, I was glad to see the show clarified her character. In addition, this show obliquely tackles the issues at the core of death and black metal. Brennan represents science and rationalism; her counterpart, Seeley Booth, represents monism and aesthetics.

The interplay of their characters reminds me of the interaction between Fitzwilliam Darcy (Bones) and Elizabeth Bennet (Booth) in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Much like people in modern society, they assume Rationalism as a basis of reality but find the details overwhelm them. In the course of the show, they explore a desire in parallel between the show and the metal bands represented — how to express the horror of a modern time in a way that makes you like it, and want to use it as a showdown between good and evil, especially evil disguised as good, and how Rationalism — linear, logical, discrete, symbolic thinking — can get in the way of understanding our task of understanding ourselves.

Diehards will not be pleased that the genres get lumped together in the bands shown, but will be interested to see the show’s clinical psychologist analyze the difference between the two. However, since the show is not about metal, but murder with metal as the setting, the airtime given to these underground genres is generous and the depiction accurate albeit distant.

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Asphyx – Live at Party San 2007

by Enda Miller on August 3, 2009


Asphyx – Live at Party San 2007
Ibex Moon Records, 60:32, 2009, $11

Asphyx make that which is heavy fun and compelling. This could be one of my favorite recorded metal concerts because it captures not only the professionalism, but also the minimal set-up and adornment, as well as the different frequencies of energy this band emit. They convert dark empty spaces to ones filled with a new kind of like, like twilight or morning, in which the darkness is never pure, having been converted to the inertia of day. All band members are professional and precise, and while Martin van Drunen gets his share of camera time, in my view it is the workmanlike and intensely concentrating Bob “Mister Asphyx” Bagchus who steals the show with his serious and intense facial expressions to accompany his exact drumming. Wannes Gubbels, bassist/vocalist late of Pentacle, injects a ton of exuberance, while guitarist Paul Wayyans shows us death metal the original way — a science and an art that both has to be kept simple and done so that it all makes sense in the end. These 62 minutes of powerful recording span the band’s entire career but focus on the classics from The Rack and Last One on Earth, giving us a set with career diversity but also a powerhouse of the songs that defined this band. Video is professionally shot with multiple camera angles, and while effects like the high contrast black and white flash, the rising fake flames, and occasional slo-mo are used, they are not distracting. van Drunen’s voice is excellent; I don’t know another metal vocalist who can make the guttural sounds of death vocals while keeping a forced scream going at the same time. He is an excellent frontman who both works the crowd, throwing out his ad libs with perfect rhythm to keep motivation high, and a consummate professional who uses his voice as an effective instrument. I think this should be mandatory watching in schools. This review refers to the DVD included with the release of Asphyx Death… The Brutal Way.

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Virgil – The Aeneid

by Joe on July 28, 2009

Among the superb examples of classic literature produced by the once rich and productive european culture; amidst the works of a fecund civilization that have left a permanent mark on the subsequent generations, proving their relevance in all eras of human history; touching topics that are so eternal and defining of our humanity, such as the neverending strife for life on all levels; among all those works, very few pieces of writing (and art) can reach the heights of Virgil’s masterwork, the culmination of a lifetime of work and self-improving in the field of the written word.

The intention with this review, less than providing a synthesis of the book’s argument, which can be found anywhere else on the Internet, is to give the reader what we believe is the central message of such a story in a short and concise manner so you can pick the book and explore the depths of its message for yourself.

The main subject of the story is the overcoming of difficulties and the strife for better conditions of living, or a better future. In the example of a group of survivors from the destruction of the legendary Troy, them lead by the fearless and noble warrior Aeneas, as they go through a series of awful calamities one after the other, with nothing but the promise of a bright future that the mentioned group of people won’t even see for themselves, but which will be enjoyed by their descendants, the future patricians that would build the greatest civilization known to man, Virgil gives us the best example of the glory and the rewards of reaching new heights by conquering difficulties.

It is this argument that best reflects that condition of human life that modern people try so hard to hide or run away from: the unescapable fact that, if we want the good things in life, we need to make some effort to get them. Not just some meager effort, but a serious one, since calamities, the only sure things in life, and the ones that come most easily, will get in the way of our dreams. Such calamities may come in many forms: the death of a close one, the sabotage made on us by envious people, the crash of the financial market, or a meteor falling through your roof and into your room – it doesn’t matter. They are as real as the air you breath (“only death is real”, indeed) and you will need to face and go through many of them if you want to get some of the sweet fruits that the tree of life offers.

Despite the universality of its message, I feel this book applies specially to hessians and the hard path in life they choose to take. As modern warriors, wandering as misunderstood entities in the maelstrom of modern life, the analogy with the wandering trojans is self-evident. So, even thought this story doesn’t depict long haired dudes with beer guts, it fits the metalhead persona like a glove.

Grab this and learn the joy of surviving the brutal game of life, the hessian way.

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Forbidden – Twisted Into Form

by Enda Miller on July 24, 2009

forbidden-twisted-into-form

A late addition to the pantheon of great Speed Metal albums, Twisted Into Form salvages its importance from the dying days of the genre by pushing those exhausted conventions to their limits. The historical and ideological positioning of this album does render their musical ancestry quite prominently. Forbidden did not come from the same school of Metal that imported influences of more radical dissidence such as Hardcore Punk and Thrash as well as morbid and occult imagery. These are what contributed to separating albums like Hell Awaits and Seven Churches from the Speed and Heavy Metal world, laying the foundations for the more vivid and nightmarish Death Metal sound to come. Instead, Twisted Into Form encapsulates and advances on the spirit of individualism inherited from music going back as far as late 70′s Judas Priest to Fates Warning and Metallica. The album itself is a relentlessly searching affair, a quest for mental strength and autonomy in a world of the blind acceptance of pleasant illusions. Melodies shift between different textural assaults, retaining an expressive sense of narrative from a maze of neoclassical shredding that fractalises its parts. This could have been dumbed down by the standard cyclic structure of many of the songs were it not for the mind-warping finesse that sits somewhere between Master of Puppets and Gorguts’ The Erosion of Sanity via. an inversion of Voivod’s Dimension Hatross, being so typical of this cerebrocentric approach to riffcraft. The vocals play an important role in having the melodic acumen to bring some more direction to the music between and during choruses, which is crucial when it’s shifting so disorientatingly within a fairly simple framework that doesn’t always resolve itself instrumentally. Perhaps released a year too late, it’s still Forbidden’s best and most influential work, and an insightful, sincere and technically inspiring musical gravestone.

-ObscuraHessian-

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The Ugly Side of Life is Pure Beauty for the Hessian

by Joe on July 20, 2009

There’s a very nice short story from the booklet of Burzum’s album Filosofem that reminds me a lot of the misunderstood path that the hessian chooses as life:

Creeping And Crawling, Rustling And Fluttering

There are two natural lights in this world, the sun and the moon. The first distorts the appearance of the other, often until it is unrecognizable. The sun gives us colour, warmth and clarity, while the moon gives us no colour, coldness and unclarity. We live in the sunlight, and we make artificial sunlight, after Arvakr and Alsvinnr, send by Sol, have drawn down the sun in sea in the West, because we like colour, warmth and clarity. The starting-point of our reality lies in this light; when Naglfaris’ wife, Night, comes, our world disappears in a certain way. She is illuminated by a light, that we don’t like, the colourless, cold and indistinct moonlight. Strange beings show themselves in the woods and the people draw back into their reliable, small houses. Out there, only the forces of darkness reign, yes, in the most true meaning of the word. The world becomes a total different one, for some the world becomes a place worth living. For those, who want to challenge these giants, who are brought to us by the moon in the shape of uncontrollable powers of nature, the world finally becomes a place really worth living in.

– Booklet of Filosofem (English translation), Burzum.org

We live in a world where light and darkness interact with each other to conform the whole of the universe with both its living and inanimated elements.

Most people in our modern era would like to see only the light and forget about the other side of the coin. In this way, humans become self-centered and irresponsible as we mentally split from any notion that would seem scary or unconfortable. Hell, we don’t even watch the killing that takes place to put steaks on our table. Hence, most of us fail to see any connection(s) between our actions and the ensuing negative consequences towards our world. Ever wondered why human society is so fucked up, like the lyrics of Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, Slayer and countless other acts have been telling us throughout the years? Because society is essentially an undifferentiated mass of people that agree on very few things, many of them childish and self-destructive, like this mentality.

That’s what metal sought to fight by offering a morbid, depressing and yet very real view of the negative side that our enlightened, yet pussified society tries so pathetically to hide from: war, plague, death, blood, guts, natural selection, Satan, witchcraft, environmental death, stupid religions, stupid secular beliefs and so on and on, the purpose of it impeled by this one thought: that the only way to live sanely is to recognize both sides of the coin and embrace them as equal parts of existence.

That’s a perspective that has been from the very beginning of the metal genre. Even its forefathers had this very death metal view of life:

We’ve all got this opinion about the world today, you see. We’re aware that, at some time, a big change is going to come. With SAD WINGS OF DESTINY, we’re telling people to enjoy life, but at the same time be prepared for something that could happen. Tracks like ‘Genocide’, ‘Tyrant’, ‘Epitaph’ and ‘Prelude’ seem to us to follow this idea through – they act as possible preludes to this change…

(…)

We don’t want to be set up as prophets or disciples; we’re just five aware guys stuck in the middle of a lot of complacent people. Now everybody enjoys life, but we think it should be brought to people’s attention that, at any moment, we could all be wiped out… We’re far from being pessimists.

– Judas Priest’s interview with Sounds Magazine (May 8, 1976), Judas Priest Info Pages

Like the music they love, hessians firmly believe on the crude realities of individual mortality and the potential collective doom that could be triggered by our stupidity, irresponsibility and delusional beliefs: these are the strange beings that show themselves in the woods at night. Only instead of retreating to our comfy houses and pretend they don’t exist, we choose to face them.

It’s for this reason that hessians like to live their lives on the edge of things, sometimes by doing a lot of reckless behaviour, but mostly by having beliefs that are considered taboo by the majority of people. We embrace those taboos joyfully because they give life their meaning. Denying them is to deny life itself, and in this process we kill our souls and become faceless drones fighting for political power, money and other delusions given by the shadows cast by the fire in the chimneys of our warm, small and reliable houses.

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Varg Gets out of the Can – Our Views and Thoughts

by Joe on July 18, 2009

The release of Burzum’s mastermind Varg Vikernes from jail after fulfilling his sentence for the killing of his former friend and band partner Øystein Aarseth has raised a literal thunderstorm on the ethereal world of the net. The aforementioned phenomenon is not unusual if one knows the Internet and the people who frequent it, and was therefore easily predicted.

After all, the profile of someone like Varg – a convicted murderer (killing another human being is always bad, kids, remember that) with extreme political and racial views that don’t make him the most likeable person, at least for most people, and who gave many bogus declarations in the past (the ratio of truth vs. bullshit being relative depending on whether you’re talking with an admirer or a detractor) – is not the most favorable for a person with the truest intention to be left alone, but makes for great talking on message boards.

The thing about all the talking and bloviating is that, save for a small few who either don’t care or outright hate Varg’s music, most detractors will readily admit that the works under the Burzum moniker are worthy of consideration, and even of admiration. It’s like people still have a problem separating the person from his works.

But I’ll leave that well alone. The man’s release still needs to be commented because of the newest declarations made by Vikernes. Apparently, he will not completely shut himself from the world and will try to rekindle his music and writing careers.

After the years of continuous reunions from older, legendary bands being most of them complete flops and dissapointments, yours truly had virtually lost all faith in this phenomenon, until certain albums by certain bands like Celtic Frost and Beherit showed that reunions weren’t just mere vehicles to regain a fame and name that should have been better kept under wraps. The aforementioned acts actually showed a concern for metal’s artistic decadence and came back to prove how it’s really done (the tag of most reunions out there, but this time they really accomplished that).

Like Beherit’s, Burzum’s musical comeback should be taken with initial skepticism – after all, reunions and the like haven’t lost their essentially gimmicky nature -, but I really hope, having faith on the man’s talent and how it has maintained itself through the years, that he will be able to make an artistically honest effort that would contribute bringing metal back to life like Engram was.

In any case, one should also expect much on his future writing career, a topic that isn’t much talked about since Varg isn’t really famous for being a writer, having his music and all of the norwegian soap opera taken the forefront. It’s unfair, really, given that, despite the fact that Vikernes wasn’t a born writer, like his clumsy early essays prove, he has, throughout the years, developed an engaging style and it will be worthwhile to see what it results from that. That said, a book elaborating on scandinavian and related mythos, expanding on the short stories of Filosofem, for example, could be quite something. But, like life roughly teaches us, we should not get ahead of things and instead wait patiently.

A new Burzum album and one or two books worth considering is what’s on the future for Mr. Vikernes and the ones who might care. Oh, and there’s also a movie, but we won’t get into that…

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“Lords of Chaos” movie to feature hip-hop

by on July 16, 2009

So we heard a lot about this movie made based on the book “Lords of Chaos,” about the early 1990s black metal underground?

Wrong — sort of.

It’s about Norway, church burnings, the underground, etc. BUT instead of being about black metal, the soundtrack will be hip-hop, the musicians will be rappers, and teenage Twilight heartthrob Jason Rathbone will kill “Euronymous” after a rap-off in which Rathbone (a/k/a “Varg”) will be the winner.

Don’t believe?

Check out the “Lords of Chaos” website

Prepare to weep!

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Kraftwerk, Celtic Frost and Burzum – The Method of Not Sticking to One Style or Sound

by Joe on July 16, 2009

As a humble attempt to bring some ideas to the table in order to reverse the current backwards trend that plagues the underground, we’ll present to you an approach at music making that was tried by few bands in metal, and, because of the possibilities it offers, it can become a more than viable pathway to follow for metal to keep evolving.

Known by many open minded hessians as one of the few electronic acts that isn’t grating on the nerves, Kraftwerk, one of the leading acts in the genre, made a bright musical career by pasting synthetised and computer-generated sounds into melodically sensitive compositions that mixed simplicity with complexity in an effortless way, providing a soundscape in which emotion and technology interacted as easily as hydrogen and oxygen do to form water. Their way of pasting sounds (and what is music but an elaborate way of doing just that?) was influenced by the concept they had in mind at the moment of making the album, so coldness in sound and rhythmical monotony went hand-in-hand with the concept of dehumanization presented in their The Man Machine album, while, on the other hand, Trans-Europe Express classically influenced melodies and introspective style melds well with the journey of self-discovery and pride for european culture the musicians attempted to portray.

With all of that said, you might be asking what does that band have to do with metal? Many things: the shaping of concept, the narrative approach and the human-nature-society topics presented have much in common with the way of making metal. Particularly, Kraftwerk went on to influence two of the biggest names in the genre: Celtic Frost and Burzum.

Celtic Frost’s members well documented obsession with history, legend and esoteric themes gave them an approach towards creating music that was more about describing a mood around which certain lyrics, as mini-narrations, enhanced the atmosphere presented. And, like Kraftwerk, each album differed from each other in the concepts it portrayed and the adjustment of style towards that goal, from the primitive, rapid bursting of anger in Morbid Tales, to the mythical and barbarian otherwordly scenery of To Mega Therion , to the hedonist, self-punishing operatic drama of Into the Pandemonium (some detractors might even say that this album is punishing on its own merit, but I think that, while not perfect, it is a respectable effort).

Burzum, like the previous act, also made his albums with the idea in mind that each of them should have a very distinctive identity, even though various moods interacted in a single album and the whole Burzum concept had more of a unity behind it than Celtic Frost’s. Still, the difference in style for each release is self-apparent and we hear Varg adapting his playing, production values and even vocal style towards the emotions he wanted to display for each particular release.

One of the things we need to do in order to keep furthering the craft of metal is to leave behind our obsession with style and instead worry of taking each album we pursue as a fresh chance to start over. Otherwise, musicians easily lose ideas as they quickly run out of them if those are constructed around a single theme. We can learn from the aforementioned acts and demand more of our craft and of ourselves in order to reach a brilliant future for the genre.

All of the talk aside, we should study the aforementioned bands to really understand the idea presented here. Kraftwerk’s best works are (chronologically) Radioactivity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977), The Man Machine (1978) and Computer World (1981). Those should be listened to in that order. In doing so, observe how difficult is to point the similarities between the albums beyond the most basic musical elements, such as vocal styles and rhythms used. Even the sounds and synth patches went through tremendous changes in time and the outfit took their time to develop a voice of their own, starting rather timidly and displaying more confidence with the years (not surprisingly, the electronic genre was developing at the time and was quite fresh – as an exercise, and for fun, compare this rundown of albums with Black Sabbath’s first four LPs and its transition from blues to metal).

The rundown for Celtic Frost should be Morbid Tales, Emperor’s Return (as separate albums, in order to have a clear idea of the evolution taking place), To Mega Therion and Into the Pandemonium (without Mexican Radio if you prefer so ;)). Burzum’s as follows: Det Som Engang Var, Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Filosofem. Notice that these aren’t “best ofs”, but a selection to further the comprehension of what has been said here.

Also notice the similarities between Burzum’s Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Kraftwerk’s The Man Machine: a simple rhythm track providing the backbone for endlessly repeating sequences (riffs) and the patient development of the songs by adding layers of more riffs on top of the basic ones.

This simple exercise should hopefully help you comprehend what’s been said here. It’s not all, though. The next step – the understanding of motifs and how do they relate with concept and unity in music making – will be explained on a post on its own. Stay tuned.

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