Helwetti – Unholy Extreme Black (1999)

Released in 1999, Unholy Extreme Black is the second of two demos released by the transitory Finnish black metal project Helwetti. Here, Helwetti provides richness through depth in the reach of its rather brief material by making constrained technique malleable to the natural requirements of a flow aimed at bringing in new ideas in a coherent yet always evolving stream. The secret of the elite, almost non-existent underground to producing rare minimalist music of such sublety is a rather bestial and ritualistique effort fueled by dark spiritual ideas founded on enacted reclusiveness. Within this darkness embraced, the true artist manages to bring a powerful invocation of infernal —lower-world, unconscious to the uninitiated— forces in a way that most of the later, allegedly more mature, projects have never reached by a long. The racing melodies of Helwetti’s music in traditional black metal dissonances arranged through percussive changes, opportune breaks and vocal overlays raise its minimalist expression to the best that could possibly be achieved while remaining so simple. The vocals on this recording are an incredible delight to listen to as they express a nuanced wealth of emotions, within this limited framework as the rest of the instruments, greatly adding to the overall atmosphere. The necro sound resulting from the tampering with the original sound gives it a veiled that is certainly not a detriment to the sound of the instruments. Thereby, the clarity of the instruments is not only maintained throughout, but it actually attenuates distractions typical to the metal genre, allowing the merit of the musical arrangements to come to the foreground.

In the matter of technique, guitars do not go beyond softly strummed power chords, not quite fast downstrokes and “tremolo picking” on one string. The bass serves as a proper low frequency holder that does not get in the way but noticeably reinforces the texture of the music. Drums vary between laid back, standard rock patterns in duple time, sometimes with triplet feels, that go on smooth crescendos of double-bass runs; these patterns are then alternated with “d-beats” at different speeds, depending on the location within the pieces. These are all very standard and quite basic techniques, but what raises this demo in musical, rather than technical quality, is arrangement of the parts. Logic is not enough, but a sense of naturality must be expressed that can only be correctly represented by the use of intuition. Black metal in general prides itself in placing intuition before mere logic or the debasing —often clownish and overbearing— technique flaunting of death metal. However, intuition depends entirely on an inwardly developed or innately inherited talent of the individual that is not produced by the application of logic. Also, under close inspection, music resulting from the application of logic (structure-oriented death metal, for instance) is quite different from music prominently steeped in the application of intuition (like the best of black metal). Which means that a lot is outside the normally conscious, calculable control of the individual composing. It is just in this trap that the elitism of black metal lies.

Within the seemingly narrow constraints of raw black metal, we can appreciate how Helwetti creates a rich variety of fluxions which overflow one into the next. Without leaving any question regarding the soundness of their transformations, adjacent patterns are related by transitions that flow smoothly as water downstream. More interestingly, the four different pieces in this demo act as movements within one work. Arguably, many underground demos were compounded in this way. And without there necessarily being a conscious intent in relating it to the classical tradition, the effect is somewhat similar when a release of the stature of Unholy Extreme Black manages to present variety of texture and theme within a coherent and consistent style, bringing interrelated pieces together further under an hidden phantasm grasped by the artist’s senses. It is in communion with “Satan,” “satans,” or “dead things,” and in their consistent, focused sensations thereof, that the black metal musician brings a stream of riffs directed at channeling patterns which vibrate with what is perceived in altered states. The extent to which such a communion is attained, and perhaps the authenticity or the quality of the experience, is what makes the results vary —not to mention actual musical talent. This is precisely the “ritual” to which many a wordless black metal acolytes (For who is truly an adept in this inherently left-handed path?) refer when attempting to describe what this music is as opposed to other kinds of “music” that are aimed at entertainment or technical exercise or narcissistic indulgence.

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Defender – They Came Over the High Pass (1999)

As the successive death- and black metal craze of the 1990s lost its grip over Scandinavia, many musicians started a journey back towards their earliest of musical infatuations. Often this meant a return to classic 1980s heavy metal, although filtered through contemporary developments in the metal craft and coupled, at least in the more auspicious of cases, with a melodic flair distinctive of the region. One of few interesting products of this slightly schizoid period is the one-man and seemingly one-off project Defender, brain-child of a certain Phillip von Segebaden. (more…)

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Disciples of Mockery – Prelude to Apocalypse (1999)


Review contributed to Death Metal Underground by Kyle.

Hey bruh you wouldn’t believe what just happened to me. Ive been squatting in Venice Beach for a few days playing the first Disciples of Mockery record to my crystals. Twenty minutes ago they started projecting all kinds of imagery on the walls warping reality around me. I was having Kaleidoscopic autistic blood visions dude. One of them was the vocalist Craig Pillard and he opened his mouth like he was going to eat my face but he didn’t man he spoke to me.

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Strijd: Black Metal Götterdämmerung

Underground metal was rapidly dying by the mid nineties. The more musically successful death and black metal bands became disenchanted with their resulting limited financial success as the hordes of poseurs poured in through the gates of Byzantium, creating commercial rock that merely imitated the tones and texture of the monumental statues of the metal greats. The more popular death metal bands tried and failed at becoming rock stars while many of the more luminous minds in Norwegian black metal bands were dead or imprisoned.

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Conqueror – War Cult Supremacy (1999)

conqueror - war cult supremacy

Conqueror wanted to be a part of the “scene” but did not have musical ideas. The band discovered that the muddied sound of early Beherit and Blasphemy circa Fallen Angel of Doom could be used to obfuscate their dearth of ideas. Furthermore the hostility between the Norwegian scene and the rest of black metal could be amplified under false pretenses while not offering any truly satisfying alternative themselves. Basically, point to candy assed pop drivel like Dark Funeral but go to the other end of the spectrum entirely with a paper thin wall of television white noise with a drunken chipmunk howling nonsense. Conqueror’s “music” is structured which ironically stands contra to the concept of all out war. A little anarchy would at the very least allow the essence of battle to bubble up from the pot. Instead it’s a tame morass of very low effort grindcore riffs and mostly incomprehensible low E-string noodling. The best that can be said about Conqueror is that J. Reed has an identifiable sound.

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