Emperor: Metal for Mordor

The music of Emperor is commonly misconceived by the mainstream metal media and certain YouTube clowns to be merely an atmospheric wall of sound or symphonic black metal orchestration engineered for superficial, surface level aesthetic appeal to an audience atypical for black metal. This is in fact not the case. In the Nightside Eclipse is just as perplexing to typical headbangers on first encounter as it was upon release in 1994. Mainstream audiences are even more flabbergasted and regard the record as a mere curiosity produced by those murderous church burners, preferring Emperor’s more rock-structured later work such as Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, which abandoned the band’s signature riffing style and method in exchange for ones influenced by more stereotypical Norwegian B-listers such as Enslaved and Kvist. Emperor did eventually sell out, becoming technical guitar wank, rock-structured heavy metal after their rhythm guitarist Samoth and drummer Faust were imprisoned in 1994 and their songwriting influence subsequently waned. Yet In the Nightside Eclipse‘s hymns to Satan and Sauron remain as natural mutations of their metallic predecessors’ attempts to imitate horror scores and classical music’s overwhelming power of sublimity.

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VH1 “journalist” launches smear campaign against Bard Eithun

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VH1 affiliated journalist (and I feel guilty for using that term, because seriously, it’s VH1) Zack Sigel apparently was inspired by the recent Disma controversy, and has set his targets on Bard “Faust” Eithun in what is almost certainly an attempt to get his current projects (Blood Tsunami, Studfaust, etc.) pulled from the upcoming Martyrdoom Festival. Unlike Craig Pillard, Faust admittedly does have a criminal record to his name, having been imprisoned for the murder of a homosexual some years ago, but this doesn’t make the apparent goal any more noble. Whether or not Faust is the same person he was 20 years ago, witch hunting is not going to actually reform him, or usher in any sort of actual justice or utopian tolerant social justice city on a hill. Most of this article, however, isn’t a call to action against Faust, although the passages specifically condemning Faust’s actions come off as passive-aggressive at best. Instead, Sigel dedicates most of the article to whining about metalheads not immediately condemning bands for their ideological stances. Ironically he also pushes Deafheaven, despite their own ties to right wing movements, but odds are he won’t be turning on them for that any time soon, lest the ensuing cognitive dissonance explodes and kills everyone in a 500 mile radius.

We’re probably enabling him by acknowledging this article, but if nobody calls out this sort of pseudo-tolerant hypocrisy, everyone gets burnt.

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