FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
When I first ripped off the packaging of the cd sleeve, I did a brief scan of the promotional artwork and thought to myself ‘oh, just another grim underground black metal band…’ Six beers later, I had the volume cranked.
Iceland’s Sólstafir have reemerged this year with Köld, a strong follow-up to 2005’s Master of Bitterness. It’s an eclectic album to say the least, bringing to mind everything from shoegazer black metal to ambient goth with a little alternative rock thrown in for good measure.
Until The Light Takes Us is the upcoming documentary examining the Norwegian Black Metal scene including the church burnings and the murder of Oystein Aarseth/Euronymous.
San Francisco boasts a long and well-recognized tradition of musical creativity. Not just an artefact of the past, this inventiveness has carried through to the present. Saros stands out among the Bay Area’s current crop of eclectic and talented artists, fusing multiple influences and personalities into a flowing inundation of moody aggression.
Samael’s Above is an album that comes and goes very quickly, but while it hangs around it pounds those who hear it with a relentless return to form. Said to be a “tribute” to the Swiss band’s past, this new effort leaves behind the more melodic and organized sound of their previous album, Solar Soul, in exchange for an all-out torrent of black metal/industrial metal that rarely leaves any space to catch one’s breath.
As a reissue of one of their first efforts, Imrama is still an impressive display of all of the elements that would come to define Ireland’s Primordial in more recent years.
While Darkthrone may have been associated with the second wave of black metal by virtue of its time and place, the hellish duo behind the band, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto, always associated their band with the first wave of black metal, prior to the establishment of rigid genre boundaries. Back then, black metal had more to do with attitude and spirit. Darkthrone has always remained firmly entrenched in that black metal ethos.
The long awaited 2009 release Black Cascade had many people, including myself, wondering if it could own up to Two Hunters – the sprawling second release from Wolves In The Throne Room. Glorified by critics, embraced by both indie rockers and black metal enthusiasts, Wolves’ majestic soundscapes, beautiful and dark, has flowed into the ears of a rather unique audience of all sorts.
I’ll be honest, even though I am a big fan of Norwegian metal in general, Norwegian black metal especially, I haven’t really cared for anything Satyricon has done since Rebel Extravaganza. The whole “black ‘n’ roll” thing they have adopted really makes my stomach turn… but there’s something about this record I really dig.
The warmest weekend of 2009 so far may not have been an appropriate backdrop for an evening of Canadian black metal featuring Monarque and Csejthe at the Annex Wreck Room.