Kam Lee, former vocalist of Mantas/Massacre and former editor of Comatose Zine, has contributed art for the official Glorious Times tshirts printed for fans of the book and the time period. The shirts are white print on black and feature the Glorious Times stencil logo and art on the front.
We have covered Glorious Times in the past, but for the newcomer, it is a book of retrospectives by people who were active in the death metal underground from 1984 to 1991, which were the formative years of the genre and its earliest internal differentiation. Featuring many rare photos and perspectives, Glorious Times helped kick off the current retrospective view of the old school death metal scene that has brought many bands out of hiding and seen many classic recordings and publications re-issued.
An ex-Absu member in this band means that comparisons to Absu will be inevitable. However, Absu is basically a death metal band (Barathrum V.I.T.R.I.O.L.) who morphed into a Mercyful Fate-styled heavy metal band with black metal vocals and technical death metal drumming and vocals. The Black Moriah evokes the best of that style by bringing us a more Americanized version of the underlying speed metal that Mercyful Fate made famous (Don’t Break the Oath being its classic) with modern black metal vocals and straightforward death metald drumming.
What is great about The Black Moriah is that these songs preserve what has always separated heavy metal from the rest, which is its ability to tie riffs together and then reduce them to an entirely new statement through a concluding riff. Most of the riffs that form the body of each song are umptempo tremolo-strummed shorter riffs etching out brief melodies suspended in chromatic fills, but these set up each song for concluding material that transforms similar melodies and creates a radical shift in context. The result brings out what death metal did best, which was like H.P. Lovecraft stories evoke new worlds out of the mundane.
Casket Prospects shows us the basis of this band’s vision and where it can improve. Its unfortunate choice of name will lead most people to think The Black Moriah is a metalcore act; further, its similarity to Absu will be appreciated by many but also puts The Black Moriah in a difficult competitive position as an underdog. Also, what The Black Moriah is trying to do is in general a hard sell, since the speed/heavy metal audience has differentiated out into power metal which has driven the death metal audience further apart. However their style evolves, this band have shown a strength in songwriting that will take them far if they can get the aesthetic elements in line.
To partake of underground metal in the current year is to keep eyes open for new possibilities. Because this is underground — meaning-first and surface appeal later, where everyone else does it the other way around — music, this requires looking past early limitations to see if a band has the outlook required. This worldview is a desire to make music in the true metal spirit, with a personal voice that reveals vastly impersonal truths.
Under our eye for some time has been Colombian band Cóndor, whose album Nadia represents a good future path for metal that is both innovative and true to the ideals and lifestyle of metal since its inception. It’s underground, so it isn’t groovy, crowd-friendly, slickly produced or designed to appeal ironically. It is exactly as it represents itself, and clearly thrives from bonding its metallic influences with a unique view of the world.
Checking in with Cóndor, we found the band clarifying its vision and intent and also, planning for the future. As is the nature of underground music, this band exists in the interstices of official tasks and required acts of life, filled in with spare moments and sheer will. We were lucky to get a brief update from the band as they barely pause in their quest to become known.
When was Cóndor founded, and what music influenced you? Did you have a plan, stylistically or otherwise?
Cóndor was founded in late 2012. The plan from the outset was to create narrative heavy metal and to have the lyrics deal with the collapse of Western civilization viewed from the vantage point of the great grandchildren of the Conquistadors. Musically we were influenced mostly by the early work of melodic metal bands in various subgenres, such as Amorphis, At the Gates, Mournful Congregation, Sacramentum, Candlemass etc.
Do you have other non-metal or non-musical influences?
Non-metal influences are limited mostly to the realm of romantic classical music, particularly 20th century “nationalist” composers such as Sibelius, Smetana and Vaughan Williams. As far as non-musical influences, the work of J.R.R. Tolkien heavily influences our music, and our lyrical/conceptual outlook is indebted to the conception of time as destiny present in the works of Oswald Spengler and Martin Heidegger. The most important influence however is the landscape of our native region, and the story of our Spanish forefathers, to which we are heirs.
How long had you all been metalheads? Or are you metalheads?
We all got into metal while very young, around the ages of 11 and 12. The level of individuals’ current dedication to metal varies within the band, some of us still being fully devout while others have drifted away, but metal was everyone’s path into music and we all share deep roots in it, thus why we chose it as a vehicle.
What’s the scene like in Bogotá? Is it hard or easy to be a metalhead there?
Even though it is an ever-growing community, unfortunately it is swarmed with people who are attracted merely by the metal aesthetic, or people who don’t really think about what they’re listening to. The same people that go to a black metal concert can then go to a metalcore one the day after, which leads one to believe all they get from listening to metal is fun, rebellious noise. After an initial rush of inspiration in the 80s local bands have since been mostly derivative and boring, which has led to widespread skepticism about newer bands. Add that to the fact that venues tend to be geared towards the 80s rock crowd and gigging locally becomes a hard and often fruitless endeavor. However there are many encouraging factors, for one the sheer amount of metalheads as well as the incredibly devout local medium of cult metal record stores, along with an increasing number of international bands who come around to play in the city. It’s worth mentioning that the scene had many classic bands when it was peaking in the late 80s/early 90s, such as Parabellum, Reencarnación, Kraken, Masacre, Kilcrops, Witchtrap and Acutor.
How did you write the songs on Nadia? Were they conceptual songs, or just kickin’ around some riffs?
Music and lyrics on Nadia were written simultaneously with a view towards creating a coherent atmosphere and a dynamic structure. The concept of the album pertains mainly to the question of identity and destiny in the modern world, viewed naturally through our particular vantage point as Colombians. However, many of the riffs are very old and were simply worked into the broader scheme of the album later on. The material on the album stretches back at least three years in some cases while some of it was written just weeks before recording.
Did your influences change for Nadia from past efforts? How much had you learned since your earlier recordings, rehearsals or live performances?
Nadia was our first effort, and the entirety of the album was written before the band ever played together in a room, so this is a tough question to address. As far as live performances we believe they must reflect visually what the audience is listening to. That’s why we use body paint and use elements such as the accordion and wine during shows, to create an experience that enhances the atmosphere and weltanschauung that is already inherent in the music.
What has response been like so far?
Nadia has received a limited, but largely positive response, which we weren’t expecting to be honest. Colombian record stores have been enthusiastic, though larger distribution has been lacking. A few people seem to really dig the album, which is encouraging.
What’s next? Will you record more, tour or rest awhile?
Album number two is currently in the works and we hope to record it in summer of 2014, which would imply an early 2015 release date. Touring is unlikely for now as the band has been scattered by collegial pursuits, but you never know…
If you had to pick the most important bands in the evolution of metal, how would you do it? What bands would be there?
This is a tough question… I guess the method would be to pick bands that innovated in a way that helped the genre evolve without compromising its boundaries and also managed to make albums that stand on their own as coherent and meaningful works. Clearly, the bands that have had a real significance are most often those with members who really understood what they were doing; this applies for both metal and non-metal bands alike. Unfortunately, most great bands have a good start and release one or two great albums, but then seem to lose their touch and limit themselves to appease their audience, without giving much thought to the composition process.
Obviously objectivity is unattainable in such an endeavor… So without further ado, the much desired, and highly subjective, name dropping: Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Manilla Road, Manowar, Mercyul Fate, Slayer, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Possessed, Bathory, Fates Warning, Helloween, Morbid Angel, At the Gates, Darkthrone, Enslaved, Thergothon, Beherit, Skepticism, …After this the real innovation stops and the tenets of the genre are pretty much established, but many significant works have been published since then by bands such as Sacramentum, Averse Sefira, Fanisk, Pallbearer, etc. Metal is alive and well; quality output is just a bit slower than in days of yore.
If people are interested in supporting Cóndor, how do they acquire your recordings and keep in touch with the new happenings with the band?
Nadia can be bought both digitally (for whatever price you want) and physically through our bandcamp page. People living in Colombia or Mexico are encouraged to contact us through our Facebook page or our email (condorbogota@gmail.com) to obtain a physical copy directly through a band member. To keep in touch with the band and its happenings follow us on facebook or send us an e-mail and we’ll add you to our mailing list.
Swedish black/death metal outfit Dawn returned from the chaos of the 2000s a year ago and have been steadily moving toward releasing new material since. In support of this, the band will be re-issuing its entire discography through Century Media in 2014.
Formed in 1990, Dawn migrated from the death metal of their early demos into a more complex, melodic, epic and atmospheric style of black/death metal that culminated in Slaughtersun – Crown Of The Triarchy in (1998). Along with Dissection, Unanimated, Eucharist and Sacramentum, Dawn created a hybrid of melodic metal styles that expressed Iron Maiden-style harmony and melodic within the more rigorous rhythmic format of underground death metal.
During the first half of 2014, Dawn‘s back catalog will finally be made available again on CD and — for the first time ever — on vinyl. Carefully re-mastered by Dan Swanö, who also mastered Sacramentum and Fleshcrawl classics, these re-issues feature re-developed artwork done with full cooperation with the band.
I say at the boundaries because this release, like early Sentenced or middle-period Therion, keeps one foot in the relatively accepted worlds of speed metal and heavy metal while another remains planted in the underground. Properly described, it’s a doom metal (of the heavy metal variety) hybrid with death metal.
The deathier aspects are embedded in mid-paced passages that show, in an odd twist for the genre, melodic development in both guitar and vocals, creating a sense much like that Dissection wielded of an inner core of beauty to a crashing heaviness. Slower doom riffing resembles both Cathedral and funeral doom bands to follow like Skepticism, although this would be considered uptempo.
Offsetting those elements are a number of harder-rocking numbers that use repurposed heavy metal riffs in a death metal context to deliver charging intensity at a faster pace. Many of these resemble the interstitial music between speed metal and death metal, like Slayer or Destruction. The melodic balances the spacier pentatonics and the crashing chromatic riffs that connect it together.
The result is a highly inventive album that showcases a study of metal riffing from the early 1970s onward, and by maintaining a doomy mood, expands death metal from raw riff interplay to a science of developing riffs in the context of a carefully planned mood shift in each song. This comes at the expense of the more expansive song structures which death metal could adopt by changing riffs every 24 seconds.
Vic Records has unleashed a quality re-release here with sound quality intact and no loss of detail, building on the strength of the original and delivering an improved experience. With luck this will allow a new generation to discover this often-overlooked (probably because of the misspelled name) German death metal band.
With the tragic early death of Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman earlier this year, it was inevitable that artifacts would unearth themselves, as has happened with the Seeds of Horror release. This album contains both demos for an unreleased concept album by Slayer and a demo from Hanneman’s side hardcore project Papsmear.
The Slayer demos involve material that mostly made it on to later albums but also contain some unreleased and unrealized material. Generally recorded with Hanneman on guitar and vocals and a drum machine for percussion, the demos include some conceptual material like the title track from which this CD/LP takes its name.
Seeds of Horror also contains extensive liner notes introducing each track as it was mentioned by the band in interviews and tracking the lineage of each song, many of which appeared in fragmentary form elsewhere (riffs and other concepts were recycled). Two of the Papsmear tracks will be familiar to any who have Slayer’s Undisputed Attitude. The full demo features Dave Lombardo as well as Rocky George from Suicidal Tendencies fleshing out the mix.
Generation X faced betrayal of the worst kind. Arguably the most intelligent generation produced since WWII, they were aware from early in life that their society was doomed. Even more, they knew why, and were children of parents who were militantly in denial of this fact and shamed and mocked their children for noticing the obvious. As a result, when you see a Generation Xer giving you the eye, don’t be fooled: it’s wary, paranoid and alienated. They are probably wondering to what degree you know you are doomed.
Hank Williams III comes from the dead heart of this generation, having been born in 1972 to the line of Hank Williams, which is as close as you get to musical royalty in the New World. Hank I was famous for simple yet poetic hymns which resembled folk songs with subtle melodic development. His material was far above the rest; Hank III, who facially resembles his grandfather, is trying to survive that legacy and thus made the sensible decision to stop the comparison and move his skills to hellbilly: a combination of punk, metal, rockabilly, 1950s rock and Gothic music.
Hank3’s A Fiendish Threat reminds me of the Misfits. It plays with 1950s rock tropes, inverting them to show the rottenness underneath social assumptions and customer service good graces. It is totally cynical and paranoid, seeing the death of hope creeping in through every vector, but still captures a cryptic sentiment of hope for a glimpse of the beautiful, even if the beautiful doomed, among the rotten industrial edifices that replaced the open fields of yore.
Three decades ago, on December 3, 1983, Slayer unleashed Show No Mercy upon an ungrateful world. This event changed more than one band’s future; it helped launch the next generation in metal.
Combining the fluid tremolo strum of hardcore punk with the melodic song structures of Iron Maiden and the angular, rhythmically precise riffing of Judas Priest, Slayer sculpted from raw elements the future of death metal. With the guitars freed from having to emphasize offbeats, riffs became more fluid and tended toward phrases, jazz-style, instead of bouncy percussion in the style of rock.
This broke metal free from much of what had kept it confined by allowing guitar to become the primary lead instrument in every sense. Rhythmically, melodically and in developing song structure, the guitar dominated and aligned every other instrument including voice behind it. The result was a new flexibility in songwriting that helped launch the genres death metal, black metal, grindcore and thrash.
In addition, Slayer converted heavy metal’s flirtation with the occult from a type of provocation to the easily offended, to a mythological view in which dark occult forces manipulated the weakest among humans in a quest for world destruction. They were thus able to symbolize the darkness, corruption and mental servitude they saw in the society around in the religious symbols of centuries before.
The result was a form of music more powerful and intense than anything before. The band came into their own on the following three albums, relying less on the heavy metal tropes from before and developing their own language in a proto-death-metal style. But it all began with Show No Mercy.
In conjunction with the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, heavy metal record label Century Media will hold a food drive at the label’s parking lot sale on December 7, 2013. Those who are not local or can’t make it can donate online.
If helping others for the holiday isn’t your only motivation, other benefits exist as well. USA residents who donate $20 or more will receive 20% off their CM Distro order between Jan. 1 and Jan. 31 and receive a free vinyl slipmat. If you attend, and bring one of the following items, you will receive a free gift courtesy of Century Media:
Canned protein (such as tuna, sardines, stews, and soups)
Peanut butter
Jelly
Canned fruits and vegetables
Fruit juices
Beans
Rice
Pasta
Personal care items (such as lotion, deodorant, and toothpaste)
There’s a seismic disturbance in the metal world. As the power of the internet winds up, the flood of information has increased to the point where people are searching for ways to reduce the data overload. As a result, they’re turning back toward zines, reviews and edited sites and away from crowd-sourced data and social media.
On the forefront of this change is Codex Obscurum, a formerly small but rising zine from the eastern coast of the United States. Staffed by volunteers, run on a non-profit basis, and dedicated to old school underground metal as well as contemporary developments, Codex Obscurum has won over its share of devotees.
We were fortunate to be able to catch a few words with Editor Kevin Ord, who has taken over the helm. He gave us the lowdown on changes at the zine and its future direction, as well as (at our interviewer’s insistence) some speculation on why zines are surging forward as the rest of media swarms and retreats in confusion.
Can you tell us a little about yourself, and how you got involved in underground metal?
I’m from Worcester, Massachusetts. I have a wife and three cats and I’m a paint contractor during the day and zine publisher at night. Like most kids in the 80s I got into metal through other kids in school with bands like Slayer and Metallica. I can pretty much thank Headbangers Ball for introducing me to underground metal. It was appointment television on Saturday nights. I also remember getting a copy of Pit Magazine in the early 90s and being obsessed with hearing what all of the bands in there sounded like. I was already a huge fan of horror movies so the art grabbed me right away.
I like to be able to hold something physical. I think a lot of people do. I want something that a kid might find in a shoebox in 10 years and say “I remember this; I’m going to reread it.”
What made you want to work with underground zines? Have you been a zine reader for long?
I wanted to work on an underground zine because I was sick of just bitching about stuff on the internet. I wanted to actually create something instead of always just tearing stuff apart. I’ve bought zines randomly for at least the last 20 years. Reading the Slayer Diaries book definitely motivated me to make Codex Obscurum better.
To you, what defines an excellent zine? Were there any favorites of yours from the past that you still turn to as examples of underground metal zine greatness?
I think variety defines an excellent zine. We have 12 different writers for Codex Obscurum and I think that variety of opinions and tastes makes it something everyone can learn something new from. I find out about things from my own zine I didn’t know about just because we have so many writers from different backgrounds. I still turn to the Slayer Diaries like I said. He had the advantage of being in the right time and place. But I think it’s an excellent record of a specific time in metal. Maybe one day Codex will also be a good record of metal in 2013. Who knows?
Are there advantages to the zine format that newfangled ways like Twitter and blogs do not offer?
You can read Codex Obscurum on the toilet a lot easier. I like to be able to hold something physical. I think a lot of people do. I want something that a kid might find in a shoebox in 10 years and say “I remember this; I’m going to reread it.” Stuff like blogs just seem so disposable.
What has changed in the three issues of Codex Obscurum? Have you and your team altered your approach based on this learning?
Our original editor had a substance abuse problem that we weren’t aware was as bad as it was. So he is now in treatment and will not be returning to the zine. So Steve and I have taken over formatting and printing Codex Obscurum. We got a lot of feedback on issue #1 and #2 and changed the zine a lot based on this feedback. The top priority was making the zine a lot more legible and easier to read. I think we achieved that with issue #3. I also wanted to make the zine less random and more focused on music. We tried to pack as much music content into #3 as possible. Getting support from artists like Mark Riddick and podcasts like Hellcast has also motivated us to make the zine better.
The top priority was making the zine a lot more legible and easier to read. I think we achieved that with issue #3. I also wanted to make the zine less random and more focused on music.
What’s the best way for someone to get ahold of Issue #3 of Codex Obscurum? What about for them to support the zine in intangible ways?
If someone wants to get ahold of the zine they can go to codexobscurum.bigcartel.com. The zine is $3 + S/h. If someone wants to submit their album or demo for review the can contact me at codexobscurumzine@gmail.com. If someone wants to support the zine just tell a friend. We like it to be done DIY.
