Satyricon
Dark Medieval Times
[Moonfog]
After the two rather mediocre demos "All Evil" and "The Forest Is My
Throne", this was the first Satyricon full length album, and the first
on Satyr's own label Moonfog (FOG001), way before Satyr shaved his
head, artistically slided down into mediocrity, started calling
himself 'elite' in public and joined the ranks of the commercial
record industry. At the time it came out, it had quite an impact, and
although Satyricon can in no way be considered as foundational for the
genre (somehow Satyr seems to picture himself as one of the pioneers
of Black Metal, which is really embarrassing to see) it deserves much
of the praise.
First the most notable bad thing about it: Satyr simply is a lousy songwriter. Riffs are pasted in seemingly random strings, without any sense of flow or coherency. This gets really annoying in some parts, although the riffs themselves are excellent. It's the same problem Metallica's "..And Justice For All" suffered from: great riffs, lousy song writing.
But all of this is made up by the *incredibly* grim and vile guitar sound. I've got a quite extensive collection, but I can't think of any other Black Metal album with this, this ear-piercing load of buzzsaw, over-fuzzed stream of distortion. The whole album 'floats' on this sea of analogue, totally lifeless texture - play this album on headphones and you'll be amazed. Bass is very low in the mix, which only adds to the sick, vile trebly sound. Drums are done very well by Frost, with lots of those hihat triplets that would become the standard for mid tempo Norwegian Black and Viking Metal. The bass drum has a nice dry kick, the snare sound is surprisingly good, and the hihats are ticking along clearly audible. Satyr produced this album himself, and the result is outstanding. On top of that, his vocals sound great here- his later music might be crap, but Satyr has always been one of my favorite "generic BM" vocalists.
The album starts off with a 1:45m intro, sampled from When's "Death In The Blue Lake", climaxing into "Walk The Path Of Sorrow", which is simply amazing. Fast, grim and powerful Medieval Black Metal. Although almost the whole song is accompanied by synths, the whole atmosphere is way too vile to be compared to the hordes of mindless keyboardists that would soon swarm the genre with unnecessary semi-symphonic ear candy.
Sadly, not all songs live up to the first track's quality. The title track and "Into The Mighty Forest" are equally brilliant, but "Skyggedans" and "The Dark Castle In The Deep Forest" (cheesy song title alert!) are simply 'good', and "Taakeslottet" sounds suspiciously like a track from the worthless follow-up CD "The Shadowthrone". Easily the worst is the acoustic track "Min Hyllest Til Vinterland"; 4:30m of pure boredom: pointless pseudo-folky noodling on the acoustic guitar (Ulver shows how this is done well), and Satyr vaguely mumbling along like he does on his (way better) Wongraven CD. Filler material, although the pretentious title suggests other intentions.
In conclusion: get this. It may not be perfect, but it's very charismatic, and the great riffs and the incredible guitar sound and atmosphere make up for all the flaws in the song writing department, and this stuff is easily superior to the monotonous and way too happy "The Shadowthrone", the generic Gotenborg ripoff "Nemesis Divina" and that disaster "Megiddo". It's more worthwhile than virtually all the hopeless shit that's coming out of Norway these days. Five years since I got it I still play it regularly, and that is the sign of a truly great album.
Side note: "Dark Medieval Times" has a really crappy cover: a lousy b/w drawing of a horseman in front of a "Det Som Engang Var"-esque castle, which looks like it was drawn by a 12 year old.
© 1999 sybren
First the most notable bad thing about it: Satyr simply is a lousy songwriter. Riffs are pasted in seemingly random strings, without any sense of flow or coherency. This gets really annoying in some parts, although the riffs themselves are excellent. It's the same problem Metallica's "..And Justice For All" suffered from: great riffs, lousy song writing.
But all of this is made up by the *incredibly* grim and vile guitar sound. I've got a quite extensive collection, but I can't think of any other Black Metal album with this, this ear-piercing load of buzzsaw, over-fuzzed stream of distortion. The whole album 'floats' on this sea of analogue, totally lifeless texture - play this album on headphones and you'll be amazed. Bass is very low in the mix, which only adds to the sick, vile trebly sound. Drums are done very well by Frost, with lots of those hihat triplets that would become the standard for mid tempo Norwegian Black and Viking Metal. The bass drum has a nice dry kick, the snare sound is surprisingly good, and the hihats are ticking along clearly audible. Satyr produced this album himself, and the result is outstanding. On top of that, his vocals sound great here- his later music might be crap, but Satyr has always been one of my favorite "generic BM" vocalists.
The album starts off with a 1:45m intro, sampled from When's "Death In The Blue Lake", climaxing into "Walk The Path Of Sorrow", which is simply amazing. Fast, grim and powerful Medieval Black Metal. Although almost the whole song is accompanied by synths, the whole atmosphere is way too vile to be compared to the hordes of mindless keyboardists that would soon swarm the genre with unnecessary semi-symphonic ear candy.
Sadly, not all songs live up to the first track's quality. The title track and "Into The Mighty Forest" are equally brilliant, but "Skyggedans" and "The Dark Castle In The Deep Forest" (cheesy song title alert!) are simply 'good', and "Taakeslottet" sounds suspiciously like a track from the worthless follow-up CD "The Shadowthrone". Easily the worst is the acoustic track "Min Hyllest Til Vinterland"; 4:30m of pure boredom: pointless pseudo-folky noodling on the acoustic guitar (Ulver shows how this is done well), and Satyr vaguely mumbling along like he does on his (way better) Wongraven CD. Filler material, although the pretentious title suggests other intentions.
In conclusion: get this. It may not be perfect, but it's very charismatic, and the great riffs and the incredible guitar sound and atmosphere make up for all the flaws in the song writing department, and this stuff is easily superior to the monotonous and way too happy "The Shadowthrone", the generic Gotenborg ripoff "Nemesis Divina" and that disaster "Megiddo". It's more worthwhile than virtually all the hopeless shit that's coming out of Norway these days. Five years since I got it I still play it regularly, and that is the sign of a truly great album.
Side note: "Dark Medieval Times" has a really crappy cover: a lousy b/w drawing of a horseman in front of a "Det Som Engang Var"-esque castle, which looks like it was drawn by a 12 year old.
© 1999 sybren