The metal musician turned winemaker Sigurd Wongraven reported a brain tumor yesterday. While the tumor is currently benign, it has already caused him some health complications and may continue to do so, even if it doesn’t turn carcinogenic on him. The news was originally posted on his Instagram page and has triggered an outburst of sympathy from Satyricon fans throughout the world.
Satyricon earned some fame in the early-mid 1990s for their enthusiastic (if fairly disorganized) folk black metal sound. After some experiments with ambient music and guest performances with various other musicians in the Norwegian black metal scene, they eventually transitioned towards a more rock oriented style of music. Wongraven also ran Moonfog Productions, which besides releasing Satyricon’s albums also provided an outlet for many of Fenriz’s projects, including Neptune Towers, Isengard, and later Darkthrone.
Tags: 2015, Black Metal, black rock, news, satyricon, tumor
this is what you get from Satan for becoming mainstream.
Speaking of vocalists, anybody remembers Steve Grimmet?
How does this site´s faithful readership feel about Grim Reaper?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Py8hHFrYU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntty2OB_PYI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUMnf0fwUPw
Hope he gets better.
There should be an article about the Neptune Towers reissues. The excerpts from the unreleased album show Fenriz still had will left even around Total Death (which has its moments).
Total Death is an awesome fucking album! Also, a lot of it was written by Nocturno Culto. Specifically, the more melodic ambient stuff like “Majestic Desolate Eye” and “Blackwinged.” Fenriz did the more ’80s black metal-sounding songs like “The Serpent’s Harvest” and “Blasphemer.” It’s an unpopular statement to make around these parts, but Ravishing Grimness is pretty good as well, particularly the Culto songs like “The Claws of Time” and the title track. I enjoy Nemesis Divina as much as the next black metal asshole, but those two late Darkthrone albums and “To Walk the Infernal Fields” will always be my go-to for hearing some Nocturno Culto.
Those two Neptune Towers albums and the unreleased stuff are indeed great musical achievements. They were actually my entry point into the wonderful world of ’70s/’80s German electronic weirdness nearly a decade ago. The first Neptune Towers I heard was “First Communion. Mode: Direct” while on an airplane, looking out the window. The shift from Tangerine Dream-style long-form grinding ambiance to Kraftwerky shorter melodies happened at exactly the right time, and I was hooked from then on.