I am calling this new genre post-black-metal. It is the spirit and mood of black metal, the rhythms of 1980s EBM and industrial, the samples and collage technique of martial industrial, the atmosphere of neofolk, the sweeping epic point of view of soundtracks, and that sense of world music evoking the spirit of ancient tribalist folk songs from Europe that Dead Can Dance had going. Mix all this together, and you get a new genre which has a few members such as Kreuzweg Ost, later Burzum, Arcana, Lord Wind and even the Beherit ambient albums.
This is a natural progression for black metal. It admitted its 1970s synthpop and ambient cosmic music influences. Even more, it was influenced by Danzig’s Black Aria and other soundtracks like those from Vangelis and Basil Poledouris. Metal itself was influenced by the soundtracks to 1960s Italian horror cinema. Beherit put out two ambient albums, Burzum two, and Darkthrone released its Tangerine Dream tribute band Neptune Towers. Even Emperor released that keyboard version of “Inno a Satana,” and Ildjarn put out three ambient landscape music albums. It’s in black metal’s blood, and with the end of the innovation of the style itself in the mid-1990s, the bands turned to the next step. More instruments, longer songs, more modes, more complexity.
Rolling on the success of bands such as Blood Axis and Lord Wind, the newest entry into this field is Winglord, a Scandinavian produce that hopes to rebirth the ancient spirit of Europe through synth-piano music. As mentioned above, it’s poppy like old Ministry or VNV Nation, but it has more musicality going on, like a Dead Can Dance track. It’s easy to listen to and yet melancholy, yet brings forth a message of not “small hopes” in the way modern music is “uplifting” but does nothing about the larger crisis of living in an insane and dying society, but instead shows us a way we can conquer the disease of this time. First in our hearts, then in our minds, then with our hands. It’s inspiration not through external forces, but through a sense of power, which is where it is most like black metal.
These tracks are built on a foundation of martial industrial and industrial dance (EBM). Verse-chorus loops are broken by interludes; layers extend melodies with different conclusions and beginnings. Melodies themselves, in a manner much like the way Summoning expands its riffs into soundtrack-style phrases, unfurl from lush keyboard layers into linear variation which then outlines the themes of each songs. It’s highly organized however which makes the entire listening experience a controlled, evocative process.
The Chosen One is a huge improvement over earlier Winglord, and shows us one future for this genre. It doesn’t aspire at all to the trends and individualistic ego-drama of the modern time. Instead, it creates for us a vista of a land outside of time, in which eternal values obliterate all of our temporal concerns, and lets us get lost and swept up in this majestic wave of power. For those who like good music, and want to see some new motion in the underground, this is a vital and impressive undertaking to be enjoyed.
Winglord
The Chosen One
Arktos, 2012, 43 minutes, $17.
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Legendary cerebral primitive black metal cabal Beherit are on the move again. The new release, Celebrate the Dead, involves one song from the epic 2009 release Engram, and one song assembled from material prepared for that album. While information on it is scarce, rumor has it we see Beherit continuing the direction toward an ambient/metal fusion.
Midsummer’s sylvan possession will claim many lives tonight by drowning, stabbing, hanging and other morbid rituals that cloud the light of the greatest Finnish celebration. It can be said that the spiritual conflict between the barrenness of the Finnish urban life and the sudden plunge into the freshness of nature undertaken by most at this time of the year, combined with the gargantuan intake of alcohol, causes a temporary collapse of the veil of the civilization, when festivals end as festivals must. Under the deceptive tolerance of the society, dark depths boil and murderous impulses become sublimated thoughts. Some of these undercurrents were illuminated and analyzed almost as topics of transcendental philosophy in the dark contemplative statements of Finnish Death Metal, one of the strongest musical movements that ever arose from Finnish soil and also unarguably one of the strongest Death Metal scenes of the period. It is a testament to creativity that it’s still very hard to pin down a certain easily recognizable ‘Finnish sound’, but this does not mean a lack of mental images connecting them.
Visitors remembers the Western shores of Finland mostly from their warm summer days, windstorms and chilly nights of Autumn. The dunes of the shore of Yyteriare unique in the whole Scandinavian region while most of the towns carry relics of past industries but have failed to establish themselves in modern or digital age, remaining secluded communities with little vital attractions to the youngsters. Thus it is not surprising that towns such as the historic 
What force in the inner core of man gives birth to 
Valkeakoski
The good news is that it’s more clearly Vikernes writing this record. His previous voice, like his previous actions, seemed to get swallowed up by the notions of his “advisors.” As a result, previous albums did not sound at all like something he touched at all with his personality. This album re-engages his soul a bit more but remains a deliberate use of his talent to produce something cut to form, and the form is what is dictated by the audience. The result is to repeat the error of modern society over again: the people are led by economics or politics, instead of the other way around. While song structures vary somewhat, Umskiptar is designed around the verse-chorus model with melodic choruses and rhythmic, upbeat verses. Like many pasted-together projects, these are united with chromatic fills or conventional devices borrowed out of classic metal. While this album is not as cynically manipulative as the new Napalm Death, for example, it falls short of what made Burzum great, which was an innovative thinker opening up his mind and creativity to the audience. Like his mentor Tolkien, he took people on an adventure with what was and might be again. With Umpskiptar, the listener feels as if he is in one of those Disney-ride type “folk metal” bands that is mostly rock music with folk touches. Bands have been doing this since the 1970s… it has never succeeded, because people regress to the mean and in this case, it’s the archetype of rock and not folk. Vikernes’ early influences come out here, with muffled-chord riffs that sound straight off the first Destruction LP and what sounds like Iron Maiden influences. Musically, it’s adept enough that no part is offensive, and his use of three-part riff clusters as in traditional music is much appreciated, but it doesn’t add up. The whole is not greater than the parts and no atmosphere is created, thus the whole time we are aware that we are modern consumers listening to a modern musical product. Further, the riffs, tempi, themes and transitions are very similar, which in the absence of prior atmosphere does not cause a deepening but a sensation of floating on the surface. Many of the vocal tracks are entirely chanted in the death metal voice, which creates a ludicrous sensation of being yelled at by a drunk guy on the subway. By the time we get to “Valgaldr,” which sounds like an outtake from a bad stoner doom metal album, the lack of energy going into this album is evident. It’s ridiculous to expect an older musician to recapture his younger days. However, it’s equally ridiculous to sabotage a good musical brand by turning it from something rare and brilliant into something pedestrian with interesting “touches” and “accents.” That cuts to the real problem with this album and all post-jail Burzum: they’re boring. Not unmusical, but sparse in density with songs obviously patched-together “to be a song” and not to have any voice of its own. The new crop of teenagers he wants to sell albums to may enjoy this but it’s not distinctly better than its competition enough that it will endure as anything other than an SKU#.
In rock ‘n’ roll, it’s better to die young. Even that is a cliche, but so is rock itself. Formed when corporate investors found a way to combine blues, country, folk and pop into a single product, rock has no real soul and so it pretends. The result is a parade of cliches and you hope that if you change the order enough, you become the next Jim Morrison or Morrisey. The sad truth is that rock bands come in two types: the ones who have three albums worth of good ideas and then burn out, and the ones who make the same song over and over again when they run out of energy. If a teenage version of yourself ever walked into a record store and spotted the guy with thinning hair, faded tattoos, and a bunch of stories and even more excuses but no accomplishments, you know what the new Napalm Death is. This is the sound of exhaustion pretending it has vitality for long enough to sell the slop to the kids and move on. The songs are built around the same tired chord progressions, which are barely even progressions in any sense except chromatic patterns at convenient places on the fretboard. The rhythms and riff ideas come from past Napalm Death albums, with a few influences borrowed from older death metal scattered throughout. On top of this, the aged suit-wearing corporate rock Napalm Death throws a single “outside” nuance per song. One tries to imitate the noise/avant-jazz of the early 1990s. Another is halfway to being a Rite of Spring tune. Still another apes the blur-core aesthetic of the new style of grindcore. Others try to return to the bouncy glory days of Fear, Emptiness, Despair or Utopia Banished. Underneath the skin however there is a total lack of ideas or even the guts to just go ahead with something that feels right. This is a cynical, manipulative album hiding a plastic soul which just wants your cash. In aging into oblivion instead of dying young as rock heroes, Napalm Death have made a mockery of everything they stood for. By wrapping this in a trendy surface and trying to pull the works of classic death metal over them like a camouflage mantle, Napalm Death have created a gateway into this genre from the soulless and burnt-out. You have made us all hipsters. Avoid this horrible album.
Melba toast has a crunchy exterior, yet turns soft in your mouth. Lightly toasted, it is sweet upon contact with saliva, and will never upset your digestion. In fact, it is like baby food, except that it is crunchy. The new Terrorizer is baby food, true, but it’s awesome baby food. The band have focused not on innovation, not on a nifty surface, and definitely not on topic, since they’re beating the dead couch of the zombie album. What they did do was make something that’s easy to digest but unlike almost all metal released at this time, it’s coherent. Riffs fit together and make sense, even if a kind of pidgin. Rhythms mate effortlessly yet have enough variation to give depth to the compositions. Much of this is pure chromatic, but it captures the momentum of a good riot or fistfight. As a result, it’s easy to listen to and yet maintains its intensity throughout. If you can get over expecting something of emotional profundity like World Downfall, and instead look for the Terrorizer equivalent of Napalm Death’s Fear, Emptiness, Despair (or even Aura Noir’s Black Thrash Attack), you will find in this album a guilty pleasure. It throbs with aggression and yet by not attempting anything too complex, always manages to deliver. There is no attempt here other than to make an energetic, fun, musically-competent grindcore album and Hordes of Zombies rages supreme in this area. Oddly the only new influences seem to be a later Swedish death metal melodic tendency, and a study of riffs from the recent post-death metal era in which the punk riff and the recycled speed metal riff have crept back in. Wisely however Terrorizer keep their music extremely basic, along the lines of the first Brutal Truth album, but give it compelling rhythms and an underlying furor that makes us tune in to see how such violence can also be so much fun to listen to.
We were fortunate enough to hear a preview of the new 2012 album from Texas doom/death occult conjurers DIVINE EVE. The result is resonantly good: further developing the sounds of their last EP, Vengeful and Obstinate, the band have filtered their classic material through its own influences and brought out a stronger, clearer version.
