By the time black metal and death metal made it back, the actual inspirations — Slayer, Hellhammer, Sodom, and Bathory — were almost forgotten in a rush toward the new style that was birthed from combining their approaches. Now the history fleshes itself out a bit.
115 CommentsTags: Bathory, Black Metal, book, jose luis cano barron, pagan records
For those of us who have never been Deep Purple fans, the following analysis of their roots shows us the utility of classical music in making great heavy metal:
11 CommentsTags: Bathory, burzum, Classical, classical music, deep purple, Heavy Metal
Blood Fire Death: The Swedish Metal Story
by Ika Johannesson and Jon Jefferson Klingberg
240 pages, Feral House, $19
As we get past the glory years of underground metal — roughly 1987 to 1994 — more histories are emerging such as Blood Fire Death: The Swedish Metal Story which came out two years ago and presented itself as a history of Swedish underground metal. It achieves that and more, but falls short of its ultimate mission, which is to explain Swedish death metal and black metal, world-renowned for their intelligence and intensity.
8 CommentsTags: Bathory, entombed, mayhem, Sweden, Swedish Black Metal, Swedish Death Metal, swedish metal, underground metal
Part VI – Hammerheart
The crown-jewel of this album is titled after the previous record, Hammerheart and uses epitaphial lyrics by Quorthon over the music of British composer Gustav Holst. It summarizes the affinity between Bathory and classical music by being a tribute on metal’s compositional heritage and romantic roots, but also going beyond that; it summarizes the beauty of self-sacrifice, a Viking funeral on the eschaton of human existence. Our analysis ends here.
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Part V – Nostos
In Nomine Satanas. One of the greatest black metal songs that have ever been or will ever be, a few parallel vocal movements of fifths is transformed into a hymn to love, sojourn and homecoming: Bond of Blood. This is a beautiful song. It celebrates two things:
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Part IV: The Spiritual Significance of Struggle and the Mountain
“The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest: asceticism becomes in them nature, need, and instinct. Difficult tasks are a privilege to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation. Knowledge-a form of asceticism. They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not preclude their being the most cheerful and the kindliest.”
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Part III: Man and his place in the Cosmos
Perhaps the most anthropocentric song by Bathory. And this is a good thing, since this is not the humanism of egalitarianism and mediocrity, it is rather a vision of mankind’s destiny and potential that should find a good use to our technology and knowledge. This destiny shall propel us towards the stars!
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Part II: The Gods
Through Blood By Thunder was considered to become the title of the album. A song with an intro that picks elements hinted at by Twilight of the Gods, herein the godless period of darkness is succeeded by a dithyramb of religious fervor, the lyric ‘there is no thrones up in the sky’ is supplanted by ‘my father’s gods, I’ll die for you’ and blood becomes a crucial element in this loose epic poem, namely the ‘bond of blood’.
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(Join Ionnas in this six part epic that will reveal the secrets of one of metal’s greatest treasures)
Part I: Bathory and the Prophecy of the Seeress
In this album analysis, we shall surf the Kali Yuga in quest for the essence of metal, the journey of the human Will from its twilight, through the dithyrambic ecstasy of life’s passion for death. It is truly, a fitting companion through the Age where God is Dead.
Our aim is to find what makes music great, and if we do, we might be able to unveil what makes metal music great. In the end, perhaps we shall manage to see what elements in metal can enhance our lives.
Tags: Bathory, hammerheart, quorthorn, ultimate analysis
This article attempts to pseudophilosophize on religious awe and its connection to black metal through the analysis of two songs that are connected beyond time. Herein, we shall Enter the Eternal Fire and Walk the Infernal Fields in pursuit of the archetype of the first romantic hero, that is, Satan. (more…)
8 CommentsTags: Bathory, Bridge of Death, darkthrone, enter the eternal fire, manowar, nietzsche, Paradie Lost, Satan, walk the infernal fields, will to power
