War Art Productions is reissuing the first three Immortal albums – Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism, Pure Holocaust, and Battles in the North, – on cassette.
28 CommentsTags: Black Metal, compact cassette, hipster bullshit, immortal, news, norway, Norwegian Black Metal, reissue, reissues, war arts productions
Emperor announced on their Mark Zuckerbook page that they are playing their second album, Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, at the 2018 Inferno Metal Festival in Oslo, Norway.
1 CommentTags: anthems to the welkin at dusk, Black Metal, cash grab, emperor, festivals, ihsahn, inferno metal festival, news, norway, Norwegian Black Metal, oslo, samoth, upcoming shows
Norwegian black metal band Ancient are touring Latin America later this year. Latin American headbangers should check them out. Hopefully Ancient will play none of the godawful black ‘n’ roll that came after Trolltaar.
1 CommentTags: Ancient, black 'n roll, Black Metal, latin america, Norwegian Black Metal, South America, tour dates, upcoming tours
Ancient‘s last hurrah, the Trolltaar EP, has been reissued by Sleaszy Rider Records with three bonus live tracks from 1993 according to the band’s Facebook page. Trolltaar saw Ancient develop cyclical simple Enslaved style riffs into extended black metal epics inspired by the virtuosity of longer 1970s popular progressive rock songs from Yes, Pink Floyd, Camel, and Led Zeppelin. Ancient were one of the few death or black metal bands inspired by popular rock music where the mass-market inspirations did not render them impotent as a metal band at least at first. Ancient, lacking a truly distinct riffing style of their own, eventually ran out of ideas and decided to play Hot Topic rock after Svartalvheim and Trolltaar but that is a topic for another time.
5 CommentsTags: Ancient, black 'n roll, Black Metal, compact disc, norway, Norwegian Black Metal, progressive rock, reissue, sleaszy rider records, trolltaar
Darkthrone‘s second album, A Blaze in the Northern Sky, turns twenty-five today. For much of the mid 90s, Darkthrone constantly referred to A Blaze in the Northern Sky as their first album as it was the first commercially released record to adopt the quick and dirty “necro” production style and to have been part of the Norwegian black metal second wave initiated by Mayhem. However most of the individual musical inspirations were audible on their prior Soulside Journey album recorded at Sunlight Studio; the compositions on A Blaze in the Northern Sky were just much more sparse and droning due to different overall compositional goals reflecting the shift from progressive death metal riff mazes to minimalistic Hellhammerism.
24 CommentsTags: a blaze in the northern sky, anniversary, Black Metal, darkthrone, death metal, fenriz, nocturno culto, norway, Norwegian Black Metal, Norwegian Death Metal
The music of Emperor is commonly misconceived by the mainstream metal media and certain YouTube clowns to be merely an atmospheric wall of sound or symphonic black metal orchestration engineered for superficial, surface level aesthetic appeal to an audience atypical for black metal. This is in fact not the case. In the Nightside Eclipse is just as perplexing to typical headbangers on first encounter as it was upon release in 1994. Mainstream audiences are even more flabbergasted and regard the record as a mere curiosity produced by those murderous church burners, preferring Emperor’s more rock-structured later work such as Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, which abandoned the band’s signature riffing style and method in exchange for ones influenced by more stereotypical Norwegian B-listers such as Enslaved and Kvist. Emperor did eventually sell out, becoming technical guitar wank, rock-structured heavy metal after their rhythm guitarist Samoth and drummer Faust were imprisoned in 1994 and their songwriting influence subsequently waned. Yet In the Nightside Eclipse‘s hymns to Satan and Sauron remain as natural mutations of their metallic predecessors’ attempts to imitate horror scores and classical music’s overwhelming power of sublimity.
50 CommentsTags: bard faust, Black Metal, emperor, ihsahn, in the nightside eclipse, j.r.r. tolkien, music analysis, norway, Norwegian Black Metal, samoth, tolkien, tolkien metal
Gorgoroth‘s Destroyer is being reissued next March on LP and CD by Soulseller Records according to a post of theirs on the Nuclear War Now! Productions forum. Jon “Metalion” Kristiansen, author of the legendary Slayer zine, has written new liner notes.
2 CommentsTags: Black Metal, compact disc, destroyer, gorgoroth, norway, Norwegian Black Metal, reissue, soulseller records, vinyl
Varg Vikernes expressed how he felt about tributes to Burzum and the toxicity of the Norwegian black metal scene centered around Euronymous of Mayhem in a new black metal history video to this ThuleanPerspective Youtube channel. Varg stated that the tribute bands are creatively inspired by him:
86 CommentsTags: Black Metal, burzum, Euronymous, metal history, norway, Norwegian Black Metal, varg vikernes, youtube
While the sundered remnants of Immortal are trying to go their own ways (Abbath released a solo album, the rest of Immortal promises one later in 2016), Nuclear Blast Records is taking advantage of their rights to the Immortal back catalog by reissuing Pure Holocaust and At The Heart of Winter on vinyl. We’ve written about the strengths of Immortal’s early work in the past, and even the more streamlined and accessible At the Heart of Winter has its charms, so it should go without saying that the content of these reissues is valuable. Currently, the vinyl records are only available through Nuclear Blast’s German-language storefront, and not officially available until March 18th. German speakers might want to get in on this opportunity early.
10 CommentsTags: At the Heart of Winter, Black Metal, immortal, Norwegian Black Metal, nuclear blast records, pure holocaust, reissue
Mayhem recently announced that they would be headlining Temples 2016 in Bristol, England. Perhaps more interesting is that this is going to be the first time that any lineup of the band has performed De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in its entirety. Since the current lineup of Mayhem relies on Attila Csihar for its vocals and contains two other musicians from the band’s early ’90s lineups (Necrobutcher and Hellhammer), odds are this is going to sound pretty close to the studio version of DMDS. Regardless of your preferences for Mayhem vocalists (I very much value Attila’s contributions to the album) and recordings, bootlegs, whatever, the band’s performance at Temples is probably a better novelty than the band’s recent studio albums.
5 CommentsTags: 2016, attila csihar, Black Metal, de mysteriis dom sathanas, live shows, mayhem, Norwegian Black Metal, temples festival
