Tag: Metal

Watain – TRIDENT WOLF ECLIPSE

Trident. Wolf. Eclipse. What comes to your mind when you think of these three words? I figure the album art comes pretty close to whatever that may be, and so does the music. Indeed, frontman Erik Danielsson cites these three words as the three main concepts that fuel the band’s creative output. I have to say that’s quite a unique combination of influences.

It never ceases to amaze me how thrash bands continue to innovate by bashing the same few chords over and over again. In this case, Watain even takes a conservative approach to doing so, using conventional harmonies and instrumentation. If you’re looking for innovation here, then, one can only point to their relentless energy. At points it’s as aggresive and violent as grindcore, but somehow they are able to maintain these jams for several minutes at a time. Amazingly, the music carries on for so long at such an intense dynamic that it can seem both chaotic and contemplative at the same time.

Hermóðr – Midnight Eclipse

hermodr

 

Hermóðr is the work of a Swedish guy named Rafn. He churns out low-fi black metal, playing every instrument one track at a time in what has to be his parents’ basement. The production quality—or lack thereof—can make this music hard to take seriously, and yet I remind myself that raw recording quality is actually sought after in this particular genre. Black metal is a peculiar sort of cultural phenomenon in Scandinavia, one wrought with murders among bandmates, violent suicides, and widespread church burnings throughout Norway in the ’90s. Where mainstream metal bands in America and the U.K. were faking their tough images just to get laid, these guys were genuinely evil. You know, just being evil for evil’s sake. And if you really want that kind of darkness to come out in your music, how much time would you care to spend making something sound slick and polished?

Today Rafn is continuing the tradition of a similar one-man-black-metal-band in Norway’s Burzum (a.k.a. Varg Vikernes), only I hope without the murder. He certainly is without a compressor, because the levels on the tracks are tragically unbalanced. Hey, consider it breaking new ground in the avant aesthetics of Scandinavian black metal.