The North

A lot of Black Metal this year. An overflowing amount. Here's what I ended up with for a Top 10:

1. Funereal Presence – Achatius 

2. Serpent Column – Mirror In Darkness 

3. Saor – Forgotten Paths 

4. Obsequiae – The Palms of Sorrowed Kings 

5. Deathspell Omega – The Furnaces of Palingenesia 

6. Stormlord – Far 

7. Grima – Will of the Primordial 

8. Mgla – Age of Excuse 

9. Fen – The Dead Light 

10. The Great Old Ones – Cosmicism 

I really thought that I'd enjoy this more than Hammerheart, but by listening to them both back to back they evened out for me. Cleaning up the production for the guitar tone and drums makes Twilight of the Gods sound infinitely better than Hammerheart, but it also makes it lose that dirty edge that Bathory's old production had which helped to sell the Viking theme. Twilight of the Gods sounds like it's telling the tales of Gods rather than the mere mortals present on Hammerheart. The dirty old production is replaced with full and clean sounding guitar tones and bass rhythms, distant but bombastic sounding drums, and folky but powerful acoustics, creating a more familiar atmosphere for me in terms of viking and folk metal. 

While I don't think it should be overlooked and it has its place in the classic Bathory discography, I think that it's definitely missing something compared to Hammerheart or Blood Fire Death. With the entire album being rather low tempo and plodding, it loses a bit of its luster after the first three or four songs. It's very well written and certainly epic, but Hammerheart and Bathory's other albums had more spice to them. 

I'll have you know that kvlt evil metallers get cold feet too Ben. Do you think they really go to bed in leather & spikes? I'm pretty sure that Satan himself wears ugg boots whilst enjoying a nice cup of tea & a biscuit after a hard day of cursing people for eternity.

More from Necrobutcher on this topic:

“When I did that interview I was thinking, ‘What kind of moron fucking question is this?’ They didn’t have one fucking question about the new album, which we are out here to do, so I was like … what’s this line of questioning? Aren’t you over that now?

But yeah, OK, I’ll tell you straight up, I wanted to kill that fucker in the end. He … Imagine that somebody you think is your friend coming home and finding your other friend killed themselves and took pictures of their dead body. Who the fuck in their right mind would do anything like that? Everybody should have the little bit of intelligence to know that, that’s gotta be somebody completely stripped from empathy and normal emotions. And really a bad fucking person. But now he’s a fucking hero! And it’s like, OK, I’ve always talked good about him, never wanted to talk bad about the dead, but this has gone too far now. I mean, if the guy wasn’t killed, he would’ve gone to jail for many years for lighting up a church in Oslo. He’d be gone. He’d have been sued just like Varg Vikernes for 50 million NOK, so when he would be released from jail, he would never have a job, never own a car, own a flat, own a TV. He would be fucked with a capital F. He’s the big hero? No, he’s the big fucking asshole, that’s who he is. The betrayal — he betrayed his friends and the bad karma in the end came and took him. I never cried a tear for that guy. I was mad as fuck when he died, and what I told that journalist is when I read it in the morning paper, I headed straight home and cleaned my house for all the illegals. I was sure the cops were going to come home to my place next and that I was going to be a suspect. I didn’t know that they already knew who did it. 

“And I’ll tell you since we’re into this. Norway is a very small country. Varg Vikernes lit up a church, went to jail, they couldn’t get evidence, so they had to let him out. Big disappointment for the cops, a loss of prestige. So, they bugged his phone, bugged his apartment, everything. And he was plotting to kill Euronymous on the phone and everything, making an alibi on the phone. But of course, they knew everything! So, I was a little pissed at the cops later on because I’m thinking … they knew what was going on and they didn’t even stop it. This is very fucking bad, you know what I mean? The government was in on killing him. So, I never talked about it before, but now I’m thinking, since the government isn’t linked up to my ass now, it’s starting to get down to earth again. And that’s not the smart thing for me to do, to make enemies again now that I’ve cooled again, but it’s in me. I can’t help it. Anything that wronged me has to be right.”

It sounds like someone is looking to make a name for themselves in the naughty circle:

According to the New Zealand Herald, Jacob Lowenstein, the 28-year-old drummer for the New Zealand black metal band IGNI, has been charged with setting two Mormon churches ablaze. 

Lowenstein appeared from custody via audio visual link at Christchurch District Court today on two charges of arson and one of unlawfully taking a vehicle. 

The arson charges are in relation to fires at Mormon church buildings in Christchurch and Greymouth, which occurred two days apart in March.  

On March 11, a fire broke out in a building in Christchurch which was used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as a learning institution for tertiary students. 

 According to Stuff, the second fire at the church's Greymouth building on March 13 destroyed the chapel and caused enough damage for the building to need demolition.  

At the time, Fire and Emergency New Zealand fire investigator Sam Bugler said the fire destroyed about half of the church. 

Lowenstein and Declan MacInnes formed IGNI in 2016 at Jazz School in Christchurch. The band has released two full-length albums: "The Pale" (2017) and "This Must Be Hell" (2018). Both LPs were recorded at the school.

So he's in no way saying that he didn't do it. Only that he had a "good reason" for doing it, which the court didn't acknowledge. Yeah, that doesn't exactly evoke my sympathy.