Impaled Nazarene - Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz... (1993)^{Release ID: 7206}

I recall thinking Impaled Nazarene were cool back in 1993 when I was 16 years old. They brought a certain tasteless, hardcore nastiness to black metal that appealed to my teenage mindset. But over the years I've come to see the band as more and more of a joke and found less and less things to enjoy on these early albums. When I listen to Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz these days, all I can hear is repetitive structures, high levels of immaturity and cheesy imagery, with the occasional entertaining track. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I think as my musical development expanded over the years, the more this style of music lost its appeal.

Impaled Nazarene do indeed play black metal, but it's massively infused with punk attitude. It's relentless in its approach and all starts to sound the same very quickly. One of the bands strengths is also its weakness, being Mika's vocals. His style is immediately recognisable and at first his raspy, venomous shouting seems to work well over the repetitive riffs and constant barrage of drumming. But he just does the same thing over and over on every track until it becomes extremely tiresome. When combined with all the cheesy backing sound effects (including admittedly humorous goat noises), crappy "Satanic" roars and pointless 20 second tracks, I find it very hard to take any of this even remotely seriously. A lot of reviewers below use words like evil, hatred, Satanic etc., but there is nothing very dark or evil about Impaled Nazarene because it's entirely a piss-take. Just as Venom did in the early 80's, these Finnish youths are clearly just having a laugh and that's apparent in the result.

Could any list of 'essential' FInnish BM releases be complete without the first full length venture of Impaled Nazarene present? Not that this is an easy listen by any means, even for the most extreme-loving metalhead, 'Tol...' is a full on assault that takes some unpicking before you can recognise the dexterity behind the slashes and blows it deals.

Upon first hearing this some five years ago, I immediately dismissed it. Not because of the sound but more due to the structure of the album. It had no flow, no cohesion and no rationale as a result. The fact is that this is one of the main raison d'etres of the record. This isn't meant to be an orderly, structured affair. 'Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz' is supposed to be an explosion of chaos, a nailbomb of perverse occult worship detonating in the ears of the listener. Nobody was ever supposed to feel comfortable listening to Black Metal and in that regard this delivers. 'Tol...' is one ugly looking, sounding and feeling motherfucker of a record. 

If you need structure in your life then the only comparison I can think to give is to say that 'Tol...' is put together like a grind record. Short, sharp and abrasive bursts of musicality are interspersed with horrifying sounds of ritual sacrifice, occult procreation and hellish mantras. It is perhaps metal's one and only BM/Grind album in structure at least. It is cluttered to say the least yet the jumble and litter all has relevance and contributes to the aesthetic well.

It's claustrophobic, demented and at times downright terrifying. Yet somehow the mix lends the drums and vocals centre stage (on the actual music tracks) and as a result the traditional cold feel associated with BM is somehow warmer in atmosphere, like some vigorous worship is in constant performance against a backdrop of intense flames. The production job is actually quite good considering the genre and year this was released in. Although raw sounding, the uptempo pace of the tracks are solidified superbly by the drums and vocals being pinned at the core of the sound giving them more depth than the abrasive riffing might suggest available. At times it sounds like a death metal record but its delivery is recognisably BM, dripping with misanthropy and hatred throughout.

There is question about how seriously Impaled Nazarene should be taken with some identifying them as a band merely making a parody of the BM scene (they even stopped wearing corpse paint after deeming it "too trendy"). Regardless of the meaning behind the intent of the artist, 'Tol...' delivered a wake up call to the BM scene in 1993 that continues to alienate and astound new listeners in equal measure to this day.