Ben's Reviews

It may not be essential given the eventual fate of these tracks, but Dusk is the start of something truly special.

diSEMBOWELMENT (yes, that’s how they wrote it and don’t ask me why) were a very dark and haunting death doom metal band formed in Melbourne, Australia in November of 1989. They’re a band I’m particularly proud of, as I consider them to be the very best thing to ever come out of my home country, at least from a metal music perspective. I don’t believe they ever performed live (they spoke about doing so but it never eventuated) and released very little material, yet their legacy is kept alive by an ever growing army of fans and continues to expand with sites like Rate Your Music continuing to spread the word. Originally consisting of guitarist/vocalist Renato Gallina and drummer Paul Mazziotta, these guys released a couple of demos, this EP, and one astounding full length album before calling it quits for reasons not completely known (at least I’ve never come across them). Often quoted as one of the instigators of the funeral doom metal movement, diSEMBOWELMENT created some of the slowest and most crushingly depressive music that the metal scene had experienced to that point. Significantly though, the band still managed to integrate blast beats and double bass kicking into it, resulting in a truly unique and fascinating sound that surprisingly hasn’t really been explored by many bands since. They are the truest form of death doom metal being a perfect combination of the two.

The Dusk EP is the first official diSEMBOWELMENT release, but it wasn’t always meant to be that way. Their first demo, which was recorded in September 1990 and titled Mourning September, had a fairly shoddy production and the band hadn’t quite nailed the despondent, alien atmosphere that would eventually make them so special. The second demo however, called Deep Sensory Perception into Aural Fate, was far more impressive from both a production and structural point of view. Almost all the pieces had come together by this point and the band had really found their distinct character. It’s worth pointing out that Jason Kells had joined the band as a second guitarist prior to the recording and it was these three members that produced the two tracks that made up the 26 minute cassette. The two tracks included were The Tree of Life and Death and A Burial at Ornans which are two of the tracks that would eventually make it onto the Transcendence Into the Peripheral full length album some two years later, albeit in superior form. The first two tracks on Dusk are the exact same recordings as the ones found on the above demo, but with a large adjoining section removed. Relapse, who clearly liked what they heard on Deep Sensory Perception Into Aural Fate and signed the band immediately, obviously felt there was no need to re-record anything and simply shortened them instead.

The more observant reader might be wondering how the inclusion of third track Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores, which would also end up on the eventual full length, came about given all of the above. The answer is that it was specifically recorded for Dusk in January 1992 and actually contains an altered line-up to the first two tracks. Matthew Skarajew came onboard for bass duties for the recording, meaning Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores is the only track on dusk to contain the complete diSEMBOWELMENT line-up. The track is the first example of the band utilising the very bizarre and immensely moving singular picked notes that overlay the distortion that would become more prominent on Transcendence Into the Peripheral, and is probably my favourite track by the band. Judging Dusk in its correct context would result in me giving it a very high rating, but it’s difficult to critique it objectively when experiencing it after years of listening to and adoring Transcendence Into the Peripheral. The recording is perfectly adequate and the tracks themselves would not be altered all that much before reaching their final forms, but there’s no pressing reason to listen to it these days. There’s also no real motivation to track this particular EP down when you can simply pick up the Disembowelment compilation released in 2005 that contains everything the band ever recorded. Still, this is the beginning of something very special indeed!

An even worse production than Live in L.A., but worthwhile for the focus on the Human era.

Usually it would be more than excessive for a band to release two live albums within a year, let alone within a fortnight as Death did in 1998. But these were not ordinary circumstances at all, with Live in Eindhoven ’98 being the second of two rushed CD/DVD packages released by Nuclear Blast in an attempt to raise some quick cash to assist Chuck with his fight against brain stem cancer. It’s also worth pointing out that unlike Live in L.A. (Death & Raw), which had an official release and is still available today, Live in Eindhoven was only ever obtainable through the Nuclear Blast mail-order system, and very quickly went out of print. As with the first release, Live in Eindhoven was never intended to be released in this raw and un-mastered state, but the urgent need for assistance far outweighed the need to improve the production of the recording. This concert was performed in May 1998 at the Dynamo Open Air in the Netherlands, and once again contains the same line-up that created The Sound of Perseverance. However, despite being released after Live in L.A., Live in Eindhoven was recorded seven months prior, which also happened to be a few months before Death’s last official album was released to the public. It would have to be one of the earliest concerts that this line-up performed and almost certainly the first time the fans in the audience had experienced the new tracks.

So how does Live in Eindhoven compare to Live in L.A.? Well, despite the production not being very good on Live in L.A., it’s actually even worse here. If you compare the same tracks off each release, it’s easily apparent that L.A. has superior clarity and is the better of the two from that point of view. Still, it’s far better than your average bootleg, with all members of the band being perfectly audible throughout and the undeniable power of the material coming across in no uncertain terms. The set list contains quite a few of the same tracks as the first release, but has less of a focus on The Sound of Perseverance and more on Human, which is perfectly fine by me given my preference for that period. In fact, the inclusion of Lack of Comprehension and Flattening of Emotions gives me a great reason to listen to Live in Eindhoven despite the lesser quality of the sound. There are still no tracks from Spiritual Healing to be found, but this time around Scream Bloody Gore is not represented either, which is a bit disappointing but understandable I guess. Given the inferior quality and shorter running time, combined with the lower availability and coverage of the Death discography, it’s hard to recommend Live in Eindhoven to all but the most fanatical of fans, particularly as the real purpose of the package has long been nullified with the tragic death of Chuck less than two month after its release.

News of Chuck’s death hit the metal scene extremely hard to say the least. After appearing to be improving and making decent progress on the second Control Denied album, things very suddenly made a turn for the worse. After taking a drug that was intended to combat the cancer, Chuck was extremely weak, and simply could not survive when pneumonia took hold. He died on December the 13th, 2001, and while it may have taken some weeks for the news to reach me, I have no shame in admitting that I cried on hearing it. I may never have known the man personally, but he was always a hero to me (and always will be), creating some of the most intelligent, groundbreaking and beautiful music that I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. I will always feel an element of sorrow when listening to albums like Human, Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic, which are up there with my favourite releases ever, but I will also remain forever grateful that Chuck dedicated his life to the form of music that I love so much, and that he helped transform it out of its primitive beginnings to the immensely creative and extraordinary state that it was in when he departed. I’m certain that as time goes on this gentle, talented soul’s work will be discovered by new generations of metal fans and that his legacy will live on for decades, despite the man himself being sadly absent. I take this opportunity to say once and for all, thank you Chuck! Your music will move and inspire me always. Rest in peace brother!

A raw and unpolished live package that still gives a real sense of the power and talent of one of metal's true legends.

The years following Death’s 1998 album The Sound of Perseverance were extremely tough for Chuck Schuldiner, his family and his fans. After finally finding a suitable vocalist (Tim Aymar of Primal Scream) to front his Control Denied project and recording a debut album called The Fragile Art of Existence, the tragic news that Chuck had been diagnosed with a brainstem tumour was released. The band’s planned tour was immediately cancelled and Chuck instead spent the next twelve months battling the disease while still attempting to write a second Control Denied album, which was to be called When Man and Machine Collide. Yet by 2001 his condition had deteriorated to the point where there was very serious concern that this legendary talent would not survive the illness, let alone have the chance to make more music. Whether Nuclear Blast (the label with both Death and Control Denied signed to their roster) were beginning to panic that they might lose the opportunity to release further material by either band, or whether they genuinely wished to assist the Schuldiner family is not entirely clear, but their decision to release two live CD/DVD Death packages in an attempt to raise money to assist Chuck was certainly a commendable one. The first of these packages was called Live in L.A. (Death & Raw) and was released on October the 16th 2001.

The first thing that needs to be made very clear about these live albums is that they were never intended to be released, at least not in this state. Recorded in 1998 with the same line-up that produced The Sound of Perseverance, neither album has been remastered or patched up in any way, shape or form. What you get in both instances is a very raw sounding Death concert with fairly crappy production and with some obvious mistakes on show, which probably doesn’t sound like a very worthwhile proposition. However, considering I find many live albums superfluous due to them sounding almost exactly the same as the studio releases, with no alterations in tracks and crystal clear mixes that give no real impression of the live environment whatsoever, I find these raw yet perfectly audible releases to be extremely refreshing. Not only do you get a real sense of what Death live must have been like when listening to Live in L.A. or Live in Eindhoven for that matter, the constant reminders that these guys are playing what is extremely complex death metal at high speed up on a stage in front of hundreds (if not thousands) of adoring fans make these discs valuable to any fan. That being said, it is a bit sad that Chuck never got to take part in the packaging and release of an official, premeditated Death live package the way he would have wanted it to be experienced.

Live in L.A. (Death & Raw) was recorded on December the 5th, 1998 at the Whisky in Los Angeles (obviously). As would be expected considering the line-up, there is definitely a large focus given to the more modern and progressive Death material as opposed to the comparatively simplistic, traditional death metal of early albums. With seven tracks off Symbolic and The Sound of Perseverance compared to a total of six selected from the bands first five albums (including none from Spiritual Healing), fans of the early material might be a bit disappointed with the lack of attention. Still, the fact that these guys, who were predominantly hired to play purely progressive metal for Control Denied, are cranking out versions of Zombie Ritual and Pull the Plug at all is something to be thankful for. As mentioned earlier, there are numerous little slip ups throughout the concert, with second guitarist Shannon Hamm in particular being a bit sloppy at times. Chuck is awesome as expected, but I do wish that he’d performed the vocals in the original style of each track, rather than all in the high pitched manner that he’d switched to for the last album. If you can accept the sub-par sound quality, Live in L.A. is an awesome example of a legend doing what he was born to do. I just wish these releases could have helped save Chuck’s life, may he rest in peace.

An impressive and highly progressive album, but one I struggle to connect with.

Death’s 1995 album Symbolic had been an astounding release that was pretty close to perfection when it comes to progressive death metal. Chuck had evolved each album in a fairly linear direction away from straight forward death metal, and with that album appearing to take the sound as far as it could go without falling out of the genre altogether, fans were left wondering just where he’d take things next. As it turns out, Chuck was wondering the same thing and in 1996, he put the band on hold to have a good hard think about the future of Death, if there was going to be one at all. During this hiatus, Chuck decided to form a very different band called Control Denied that would allow him to create more melodic and traditional progressive metal music. He once again handpicked a bunch of talented musicians from within the local Floridian scene, with the initial line-up containing Chuck (guitar and vocals), Shannon Hamm (guitar), Chris Williams (drums) and Scott Clendenin (bass). This line-up released a couple of demos that notably included tracks called Bite the Pain and Spirit Crusher, both of which would eventually become part of the next Death album. Chris would soon be replaced by drummer Richard Christy, and just when it looked like Control Denied were about to record a debut full length album, Chuck surprised all with an announcement. A new Death album was on the way, and it would contain the Control Denied line-up.

There were two main reasons why a new Death album was to be released prior to a debut Control Denied recording. Firstly, Chuck had decided that he wanted to concentrate on guitar for his new band and had begun the hunt for a suitable vocalist to take his place. The search was taking far longer than he anticipated with his first choice, Warrel Dane from Nevermore, too busy to commit to Control Denied. Secondly, Nuclear Blast agreed to sign up Control Denied only if Chuck released a Death album for the label first. This hardly seems to be the ideal basis for an album, with Chuck pretty much being forced into making it, rather than having honest inspiration to do so. There’s no doubt in my mind that this enforced element can be heard when listening to The Sound of Perseverance, but that’s not to say that it’s a bad album. While the death metal in Death had softened over the years, there was never any doubt which band you were listening to, even with almost entirely different line-ups on each release. This time around that’s just not the case, with only the occasional riff or lead reminding you that this is the same “band” that released albums like Human and Symbolic. The progressive element has been amped up to much higher levels and the more traditional death metal riffs are far less prominent, none of which is surprising when you consider the members of the band were never hired to play to death metal in the first place.

The more progressive metal style of The Sound of Perseverance is not the only thing that makes this album stand out from the rest of the Death discography. Chuck’s vocals have a much higher tone than on previous releases, approaching black metal-like screams while remaining completely intelligible. Chuck had stated that he was really tired of doing the lower growls night after night, which is one of the reasons he wished to move away from death metal for a while, so I can only assume he changed his style just for something different. The new vocals are not particularly bad, but I have to admit that I prefer his normal more guttural style much more, and find the shrieking to be a bit distracting in this musical context. While I’m talking negatives, I’ll also bring up what is probably my biggest gripe with The Sound of Perseverance, and that’s compositional flow. Albums like Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic were certainly adding progressive elements to the Death sound, but this aspect never got in the way of the smooth, organic song structures. Never did I feel that the obviously highly technical musicianship or complex shifts were there purely for show, and everything utilised served a purpose within each track’s framework. That’s just not the case on what would unfortunately be the last Death album, with plenty of jarring transitions and every member of the band showing their skills at times when the album just doesn’t require it.

Even with these personally annoying factors, The Sound of Perseverance is undoubtedly still an entertaining album. The musicianship is truly impressive and from a purely technical perspective, there are not too many albums out there that could match it. Every track has moments of sheer brilliance with crushing riffs, exquisite leads and some fantastic drumming from the very impressive Richard Christy. The majority of the album’s highlights occur in the first half with Scavenger of Human Sorrow, Bite the Pain and the wonderful Story to Tell containing the most fluent and consistently enjoyable structures overall. The closing Judas Priest cover Painkiller is a relatively kick-ass version of a classic track, but as is usually the case with covers, it contains a distinctly different feel to the rest of the album that once again disturbs the flow that is normally present on everything Chuck touches. It’s not surprising to me that there are many out there that consider this the finest Death album, as it would undoubtedly have drawn a whole new crowd to the band. Its rating on this site alone is high enough to suggest my slight disappointment with The Sound of Perseverance is very much in the minority. Four stars may not seem harsh in any way, but given I rated the three previous Death albums a full five star rating with no hesitation, that should be enough to imply where I position this album when it comes to the history of one of the very best bands to ever exist.

The absolute pinnacle of intelligent, gripping metal. Symbolic is Chuck's masterpiece!

At this stage of the Death discography, it’s not surprising in the least to find that there’s a new line-up involved. The revolving door policy seemed to spin even faster once Chuck decided to hire mercenary musicians to perform on each album, rather than try to find a stable, permanent line-up. Individual Thought Patterns had taken Death’s music to new progressive and technical heights, thanks in no small part to the talented musicians involved. But when it came time to enter the studio to record album number six, drummer Gene Hoglan was the only part of that team available to assist. Bassist Steve DiGiorgio, being the band-whore that he is, was seemingly committed to about twenty other bands at the time, and King Diamond’s mid nineties resurrection meant guitarist Andy LaRocque couldn’t help out this time either. Chuck would find a replacement guitarist in his old high school acquaintance Bobby Koelble, who had more experience in jazz (he’s now a jazz guitar professor at Rollins College, Florida) than he did in metal music. For bass guitarist he would hire another underground Floridian named Kelly Conlon. Whether these unfamiliar names could come close to matching the performances of stars like DiGiorgio and LaRocque was questionable, but Death’s new configuration entered the studio with another entirely Chuck Schuldiner composed album on paper, ready to go.

Any concerns about the personnel were thoroughly wiped away when Symbolic was released on March 21, 1995. With a further drop in brutality and a cleaner production than any previous Death recording, it’s apparent from the start that the new album was very close to leaving the death metal genre behind altogether. Even Chuck’s vocals, while still containing a raspy edge to them, are more accessible and decipherable, which make sense given the generally slower tempos and focus on complex song structures rather than the more aggressive approach found on the majority of Death’s work. From a musicianship point of view, Symbolic is absolutely stunning from start to finish. The riffs are filled with class and cover the whole spectrum from melodic gems to ferocious killers. Koelble’s input is fantastic, with awesome jazz-fusion influenced soloing to go along with Chuck’s expectedly brilliant leads. There are even a few gorgeous clean guitar sections which function perfectly amongst the progressive nature of the album. Hoglan’s drumming is out of this world, being a perfect combination of extreme metal heroics and jazzy, technically jaw dropping variations. After the attention grabbing bass volume on Individual Thought Patterns, it’s fairly noticeable how low in the mix Conlon’s performance is this time around. That’s likely to have just as much to do with him not really fitting in as a member of the band as it is to him not matching the stupendous talent of DiGiorgio.

As remarkable as the performances are however, it’s the song writing that makes Symbolic so damn entertaining, and completely worthy of its high position on the metal charts of Rate Your Music. There’s not one single track on this album that isn’t memorable, gripping and damn enjoyable all the way through. The longer average running time attributed to each composition really gives each track suitable breathing space to run its course with enough variation and inspired progressive touches so that none become repetitive or boring in the slightest. Listening to Symbolic is one of life’s greatest pleasures and at no stage is there an element that I wish wasn’t there or thought could have been done better. It is, for lack of a better word, perfect! In my opinion, each successive Death album was evolving their sound exponentially, and Symbolic is the pinnacle of that curve, not just for this particular band, but for progressive death metal in general. Tracks like the title track, Without Judgement, Crystal Mountain and Perennial Quest are beautiful examples of why metal should never be merely labelled talentless, unlistenable nonsense performed by angry losers. They in fact prove without a doubt that this wonderful form of music can produce some of the most brilliant and exquisite examples of art when performed by the right individuals. Chuck Schuldiner was undoubtedly a master of his art and Symbolic is his masterpiece.

Another stunning technical death metal album that's miles ahead of the pack when it comes to maturity and talent.

Death’s previous album Human had proved to Chuck that he simply didn’t need a full time line-up to fulfil his aspirations. Hiring some of the best musicians in metal, he created one of the true death metal masterpieces, with none of the personality conflicts and technical limitations that had caused him so much grief in the past. I’m sure he would have had no hesitation in rehiring the same three individuals to help him produce Death’s fifth album, but due to other band commitments, that unfortunately wasn’t possible. Guitarist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert were committed to recording Cynic’s debut album Focus, so Chuck would need to look elsewhere for replacement mercenaries. Finding someone to fill the boots of Sean Reinert is no easy task, but whom better to seal that gap than the more than substantial Gene Hoglan. His former band Dark Angel had recently dissolved leaving the metal legend available for hire. While that choice seems an obvious one, Chuck’s selection of King Diamond’s Andy LaRocque as second guitarist came out of left field. There was never any doubting LaRocque’s talent, but it was yet to be seen whether his unorthodox style would convert well to a technical death metal environment. Thankfully there were no such concerns in the bass department with Steve DiGiorgio continuing his employment with the band despite a less than ideal position in the production of Human.

Steve is unlikely to feel neglected when it comes to Individual Thought Patterns. The first thing you’re likely to notice when listening to Death’s fifth studio album is how prominent the bass is in the mix. It’s easily audible throughout and snakes itself between the complex, shifting guitar riffs with ease. Rather than being distracting however, it simply highlights one of metal’s very best bass performances, while not negating from the complete picture one little bit. In fact, Individual Thought Patterns is a rare death metal album where each and every member of the band produced flawless feats of extreme musicianship all encapsulated in a production with enough clarity to represent each performer without skimping on the heaviness in the slightest. Chuck really expanded on the technical and progressive aspects that had made Human so mind-blowing and started to incorporate elements from genres normally disassociated with his own such as jazz. The lyrical intelligence also continues to evolve with Chuck now delving into genuine human emotion, psychology, spirituality and philosophy, making Individual Thought Patterns an album that far supersedes the maturity and intellect the inexperienced might correlate with the world of metal music in general. If Human marked the point where Chuck finally found musicians capable of matching his ambitious song writing, this album finds the man challenging himself to push things as far as he can without straying too far from his roots.

Being surrounded by such intensely capable musicians also challenged Chuck to improve his own guitar skills and there’s no doubt that he was getting better and better with each Death album. One of the many great things about Individual Thought Patterns is enjoying the leads of both Chuck and Andy. It’s easy to distinguish between their two styles and while Chuck performs the majority of leads on the album more than admirably, it’s apparent that Andy is the more technical of the two. His leads are simply breathtaking and make me wonder what I’ve been missing all these years while ignoring King Diamond for its apparent silliness and lack of brutality. As for Mr Hoglan, well there aren’t many drummers as good as this legend is and while he does restrain from displays of heroic showmanship, his class and ability shine through every step of the way. Once again there are no tracks going over the five minute mark, yet none seem rushed or over too soon. The band squeezed every drop out of each composition so nothing ever drags and they make constant changes in speed without losing the character or recognition that make tracks memorable. There’s a consistent quality from start to finish but if I had to pick highlights I’d go for Overactive Imagination, Trapped in a Corner, the title track and closer The Philosopher. There’s just no way I can even consider giving Individual Thought Patterns anything but five stars. It’s not even my favourite Death album, but it’s still miles ahead of the competition.

A carelessly slapped together Death compilation that has nothing of worth for serious fans.

Compilations can come in a few different forms. There’s the compilation that contains rare and unreleased tracks so that fans can hear more stuff from a band they already know well. There’s the compilation that packages a few older out of print EPs for newer fans of a band that might have missed out the first time around. Then there’s the best of compilation that gives the uninitiated an overview of a band’s discography with the hope that they might then go buy all the full length albums. If a label’s smart, they’ll combine a couple of the above options, making the compilation interesting to both old and new fans alike. Relativity were not smart when they created their best of series in 1992. They had some of metal’s most loved bands on their roster and instead of getting the members of each involved and putting together some really interesting packages, they chucked together a bunch of obvious tracks from existing albums, sloppily remastered them, included the most basic of liner notes and slapped on some seriously crappy artwork. You can find one of these compilations for Dark Angel (Decade of Chaos), Death (Fate), Exodus (Lessons in Violence), Forbidden (Point of No Return), Possessed (Victims of Death) and Venom (The Book of Armageddon). All contain similar thirty second Photoshop excuses for album covers and none include anything of worth for serious fans.

Fate: The Best of Death was put together after the band had released four full length albums, so at least there’s a fair selection of material that Relativity had to choose from. The Forbidden Relativity compilation chooses tracks from the band’s only two albums at that time which is just ridiculous. Considering how important and impressive all of Death’s material had been, there’s pretty much no way that this compilation was not going to be entertaining to listen to. But for a massive fan of the band such as myself, there is absolutely no real reason to own it. It’s all made worse by the sound quality not being particularly good. Whoever remastered it (actually, it was a guy called Allan Flaum, whoever that is) had an unenviable job due to tracks from each era having such dramatically different sounds and volumes (Leprosy is twice as loud as Human), but it seems he dampened the power of many of these tracks in an attempt to make them all fit nicely together. Death deserved a lot better than that and I can only imagine how unimpressed Chuck would have been at the lack of effort from Relativity. The track selection and liner notes were apparently done by Kevin Sharp of Brutal Truth fame. While he doesn’t do a particularly bad job, it’s apparent that he’s a fan of Death’s first two albums (Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy) from which he chose three tracks off each, above the later two (Spiritual Healing and Human) from which he only selected two.

The compilation only runs for 48 minutes so there was plenty of room to choose three tracks from all four albums, so I can only imagine his emphasis was intentional. He correctly selected Zombie Ritual and Baptized in Blood off Scream Bloody Gore, but I think his third choice Mutilation stands out as the lesser track on the whole compilation. Once again I think he nailed two out of three from Leprosy with the correct inclusion of Left to Die and Pull the Plug. While Open Casket is certainly a great track, I think the fantastic title track deserves a place on any Death best of and is sorely missed here. Thankfully, Kevin did choose the title track off Spiritual Healing and his second choice of Altering the Future is by no means a bad one, but I’m sure most fans would have liked to have seen Living Monstrosity included somewhere. As for Human, I think this is where Kevin got it wrong. Every track on that album is great including his choices Together as One and Suicide Machine, but the real highlights would have to be Flattening of Emotion and Lack of Comprehension. Overall I’d say the track selection is reasonable enough, but it would only really be of interest to someone not already acquainted with Death. If you happen to be a fan of Death’s more modern material and want to check out what they were like in the old days, then Fate is not a bad option. For the rest of us, move along.

One of the finest albums in extreme metal, Human deserves every bit of praise it receives.

“All words and music by Chuck Schuldiner.” That line can be found in the album sleeve of Death’s fourth album entitled Human. After years of trying to pull together a stable Death line-up, Chuck finally figured it would be far easier to be the only full time member of Death, and hire session musicians to help produce his vision. It’s not at all surprising given the terrible run he’d had since the band formed in 1983 under the name Mantas. Things had finally seemed to settle down around the time Spiritual Healing was recorded at the end of 1989. Bill Andrews (drums) and Terry Butler (bass) had remained with Chuck for a couple of years and with second guitarist Rick Rozz finally out of the band due to constant conflicts and replaced by the talented James Murphy, surely this Death incarnation could stick around for a while. The second half of 1990 put an end to that hope as Murphy departed the band for reasons I’m unaware of. Things got far worse when Chuck decided to pull the plug (sorry, couldn’t help myself) on a European tour as he felt it was not organised adequately. In a fairly traitorous move, Andrews and Butler recruited roadies Walter Trachsler (guitar) and Louie Carrisalez (vocals) and went on tour as Death without Chuck. As you’d expect, Chuck took legal action and Andrews and Butler were fired from the band, leaving Death in danger of collapsing altogether.

So it was, with the sheer determination that characterised the man through his entire life, Chuck went about writing material for a new Death album on his own, then recruited three of the finest musicians he could find to help him record it. While the Floridian technical death metal band Cynic had only recorded demos at this stage, they’d already made a name for themselves as excellent musicians, so Chuck hired guitarist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert. For bass he selected none other than the godlike Steve DiGiorgio from Sadus and the four of them entered Morrisound Studios with scene legend Scott Burns in April 1991. As amazing as that line-up is on paper, it would all have come to nought if Chuck hadn’t written great material for them to perform. He did far more than that as Human is quite simply one of the very finest death metal albums you could ever have the joy of experiencing. It only has a running time of 33 minutes, but not a second is wasted with technically advanced, crushingly heavy death metal from start to finish. Spiritual Healing had already progressed Death’s musicianship and themes to intellectual heights unprecedented within the genre to that point and Human would take it a very large step further. Not only did the three session musicians bring with them a wealth of talent, but Chuck himself had improved dramatically in a short space of time.

One of the main criticisms that can be directed at Death’s first three albums is that the drumming is monotonous and not quite up to the standard of the remaining performances. Sean Reinert on the other hand is nothing short of sensational, combining relentless double bass kicking with jazz fusion inspired technicality. When combined with the endless stream of tasty riffs and both guitarists’ jaw dropping yet highly memorable leads, this is a death metal fans’ wet dream. Chuck’s vocals were still getting better with every album and his lyrics more and more thought provoking. This time around he discusses what life might be like for someone without vision or who was born as a Siamese twin, yet he does so with a high level of empathy rather than in a condescending way. Unfortunately DiGiorgio’s bass is pretty well hidden beneath the guitars for the majority of the album. When his performance breaks through it’s nothing short of the excellence we’ve come to expect, but considering how prevalent he would be on Individual Thought Patterns, it’s fair to say that he gets a bit short-changed on Human. It’s tough to pick highlights when the whole album is this great, but my personal favourites would be Flattening of Emotion, Lack of Comprehension and Cosmic Sea. The latter is right up there with Cynic’s Textures as the greatest instrumental performed by a death metal album. Human is one of metal’s finest pieces of work and utterly deserving of five stars.

Leprosy hugely evolved the genre and remains an entertaining slab of old school death metal.

As would become the norm for Death, this is a whole new line-up to the preceding album. Chris Reifert, who played drums on Scream Bloody Gore, stayed in San Francisco when Chuck moved back to Florida in 1987, therefore ending his involvement with the band. The original line-up of Death, way back in 1984, had contained Chuck, Rick Rozz on guitar and Kam Lee on drums, yet after Rick and Kam left the band they’d joined up with Allen West and Bill Andrews in Massacre. That band would also have numerous line-up troubles and disbanded several times. In 1987, during one of those breaks from Massacre, three members of Massacre (Rick, Bill and bassist Terry Butler) joined forces with Chuck to make an all new Death line-up. The four of them were responsible for numerous live performances in this period and are credited as the line-up for Leprosy, yet typically for Death (Scream Bloody Gore had a band photo containing guitarist John Hand even though he never played with the band), things aren’t that simple. Despite the album liner notes suggesting Terry performed bass on Leprosy, Chuck has since stated that he himself performed all bass on the album, meaning the official album line-up is Chuck (guitar, bass, vocals), Rick (guitar) and Bill (drums).

Those listening to Leprosy today often complain about the snare sound and there’s certainly no denying that it distracts from the end result. But in 1988, this was the most extreme and exciting recording imaginable and it was exactly how fans thought death metal should be. Leprosy was the first full length death metal album recorded in Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida. The resulting sound was so incredibly influential that multitudes of bands tried to replicate it over the next few years. In fact, within two years of Leprosy being released, Atheist, Morbid Angel, Terrorizer, Obituary, Deicide and Nocturnus had all recorded their classic debut albums at the studio. The infamous Scott Burns was involved in many of these albums in some form, but it’s worth pointing out that he held an engineering position only for Leprosy, with Dan Johnson producing. Morrisound would become synonymous with death metal and just about every classic American death metal album would be recorded there over the next decade, including all remaining Death releases and monstrous classics like Morbid Angel’s Blessed Are the Sick, Obituary’s Cause of Death, Atheist’s Unquestionable Presence, Cynic’s Focus and Suffocation’s Pierced From Within. But let's have a good look at the original!

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but Scream Bloody Gore had been everything it said it was going to be on the box. Blood drenched old school death metal with gory lyrics and a nasty, malevolent atmosphere. Yet a few tracks, such as Zombie Ritual and Baptized in Blood, hinted that later Death outings might have something more to offer fans with some neat melodies and reasonably complex song structures. Leprosy certainly delivered on that promise and while there’s no doubt that Death had not yet reached the technical mastery or breathtaking song writing displayed on albums like Human, Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic, they singlehandedly pushed the evolution of death metal into overdrive with this release. German magazine Rock Hard once voted Leprosy the number one most important death metal album of all time, and while I’m not going to throw impressive statements like that one around, it would have to be up there on any list of its type. The title track, Left to Die, Pull the Plug and Open Casket are classic Death tracks that still offer up huge entertainment decades later. It’s the type of album you put on when you just want to bang your head to a consistent flow of solid death metal from the guy who arguably designed it.

The lyrical content also began a transition between the horror themed gore of the debut album and the more intelligent and thought provoking material of later works. The difference between songs about horrifically torturous ways to die based in fantasy and horrifically torturous ways to die based in reality may not seem particularly dramatic, but there’s no doubt a shift in lyrical maturity between tracks such as Regurgitated Guts or Evil Dead and Leprosy or Pull the Plug. It’s hard to mention Pull the Plug without discussing the sad irony that its theme would end up holding for Chuck. One has to wonder whether he thought back on the lyrics while he struggled to survive brain stem cancer and pneumonia at the age of 34. “Pull the plug, Let me pass away, Pull the plug, Don't want to live this way”. I won’t be disrespectful and suggest he might have regretted underestimating the importance of life with these words as I’m in no position to judge the man, but it certainly gives the track more of an emotional edge for those of us that knew him only through his music. His death is in no way the only reason we worship the music of Charles Michael Schuldiner, but it certainly makes us realise how precious it is that it ever existed in the first place.

More than just the first true death metal album, Scream Bloody Gore is bloody good entertainment.

There will always be the argument over whether Possessed or Death should be considered the first death metal band. We do know for certain that Possessed were the first to get an official release out (1985’s Seven Churches album), but trying to figure out which band’s demos beat the other to the punch always seems to end in uncertainty. Personally I can’t help but be part of team Death (no, this is not like Team Edward or Team Jacob!) for the simple reason that Scream Bloody Gore is undoubtedly the first true, and by that I mean undiluted, death metal album. As influential and entertaining as Possessed’s debut is, it contains just as much thrash metal as death metal, taking its cue from Slayer’s Show No Mercy album and beefing it up to unprecedented levels. On the other hand, Scream Bloody Gore nailed all the elements of true death metal straight up, setting the blueprint for years to come. Whichever side of the fence you sit on, no-one could ever deny that Chuck Schuldiner was one of the most talented, influential and respected musicians in the metal scene, and that Death consistently created excellent releases until Chuck shatteringly passed away.

Death never had the same line-up for two albums in a row, but that pattern began way before even the debut was recorded. Originally the band came under the moniker Mantas and contained Chuck (guitars / vocals), Rick Rozz (guitar) and Kam Lee (drums). After recording the infamous Death by Metal demo in 1984, Chuck changed the name of the band to Death as he felt this represented the vision more appropriately. There would be numerous demos recorded with numerous line-ups over the next couple of years and it wasn’t until the sixth attempt in 1986 called Mutilation that the Scream Bloody Gore configuration, which was simply Chris Reifert on drums with Chuck handling everything else, was finally achieved. The demo made it into the hands of Combat Records who signed Death up for a multi-album deal. Interestingly, Chris and Chuck initially recorded the guitar and drums at a Florida studio but were not happy with the results, deciding to start again at Music Grinders Studio where the end result was produced. Incredibly, after all these years of working at achieving his dream, Chuck was still only 20 years old when Scream Bloody Gore was recorded.

And what a recording it is! More than just the first of its kind, Scream Bloody Gore contains some really great death metal that still stands up over 20 years later. It may not be anywhere near as technical or intelligent as later Death albums, but it was never meant to be that way. Chuck just wanted to create evil sounding, gore drenched metal and that’s exactly what you get with Scream Bloody Gore from start to finish. The production quality is perfectly suitable given the intent (the remastered versions admittedly help on that front) and all instruments, including the bass, are perfectly audible and suitably powerful. The lyrics are immature to say the least but they’re all just part of the fun. No-one is going to take corkers like “watch you bleed to death, gasping for last breath, chocking on your blood, I shit onto your guts” seriously are they? If they do then they need to lighten up a bit. Obviously Death would get much, much better than this throughout the next decade, but as a starting point for both the band, and in some respects the genre, this deserves a lot of praise. After all, who doesn’t love tracks like Zombie Ritual and Baptised in Blood!? Anyone?

An album with as much promise as disappointment, the modern Burzum hasn't quite found its feet just yet.

Belus to me had been a better than expected return for Burzum, with some very cool highlight tracks making up for the album’s piecemeal inconsistency and production issues. After getting my head around the album and making a fairly positive judgement, I was left craving more, with the distinct feeling that Varg still had what it took to remain relevant in a scene he’d been entirely absent from for well in advance of a decade. I didn’t have to wait very long to find out whether that belief would come to fruition, with a follow-up album announced for almost exactly one year afterwards (March the 7th as opposed to March 8th). Subsequent interviews with Varg gave me further hope that good things were coming with the man admitting that the production on Belus had not been ideal, and that the upcoming album would contain entirely new material, as opposed to Belus which was marred by old ideas and re-imagined pre-prison tracks. These interviews also paint a picture of a man that is content with a simple life, living in the Norwegian countryside with family, concentrating on producing music while ignoring all that goes on in metal scene entirely. It all sounds like the ideal lifestyle for Varg, not only to produce new Burzum material, but also one where he can attempt to leave behind what is a fairly iniquitous past.

The new album is titled Fallen which is not an English title as some sites might have you believe. It’s a Norwegian title that just happens to translate the same in English. The cover art is however rather unusual for a Burzum release, at least on first appearances. While the majority of Varg’s work is adorned by Dungeons & Dragons inspired fantasy and the darker works of Theodor Kittlesen, Fallen’s cover contains a naked woman and some attractive, colourful roses. The image is taken from a larger piece entitled Élégie (Elegy) by nineteenth century French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau and while the above description might sound contradictory to the atmosphere of Burzum, the piece holds an entirely appropriate sorrowful mood that Varg felt fit the concept of Fallen perfectly. Painted in 1899, the full painting captures the lamenting nude woman (Bouguereau spent his life depicting women in various poses) leaning over a tombstone, while a cherub sheds tears at its base. It’s a stunning piece in its entirety that showcases the ability of the artist to produce an anatomically correct female form in a natural, suggestive pose and yet another instance where Varg has introduced me to a formerly unknown yet clearly talented painter. If you have any interest in art, you can check out Élégie in its original form here.

After the mythological storytelling that pervaded the likes of Dauði Baldrs and Belus, it’s refreshing to find lyrics of a more personal nature on Fallen. Varg even seems reluctant to discuss their meaning, which contrasts with his almost lecturing explanations for the past few releases. There are clearly similar themes to past works, including death and pagan yearnings, yet this time they’re given a more poetic flair that takes me back to the magnificently moving Filosofem. One thing that really stands out for me when reading through the English translations is how questioning Varg has become in his later years. “Why in darkness, my friend, and only in darkness, do you seek the friendly warmth of the light?” “Why must I test my destiny again and again?” “Why must I feel the old pain again (and again and again)?” For a man that appears so unrepentant and certain in his controversial beliefs, I often find vulnerabilities and a surprising level of regret in his lyrics, which may or may not be a true representation of his persona. For those out there that despise all that Varg stands for (and I should point out once again that I in no way agree with his view of the world), I challenge you to not find great artistry in his work. “Upwards, towards the edge of the sky, carrying buckets full of madness. The sky cracks when she arrives; the flock of sheep ends its hymn.”

Recorded and mixed at Grieghallen Studios, the site where all non-prison Burzum albums have been created, Fallen was completed in a typically speedy two week period. As mentioned earlier, Varg was not particularly happy with the production quality of Belus, something he blames on the mastering effort conducted by an unnamed metal technician. This time around he decided to go back to the way he and Pytten used to master Burzum releases, asking a new technician to treat the material as if it were classical music. His reasons for this, apart from the fact that Varg is quite a fan of classical music and likes to distance himself from standard metal fare, are not entirely clear, but the result is a sound far removed from Belus and in some ways similar to early Burzum work. The rather muffled sound of Belus has been replaced with greater clarity for near all instruments, which gives the whole album a very different feel. The guitars in particular received a big step up in focus, with that biting coldness that was so prominent on albums like Det Som Engang Var and Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, and the tremolo picked riffs are all the more effective for it. The bass still remains highly audible despite this rise in volume which is certainly a plus, but unfortunately it’s the drums that are still not quite right. There’s no doubt that Varg’s lacklustre performance has a lot to do with it, but the drums have very little impact on Fallen, being too weak in the mix and too pedestrian to be all that effective.

Fallen kicks off with a short intro titled Fra Verdenstreet (From the World Tree). It’s a moody piece that does manage to evoke the dark natural theme that the title suggests through the use creepy crawly effects, dripping water and ominous whispers. It’s not long however before we’re introduced to the album proper, with Jeg Faller (I am Falling) launching into a black metal swirl of guitars and rapid drumming. After reading interviews where Varg claimed he should no longer be associated with the black metal genre, it was actually quite surprising to hear such classic sounding tremolo riffs and vicious vocal snarls that could be labelled nothing if not black metal. Around a minute in and the double bass kicking is introduced, although you’d hardly know it given how little presence they have in the mix. In fact, the drums overall seem to have a very live feel and sound to them, but that doesn’t result in the energy you might expect from that description. Shortly afterwards the much maligned clean vocals arrive. Other reviews around here seem to suggest that Varg’s attempts at whispers, hums and folk-like singing are dreadful, but I personally don’t think they’re all that bad. Some of these cleaner sections on the album, including the chorus of Jeg Faller, are the ones that stick in your mind after the album’s completion, and certainly bring a different dimension to the new Burzum that I don’t oppose. As much as I enjoy Jeg Faller, it does lose momentum midway through, perhaps waiting too long before bringing back the beast.

The third track is Valen (Fallen) and it’s here that I start to have a bit of an issue. The cymbal tapping, tripping drum beat is just a bit shit really, and the almost playful riffs have none of the darkness that one would associate with Burzum (the name means “darkness” after all). I think I’d be less critical of the track if it didn’t extend out past the nine minute mark with unforgivable monotony. It’s easy to argue that Burzum’s music has always been repetitive and at times overindulgent, but when there’s no deep feeling of melancholy or suffocating emotional grip within the works, it’s far more likely to produce boredom than trancelike rapture. Thankfully fourth track Vanvidd (Madness) brings back the intensity and energy just when the album really needs it. Even with the repetitive clean murmurs reminding you that this is modern Burzum, it’s certainly the track that has more than one foot back in the mid-nineties golden era. As enjoyable as it is however, and as much as they fit in with the track’s “madness” theme, the laughable attempts at evil at the halfway point do tarnish the experience somewhat. It’s sad to hear Varg, who once had such an emotion-packed, almost frighteningly torturous scream, reverting to demon roaring parody. Still, I’m being picky, as Vanvidd is a good track with some very nice lyrical content.

The backend of the album continues in the same vein as the first. Enhver Til Sitt (Each Man to His Own) repeats the formula of Valen, complete with weak tripping drums, but this time Varg gets the structure right and doesn’t overplay his cards. The riffs have an epic feel to them that works well within the slower velocity and the shrieking / whispering combo has the desired effect. The final black metal track is Budstikken (The Message), a ten minute call to arms. With lyrics like “Pick up your mail, your helmet. Pick up your shield, and sax (sword). The gods of the past rise, from the memory of the divine blood”, The Message returns very directly to the mythological themes of the past few albums. Of course we all know that “divine blood” alludes to Varg’s racist beliefs of a superior race, but this touchy theme seems ideal for a rousing, majestic close to Fallen. Once again I’m left a bit disappointed, as while The Message does indeed create the right atmosphere with its mid paced Bathory-like tempo, it simply fails to connect emotionally, and I find my focus drifting long before its close when it should be entirely immersed. All that’s left to speak of is Til Hel Og Tilbake Igjen (To Hel and Back Again), an overlong outro instrumental with seemingly random strumming, simplistic bongo-style drumming and more whispers. It merely acts as a reminder of how much more moving Burzum instrumentals were when created with keyboards and brings the album to an anticlimactic close.

It should be pretty clear by now that Fallen is an album that doesn’t meet the high expectations I had for it. It actually doesn’t reach the lows that Belus occasionally sank to, but nor does it come close to the heights of that fairly inconsistent album. It’s a frustrating listen because it in no way convinces me that Varg is incapable of recording another five star album. I am not at all opposed to the new elements in the style (slower pace, clean vocals) and while I do miss the pure energy and symphonic landscapes that helped make his early albums so incredible, there are still moments where things come together in a way that promises much. Varg seems to be feeling his way a little bit since coming out of prison, particularly when it comes to the production, which he hasn’t got quite right on either Belus or Fallen. I can certainly understand why he would want to distance himself from keyboards after spending years with them being his only means of making music, but if they were to be re-introduced effectively with more effort put into the percussion side of things, there’s no reason why Burzum can’t be a name spoken highly of once again, instead of the proverbial punching bag it has become for black metal fans looking for something to bash on. I’ll continue to watch future Burzum episodes unfold with great interest despite my dissatisfaction, mostly due to the aforementioned hope, but also due to a voyeuristic trait that finds everything to do with this anti-role model so fascinating.

An effective return to atmospheric black metal that's a bit too inconsistent to match the Burzum classics.

In May 2009, Varg Vikernes was released from prison after serving almost sixteen years of a twenty-one year murder sentence. I have no shame, despite holding no respect for the man’s actions and beliefs, in admitting that this was an exciting occasion for me personally. Finally, after being subjected to two fairly awful ambient albums that Varg produced while imprisoned, there was the possibility of hearing new Burzum material the way it was meant to be experienced. However, as much excitement as this idea brought with it, I couldn’t help but be apprehensive about what was to come. Could my expectations possibly be met, or was I in for a crushing letdown? Things certainly looked positive when Varg announced that the new album would indeed be one based in black metal, and that it would be of a similar style to two of my favourite albums, Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Filosofem. It would even contain some old unreleased tracks, suggesting that it very well could hold the same atmospheric and at times ambient black metal that I so strongly connected with in my youth (and still do). In November 2009, Varg announced that the title of the upcoming album was to be Den hvite guden (which translates as The White God), which immediately attracted the one thing that has never been far from the man, even when he tries to avoid it. Controversy!

The backlash that this title prompted was due to its perceived racist nature. While Varg has stated time and time again that the selected title had no connection to skin colour, and in fact was simply referring to one of the many names that the god Baldr goes by, the media was having none of it. Seeing another chance to lynch Varg, just as they did over fifteen years ago with bogus Satanism claims, they attacked him heatedly. None of this was surprising of course, but then something happened that I’m absolutely certain would not have occurred prior to Varg’s incarceration. In December 2009, he announced that he was changing the album title to Belus. Stating that he wished to “take away their excuse to spread their anti-Varg/anti-Burzum hate-propaganda when (and before) the album is released”, this came as quite a surprise given Varg’s history of caring nothing for general opinion towards his music or person. It also seems baffling that cries of racism would really concern him, given that he has made numerous suggestions over the years that other races are inferior to his own. How can someone that makes statements like “the other races are rejects, and there is nothing to improve. They are like old 286 or 386 computers, that cannot be upgraded sufficiently anyhow, so we throw them on the scrap heap instead” be offended by the label racist?

You want to know where Varg got his theory of superiority from?! Ironically, it comes from the same mythology that portrays his beloved White God, so no variation in the album title is going to make it any better. Part of that story describes how the heavenly father Óðinn ordered his son Heimdallr to create a worthy race of men. Heimdallr first created a race known as Thrall’s kin that had black and wrinkled skin, ugly faces, bent backs, crooked noses and long heels. Clearly not satisfied, he then made a race named Free Men’s kin, who had red faces, red-brown hair and watchful eyes. Still not satisfied, he created the Noble’s kin, who had blonde hair, fair skin and fair eyes as sharp as those of a dragon. Finally happy with his son’s work, Óðinn sent Heimdallr to Earth to teach the nobles, and it is only this race (the European race) that is allowed to sit with Óðinn in the halls of heaven. Apparently Heimdallr then placed a throne over the North Pole (between Heaven and Hell), from where he would watch over his chosen race, visiting them yearly on The Winter Solstice. This complete nonsense, which is clearly no more convincing than the Christian lies that Varg so despises, is where many of his life values have been taken from, so it’s hardly surprising that the man is lacking in the empathy department.

So Belus was to be the new name of this long awaited album, which from what I can gather is just another name for the same god that the album Dauði Baldrs described, otherwise known as Baldr, Belenos and of course, the White God. The album apparently explores the ancient European myths concerning his death, his journey through the underworld and his return. That narrative sounds almost identical to that of Dauði Baldrs, which isn’t the only connection between the two releases. After a short intro called Leukes Renkespill (The Intrigues of Leuke), that sounds like someone knocking over beer bottles, Belus kicks off with the title track off Dauði Baldrs, this time in metal form and given the title Belus' Doed (Belus’ Death). I shouldn’t have been surprised given that Varg had stated numerous times that the tracks off both of the ambient albums recorded from prison were based around black metal tracks he wrote back in 1993, and he’d also stated his intention to record at least one of them in its originally intended form for the first album after his release. After I got over the initial negative nostalgia, it was actually been quite neat to hear how things could have panned out if Varg hadn’t gone all Norwegian Psycho and killed Euronymous. It’s a decent start to the album and contains that grand, hypnotic element that I really hoped would be present on Belus.

Varg’s vocals are a bit different to the way they were on previous Burzum outings. Belus contains neither the tortured shrieks found on the early albums, nor the massively distorted, effects rich style of Filosofem. This is probably the most “normal” his voice has sounded since Burzum’s inception and I think that’s a positive (it’s far more controlled) and a negative (it lacks the sheer emotion and impact). Third track Glemselens Elv (River of Forgetfulness) also displays a low chant-like addition which works perfectly well within the mesmerising framework. While things don’t change dramatically over this track’s near twelve minute running time, it proves that Varg can still create epic and atmospheric pieces of music. There is one thing that becomes very apparent at this stage though and that’s the lack of emphasis given to the drums. Not only are the drums very low in the mix and therefore lacking in power, they’re also performed in an extremely simplistic manner. There’s no doubt that this aspect has never been Varg’s strongest attribute, but it appears he decided to push them right to the back to hide the inadequacies of his skills. It’s either that or he’s just a bit rusty after years of sitting in a cell reading books and playing with his laptop. It’s not so much a flaw as it is an observation though, as this style of black metal simply doesn’t require huge technical percussion skills to function well enough.

The first sign of aggression comes with Kaimadalthas' Nedstigning (Kaimadalthas' Descent) which starts off well with a cool riff and some hostile vocals, before things take a turn for the worse. The repeated spoken word element really doesn’t work, drawing far too much attention to itself while not fitting the tone of its surroundings. To make matters worse, the track introduces a rocking riff halfway through that completely undoes the violent groundwork of the first half. This track is the first disappointing aspect of Belus and unfortunately it’s followed by undoubtedly the lowest point of the album. My excitement that Varg was going to perform an unreleased track from early in his development completely backfired on me, with Sverddans’ (Sword’s Dance) shitty thrash attack making any concerns I had about Kaimadalthas' Nedstigning seem entirely redundant. Originally written back in 1988 when Varg’s one man band was known as Uruk-Hai, Sverddans wouldn’t have been particularly good back then, let alone as part of a modern sounding Burzum album. On my first listen through of Belus, I’d started to think by this stage of the album that Varg had rushed this release out. The album was degenerating quickly and needed something special to stop the rot. Thankfully, that’s exactly what we get, with the last three tracks bringing Belus home in style.

First there’s Keliohesten (The Kelio Horse), that’s undoubtedly Belus’ most successful attempt at the faster black metal Burzum approach. Just as on the title track on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Jesus' Tod on Filosofem, Keliohesten utilises breakneck drumming and a cool tremolo picked riff to build an atmosphere of epic majesty. It doesn’t quite manage to match either of those classics though due to Varg’s less impactful vocals and a secondary riff that once again ventures into thrash territory, but it’s a pretty good attempt that proves that Burzum is far from dead and buried when it comes to intensity. Then there’s Morgenrøde (Dawn), which is undoubtedly the highlight of Belus for me. I’ve listened to this track daily for the past two weeks and it’s clawed its way into my subconscious in a way that few bands can manage. This is ambient black metal in the style that made Filosofem so incredibly captivating, and it really takes this album to a whole new level on its own. By the time Morgenrøde settles into a hypnotic instrumental rhythm for the last few minutes, I’m off on some distant journey to lands far away, just as Varg no doubt intended. It all leads perfectly into closer Belus' tilbakekomst (The Return of Belus).

On his website, Varg states that “if I can make you dream when listening to this album, I believe I have done a good job", and I think the combination of Morgenrøde and Belus' tilbakekomst are where he undoubtedly achieved this goal. This final near ten minute ambient instrumental takes the hypnotised state that Morgenrøde left me in and holds me there, powerless to break away from its grasp. This isn’t one of those keyboard based ambient tracks that can be found on previous Burzum works however. Belus' tilbakekomst is layers of distorted guitar, backed by heartbeat-like drumming that very gradually shifts before fading the album away into nothingness. It’s a beautiful ending to an inconsistent album, and these final tracks not only make Belus worthwhile to me, but also give me real hope that the next Burzum album might yet reach the high expectations that this one has just fallen short of. There is no sign of anything on the horizon just yet, but let’s hope it finds its way into our hands before that certain-to be-complete-garbage Hollywood movie (based on the book Lord of Chaos), that will undoubtedly make a farce of everything surrounding this mad genius, hits movie screens around the world. To think that a guy from the atrocious Twilight series could be hired to play such a complex and disturbing character really shows how messed up this world is right now.

A nice overview I guess, but Anthology is not a best of, nor does it contain anything of value for long term fans.

There are several Burzum compilations out there and I’m not certain any of them are legitimate. If any of them should be considered official however, it would have to be this one. Released on Candlelight Records in 2008, it’s the only one that doesn’t contain any bogus tracks (ie. not actually by Burzum), and also the first one not to have originated as a bootleg. This doesn’t remove all confusion from the equation however, as there is plenty surrounding this particular release. Firstly, it often goes by the name Lord of Darkness, despite not mentioning the words on the cover, which is made more confusing by the fact that there’s a separate bootleg compilation that’s been floating around since 2005 with the same name. That bootleg contains the same tracks (with a couple added to the start) as another compilation that came out in 2002, which just so happens to also be called Anthology. Still with me?! In the end, this Candlelight compilation is by far the most professionally produced, having only legitimate Burzum tracks running in correct chronological (release-wise anyway) order with decent packaging. The only questions remaining are: does the compilation give the listener a good overview of Burzum, and does Anthology have anything to offer long term fans?

The answer to that first question is probably going to come down to personal taste more than anything else, but personally I don’t think Anthology quite gets it right when it comes to track selection. Starting from the top, Feeble Screams from Forests Unknown might seem an obvious choice, given that it was the opening track from the debut self titled album, but there are far better tracks on that release. Spell of Destruction, A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit or even A Journey to the Stars would have been more representative of that album, but it’s far from the worst decision you could make. No real complaints about second track Stemmen fra tårnet, as it’s the logical choice off the Aske EP, yet the two selections from Det Som Engang Var are strange to say the least. Lost Wisdom is a decent track that settles in after a strangely rocking opening, but the inclusion of Svarte troner, which is basically a two minute ambient outro is odd to say the least. It might give first time listeners the chance to experience the ambient side of Burzum, but considering the focus given to that aspect later on the compilation, and the fact that the compiler ignored great tracks such as En ring til å Herske and Snu mikrokosmos tegn, it’s a bit underwhelming.

Hvis Lyset Tar Oss is perfectly represented by the classic Det Som En Gang Var, which is my vote for greatest black metal track in the history of the universe, and while the two selections from Filosofem would not be the ones I would have made, they are perfectly acceptable. The exclusion of the brilliant Dunkelheit can be excused for the simple reason that it appears as a bonus video on the compilation, so doubling up would be pointless. I do have to question why they would choose Gebrechlichkeit II though, as it’s basically a broken down version of Gebrechlichkeit I, which is a more effective example of the ambient black metal found on that album. It really doesn’t make much difference which track was chosen from Dauði Baldrs as they’re all of a similar low quality, but I guess Bálferð Baldrs is a good choice given its an ambient recreation of Jesus' Tod which appeared two tracks earlier. Probably the biggest gripe I have with Anthology is the use of the brain bashing Ansuzgardaraiwô off Hliðskjálf, and would have preferred to see Der Tod Wuotans or Einfühlungsvermögen, but I’m not sure many Burzum fans would be too fussed, given their general disdain towards Varg’s ambient releases.

It should be apparent by now that I don’t think Anthology is a great representation of the magnificent music released under the Burzum moniker. It does however successfully display the development of sound that Varg undertook from the early days through to his imprisonment, which I guess is what inexperienced listeners would find the most value in. I believe the real purpose of Anthology is to introduce Burzum to an American audience, since no Burzum albums have been released in the country to date, but I’d just hope that anyone checking it out would not assume that this is the best that Burzum has to offer, as it is far from that. To answer the second question I raised earlier regarding long term fans, well there is simply nothing here to tempt them into tracking Anthology down. There are no new, unreleased or rare tracks to be found, so I see no reason to recommend it to anyone that already owns the full length albums. It would have become so much more interesting and valuable if they’d included Et Hvitt Lys Over Skogen, the track Varg recorded for Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, but which didn’t end up on the final release. As it is, the only way to hear that is to track down the 2002 Anthology.

The last Burzum masterpiece and one of the finest examples of truly despondent, ambient based, atmospheric black metal.

This is likely to be a long review I’m afraid. It won’t just be lengthy due to my adoration for the music contained within the album in question, but also due to numerous external pieces of information that make this particular album so much more than just another black metal release. The beliefs and actions of the man responsible for it have been mentioned many times over and questions are continually raised regarding the morality of supporting such an individual, even if this support only takes the form of praise for his art rather than his personal philosophies. I’ll leave those discussions for another time (there’s one in the forums right now) and assume that anyone reading this is sensible enough to in turn assume that all the superlatives below are to be associated with Varg’s music alone and in no way suggest that I admire his racist existence, nor his morbid habits that include arson and murder. The fact is that there is no doubt in my mind that the man is a genius musician. It’s yet to be seen whether he still has what it takes to be relevant since his release from prison on May the 24th last year, but from what I’ve heard of the new album Belus, he may struggle to recapture the passion and skill of his youth.

If you asked me to name one singular black metal album that I consider to be the very best that the genre has to offer, Burzum’s 1994 offering Hvis Lyset Tar Oss would probably be the first release that comes to mind. There’d be a few others in the running, in particular Ulver’s Bergtatt, Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse, but the opening track Det Som Engang Var alone would probably convince me to select Burzum’s masterpiece above all. I only mention this to give you some idea how high my expectations were for this follow-up after a couple of years assuming that Burzum was no longer. Varg had been in prison for close to three years before Filosofem appeared on the scene, but the mere fact that it was recorded in March 1993 prior to his imprisonment (unlike Dauði Baldrs and Hliðskjálf which were recorded from within his cell using only a synthesizer and a tape recorder), was enough to get me very excited indeed. Varg would murder Euronymous on August the 10th 1993, just five months after creating Filosofem, so there was no doubt that this would be the last black metal album by Burzum for at least another 21 years (well, 16 as it turned out).

The title Filosofem is Norwegian for philosopheme, which is a philosophical proposition, doctrine, or principle of reasoning. It’s unsurprising to find Varg choosing a title such as this, given his tendency to “philosophize” about all things political and religious. The artwork, as with the fantastic cover that adorns Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, can all be attributed to Theodor Kittlesen, one of the most popular Norwegian artists from the 1800s. It may seem a bit odd to find a woman playing a birch trumpet on the cover of a black metal album, but Op Under Fjeldet Toner en Lur’s (Up in the Hills a Clarion Call Rings Out) natural surroundings, colour scheme and even subject matter, capture Burzum’s melancholic tone perfectly. The Misanthropy A5 digibook pressing in particular shows off this artwork superbly, along with the numerous other Kittelsen works found within, such as Det Rusler og Tusler Rasler og Tasler (Creepy, Crawly, Rustling, Bustling). Varg was clearly very fond of the artists work as it pops up throughout his black metal releases. One can assume that Kittelsen himself may have been a bit perturbed to become a muse for such a disturbed individual, but one can’t argue when you passed away around eighty years prior to the relationship being formed.

The first thing to notice when listening to Filosofem is the rather lo-fi production. It’s safe to say that this was no accident. In fact, Varg didn’t even use a guitar amplifier for the recording, choosing to plug his guitar into his brother’s stereo and to use an old fuzz pedal for distortion. He then found the worst microphone he could and used it through a headset. It’s testament to his genius that he even tried this, but the resulting sound is so unique and so despondent, without ever distracting from the music itself, it can only be described as revolutionary. When combined with the contrasting clarity of the keyboards, the outcome is moving beyond words, and I’m convinced that no other production would work as well for the tracks found on Filosofem as the one he discovered. Speaking of tracks, there are only six on offer, with a running time of just under sixty-five minutes. As is the case with all classic Burzum albums, these tracks are a mixture of instrumentals and “songs”, and combine atmospheric black metal with ambient electronics. It should not be assumed that these two styles are utilized in tandem for mere diversity purposes, as both epitomize the Burzum sound and contain similar characteristics despite differing techniques and technologies.

The first track is Dunkelheit. At least that’s the way it appears on the majority of printings. Varg has stated that the definitive tracklisting can be found on the Norwegian version, as it has the original song titles and lyrics. It makes sense too as the titles on this version match the lyrics of the tracks, rather than all being listed in German as is the case on all other versions. In this instance, Dunkelheit is the German translation of Burzum (which means Darkness in English). Interestingly, when Varg originally created the track Burzum back in 1991, he decided to use the word as the name of the band, rather than Uruk-Hai as it had been known up to that point. He originally wanted to include Burzum on the Hvis Lyset Tar Oss album, but was unhappy with the recording, so re-recorded it for Filosofem. It was the right decision as the new sound suits the track perfectly with the minimal keyboards and distant, more refrained vocals shifting the atmosphere up to stupendous levels. Its classic Burzum though with simple and repetitive riffs keeping the listener entranced while the vocals repeat simple and repetitive lyrics, although they now switch between black metal shrieks and despondent spoken word.

Once that classic has run its course, there’s a large momentum shift as Jesu død (Jesus' Tod in German which translates to Jesus’ Death in English) takes a more straight-forward and brutal black metal approach. The new production doesn’t take any power away from the style that worked so well on previous albums such as the title track on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. If I listen to the albums back to back it’s amazing how different they sound while still capturing the spirit that is Burzum. The riffs are completely audible despite the wall of sound approach, with tremolo picking overlaying the traditional distorted riffs. The pummelling percussion manages to use its non technical repetition as a strong point, adding to the hypnotic effect of the end result. It’s the only time on the album where Varg lets loose with unbridled aggression and it certainly stands out for this reason. In fact, apart from the last track being a slightly reworked version of an earlier one, all the tracks on Filosofem take a really different approach, and this variety gives each track memorable characteristics that make the whole thing so captivating. Always experimenting and letting his creative juices flow, Varg never attempts to please anyone but himself.

Next up is the wonderful Beholding the Daughters of the Firmament (or Erblicket die Töchter des Firmaments as the German translation would have it). After the blistering speed of Jesu død, this doomy work of art brings things back down into more brooding realms with a slow rock-like beat. Unlike the opening track, Daughters of the Firmament doesn’t inject much in the way of electronics, giving the discordant riffs plenty of room to thrive. The vocals are entirely decipherable and the lyrics filled with passionate longing for a time long past. Whenever I listen to this track I think of Varg in his prison cell, longing to go back to a time when he had freedom. With lyrics such as “I wonder how winter will be, with a spring that I shall never see. I wonder how night will be, with a day that I shall never see”, it’s hard not to be reminded that these luxuries would be taken away from Varg (with good reason I’ll add) very shortly after this recording. I remember thinking many times that perhaps he might actually be filled with regret and sorrow for his actions, but from the recent musings on his website it appears that nothing much has changed when it comes to his views on life.

Fourth track is the aptly titled Decrepitude I (Gebrechlichkeit I in German), which shifts the emphasis once again, dropping the drums entirely. In fact, even though we’re not even halfway through Filosofem, there will not be a single drum beat for its remainder. Yet despite barely clinging to the realm of black metal, this track has one of the most despondent and gut-wrenchingly hopeless moods imaginable. As if the desperate, almost manic vocals and the continuously swaying distorted feedback of a riff were not enough, the tender keyboard notes over the top are enough to make you reach for the razor. This is ambient black metal at its finest and really showcases how confident Varg is that he can fulfil his goals any which way he pleases. The lyrics are repeated several times until they become latched onto your subconscious. “Beware of the light, it may take you away, to where no evil dwells. It will take you away, for all eternity.” This may not exactly be the type of message one would teach to their children, but by the end of Decrepitude I, I’m convinced that the light is not somewhere I want to be. I definitely don’t want an eternity without the glorious darkness of Burzum, that’s for sure!

Track five brings us to undoubtedly the most discussed aspect of Filosofem. There’s nothing like a twenty-five minute ambient piece to divide black metal fans down the middle. It’s true that purely symphonic ambient music is likely to put many listeners to sleep, rather than create the sort of pumped up aggression and rebellion that goes hand in hand with a large amount of black metal albums. But Varg had been tinkering with the electronic aspects throughout each album until he was confident enough to reproduce the same sort of melancholy that encompasses his black metal in ambient form. This experimentation came to fruition on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss with closing track Tomhet and he took it one step further with Rundtgåing av Den Transcendentale Egenhetens Støtte (Rundgang um die transzendentale Säule der Singularität in German and Tour Around the Transcendental Pillar of Singularity in English). This twenty-five minute track is seamlessly broken into two halves. The first eleven minutes slowly build up, adding new sounds gradually, before it breaks down and begins a new journey for the remainder, with only one continuous melody taken for the entire ride. It’s not, as many would have you believe, a boring piece of music that detracts from the album. It’s a beautiful, masterfully created piece of ambient music.

Finally, the album closes with Decrepitude II (Gebrechlichkeit II in German), which is the reworking of track four. Basically, Varg took the intro effects of the original version and repeated them for the entire running time, changed the guitar riff so that it slowly faded in, and removed the vocals entirely. It’s still an effective piece of music, but I have to admit that it doesn’t add an awful lot that the original didn’t already contain, and the removal of the frantic vocals takes away from it a bit for me. Given the running time of the album, I’d have to conclude that Decrepitude II is just a bit unnecessary and likely to test the patience of many. But that can’t come remotely close to stopping me from giving Filosofem the full rating that it deserves. It’s the last remnant of genius that I cling to, while I perhaps a bit too optimistically, hope that Burzum can one day recapture the glory of the past. Somehow I doubt I’ll be writing such a lengthy and praise-riddled review for future Burzum releases, but at least albums like Filosofem can always be experienced again and again. In the words of the man himself, “In every night there's a different black, in every night I wish that I was back, to the time when I rode, through the forests of old”.

An atmospheric masterpiece of black metal and one of the truly essential extreme metal albums.

I'm almost daunted at the prospect of trying to describe this album in review format. It plays such a large role in not only my musical development, but my life in general. It's the kind of album where describing individual instruments and performances seems a bit superfluous when the resulting sound transcends anything I could possibly depict with vocabulary alone. Hvis lyset tar oss (which means If the Light Takes Us in Norwegian) is not just mere music to me. It's a journey through mystical, shadowy forests and a hauntingly chilling reminder of humanities darker nature all wrapped up in mesmerising beauty. I know I sound like a madman, but it's so rare that an album can move me to such an extent that my surroundings become inconsequential. I become one with the music, connecting on an intellectual, emotional and physical level. However, just as with the majority of work associated with Kristian Vikernes (or Count Grishnackh as he wished to be known), there’s a story behind Hvis lyset tar oss that’s almost as fascinating as the music itself. It’s one that involves mystery, murder and by the end, a heroine of sorts. Just as with all early Burzum chapters, this one begins at Grieghallen Studio, where our lonesome Count once again works his melancholic magic.

The rate at which Kristian cranked these Burzum tunes out is frightening to say the least. Hvis lyset tar oss was recorded in September 1992, just five months after second album Det som engang var, which itself was recorded just three months after the debut. You’d think cranking out three albums in such a small period of time would result in them all sounding exactly the same, with no real development or improvement. Incredibly that’s not the case at all, with each subsequent release progressing in quality and displaying the sort of growth that normally comes with many years of work. Not only was Kristian recording albums in stupendously quick succession, he was producing each one in next to no time at all. He spent between twenty and thirty hours all up in the studio crafting Hvis lyset tar oss, and that’s including the recording of two tracks that never made the album. While he’d made a habit of recording each instrument in one take on previous albums, and accepting any mistakes that occurred through that technique, this time he was forced to perform the drums for the title track twice after a technical issue spoiled his first attempt. This seeming disregard for performance quality was clearly apparent on the first two albums with obvious slip-ups found on the final products, but Kristian seems to have nailed each and every section of this third full length, which is admirable given the lengthy, multifaceted compositions.

If you’re wondering what happened to the two tracks I mentioned earlier, Kristian has been quite open about the reasons they were left off Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. One of them was actually an early version of Dunkelheit (Darkness), which would eventually be re-recorded in brilliant form for the Filosofem album. He was never happy with this version and knew as soon as he finished recording it that it was not going to make the final record this time round. The second track was called Et hvitt lys over skogen (A White Light Over the Forest), which was actually part of the promotional copies that were sent around to fanzines. I can only assume the response was negative as this track was replaced by Tomhet, which was not originally going to be included on Hvis lyset tar oss, prior to release. For anyone interested to hear what the fourth track could have been, you can find Et hvitt lys over skogen on the 2002 bootleg compilation called Anthology (not to be confused with the 2008 compilation of the same name). It’s by no means a terrible track, but it does lack the energy and passion that the other three black metal tracks emanate. There are some very simplistic riffs that are almost folk metal in their tone and the drumming is noticeably lacklustre. The choice to replace it with Tomhet was a good one, not only due to the quality, but also to improve the flow of the album that is given an effective ambient comedown.

With the album recorded, this is where the Burzum story, and the life of Kristian Vikernes, gets complicated! Not only had Kristian not yet released second album Det som engang var at the time of recording third album Hvis lyset tar oss, he would also record fourth album Filosofem before August 1993 when Det som engang var would finally be released on his own Cymophane label. One can assume that Kristian would have gone on to release both Hvis lyset tar oss and Filosofem on Cymophane in quick succession given the chance, but his choices outside of music meant that this would never be possible. In January 1993, Kristian had taken part in an interview with a local newspaper where he says he made blatant exaggerations on numerous topics in an attempt to get more sales for Øystein Aarseth’s (aka Euronymous) Deathlike Silence label. The journalist reported him to the police and he was arrested and held for a week, with the subsequent media blitz scaring Øystein into closing him shop. Kristian was angry that he didn’t take advantage of the attention the interview had created for him and for not paying back money that was owed for the earlier Burzum releases. He was also bitterly disappointed that his anonymity (under the name Count Grishnackh) had been destroyed, with his real name used in the newspapers. He officially changed his name to Varg (which means Wolf) Vikernes and stopped using the pseudonym altogether.

The falling out between Øystein and Varg escalated, and while I won’t go into too much detail due to only Varg’s side of the story being available for obvious reasons, the end result was that Varg murdered Øystein on the 10th of August 1993. Varg claims that he was simply defending himself as it was Øystein that planned to torture and kill him in the first instance, but the jury was not convinced that the twenty-three stab wounds were not premeditated. The arson of several churches was also linked to Varg during the investigation and he was given a full sentence of twenty-one years in prison, consequently ending any possibility of more Burzum material being recorded, let alone the ones already recorded being released. Varg attempted to continue running Cymophane and the relevant worldwide distribution from within prison, but he soon realised that it was going to be impossible to get Hvis lyset tar oss and Filosofem released without the help of a record company. Unsurpisingly given the negativity directed at Varg’s recent actions, no companies were willing to deal with him, and it seemed his work would remain unknown to the world at large. Enter our heroine Tiziana Stupia. Being a huge fan of Burzum, she was more than a little disappointed to hear that there were two unreleased albums gathering dust, and took it upon herself to make sure they didn’t stay that way. After trying unsuccessfully to convince several companies to release them, Stupia decided to do it herself.

After Varg signed a contract giving Stupia rights to distribute all Burzum material, Misanthropy Records was formed in 1993. There was never any intention to continue the label in any other shape or form, but the success of Hvis lyset tar oss and the re-releases of Burzum/Aske and Det som engang var convinced her to sign up other unique black metal bands. When you take a look at the first three non-Burzum releases on Misanthropy, it’s easy to see that Stupia had a fantastic ear for quality and enthralling black metal bands. In the Woods’ Heart of the Ages, Fleurety’s Min tid skal komme and Ved Buens Ende’s Written in Waters are all incredible albums that helped transform black metal into a much broader and experimental genre. Further releases from bands like Monumentum, Primordial and ironically Mayhem (given Euronymous’ involvement with the band) brought more success and Misanthropy Records continued right through to the year 2000, when Stupia closed the company to concentrate on her career as a pagan priestess. There are obviously numerous reasons to be grateful to Tiziana Stupia, but none more important than Hvis lyset tar oss. Released on May the 4th 1994, the album came with one of the most stunning atmospheric black metal covers imaginable, being Fattigmannen (The Pauper) by nineteenth century Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen. After the more Advanced Dungeons and Dragons inspired artwork of Burzum and Det som engang var, this new visual direction was far more moving and appropriate.

Hvis lyset tar oss only contains four tracks, but considering it has a total running time of around forty-five minutes, one can't really hold that against it. As great as the album is as a whole, and it is truly astonishing, it’s opener Det som en gang var (What Once Was) that really makes it so special. Not only is it the highlight of Hvis lyset tar oss, it's also considered by many (myself included) to be the greatest single black metal piece of music in existence. The introductory build up of symphonic and distorted elements is entirely captivating and the eventual payoff monumental. There’s no sign of drums until the three minute mark and no sign of vocals for a further two, yet each addition brings with it a whole new level of atmosphere and almost overwhelming emotional weight. The keyboards alone contain a sort of grand, epic quality that isn’t remotely cheesy or overindulgent, playing a layered landscape supporting role that really brings the best out of the accompanying black metal. It’s the first real example of Varg integrating the symphonic aspect to such a degree and an unquestionably breathtaking success. While someone not affiliated with black metal may find them horrifying, Varg's tortured shrieks are affecting and chilling. Those agonizing screams around the twelve minute mark in particular raise the hair on the back of my neck every time they arrive. Det som en gang var is worth the price of admission alone, but thankfully this album has so much more to offer.

The second and third tracks are not as epic as the first, but they are no less genius. Neither Hvis lyset tar oss (If the Light Takes Us) nor Inn i slottet fra drømmen (Into the Castle From the Dream) rely on keyboard backdrops and instead focus on traditionally cold, gripping black metal riffs. Each has a running time of around eight minutes and once again utilise hypnotic repetition with small changes at regular intervals to induce a sort of trance-like state in the listener. It’s a technique that Varg had been developing with each album but had never completely nailed until this release. Both tracks are high on intensity with fast drumming and a propensity for double bass kicking. The title track is very guitar driven with several magnificent and exceptionally dark riffs that make up some of the more menacing moments found on any Burzum release. Inn i slottet fra drømmen is based around a lurching bass line and guitar riff combination that gives the track a true sense of urgency and energy. Once again Varg’s vocals are immensely harsh and emotion filled, giving the whole thing an intensity bands like Marduk and Funeral Mist, with all their brutality and stupendously high velocity, struggle to match. It all makes the expansive end section, where the momentum shifts and the symphonic element returns, all the more effective and by the time the last of the album’s black metal fades away you’ll be left exhausted from your journey, in need of a calming change of scene.

That’s where lengthy closer Tomhet (Emptiness) comes in! Varg had already experimented with dark ambience and other electronic elements within every full length Burzum release, but Tomhet is certainly his most brave and ambitious attempt to date. Seamlessly split into two halves, the track initially sends the listener soaring above the treetops upon recurring waves before the second half gently places them down into the forest bed for a mystical communion among magical creatures. This may all sound completely at odds with the black metal tracks on the album, but Burzum's music, whether it’s ambient, atmospheric black metal, or a combination of the two, always contains the same mystical and melancholic qualities. Tomhet is a fantastic piece of ambient music and a perfectly calming way to end what is an almost overwhelmingly absorbing album. If you haven’t figured it out by now, Hvis lyset tar oss is one of my very favourite releases from any genre of music. It easily ranks as one of the top ten albums I've ever heard and when I consider that one single man was behind the whole thing, I can't help but feel a certain amount of admiration and respect. Some of his beliefs and actions are unquestionably harmful and downright wrong, but his music should be judged for what it is and not the mind of its creator. Hvis lyset tar oss is a masterpiece of black metal and my life is made significantly better for its presence.

Not quite perfection (yet), but an enthralling and highly atmospheric experience nonetheless.

The man known as Count Grishnackh wasted no time in recording more Burzum material to follow up the debut self titled album. In April 1992, just one month after the release of Burzum, Kristian was back in Grieghallen Studios creating another record of hypnotic darkness. Det som engang var (which is Norwegian for What Once Was) was originally called På svarte troner (On Black Thrones) before it was changed prior to release in August 1993. The Aske EP was actually released prior to Det som engang var, but was in fact recorded four months after it. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, but I can only imagine the delay was due to disputes between Kristian and Aarseth (Euronymous). The first Burzum album was released on Aarseth’s Deathlike Silence label before the two former friends had a falling out. It seems that rather than fulfil his contractual obligations by handing over a second full length album, Kristian released the three-track Aske on Deathlike Silence and created his own label to release Det som engang var. He called the label Cymophane which is Greek for Wave to Appear and is also the name of an eye shaped gem. If you look at the Cymophane logo you will notice the eye drawing, and given Kristian’s obsession with Lord of the Rings, it’s not hard to see where the inspiration for the title came from. The Eye of Sauron!

After spending only 19 hours in total recording Burzum, Kristian really went all out (please assume sarcasm) and committed a total of 26 to Det som engang var. The reason for the extra hours was that he no longer had help from Aarseth with his equipment, and so had to set everything up himself. Otherwise it was business as usual with Kristian performing all instruments and producing everything in just one take (each instrument separately obviously), ignoring minor mistakes. The resulting tracks show real advancement from the debut, but the differences are more about focus than anything technical. While there are still some thrashy moments to be found, with the first section of Key to the Gate in particular kicking the album off in abnormally rocking fashion, the majority of Det som engang var utilizes the mesmerising, highly distorted tremolo picked riffs that worked so well on the debut. Once again Kristian integrates symphonic ambient compositions between all the black metal to help his “magic” infiltrate the listener, allowing the “spells” to transport them to lands far away without resistance. There are really only four genuine black metal tracks to be found with the rest being short instrumentals, but Det som engang var still manages a running time of forty minutes, and has a consistently dark and haunting atmosphere that Burzum’s better works thrive on.

The short intro Den Onde Kysten (The Coast of Evil) perfectly encapsulates this tone and is a wonderful entry point to the album, and once Key to the Gate calms down after the aforementioned oddly upbeat beginning, it also settles into the typical Burzum way of things. Lost Wisdom is another track that has this unusual swing between rocking riffs and more customary black metal fare, which is probably why I find the remaining two major tracks to be more consistently enjoyable. En Ring Til Aa Herske (One Ring to Rule) and Snu Mikrokosmos Tegn (Turn the Sign of Microcosm) are lengthy exercises in beautiful, atmospheric black metal and while they have contrasting techniques (the former is slow and repetitious while the latter is blistering and violent), they both serve their hypnotic purpose perfectly. Kristian’s vocals are extremely harsh, with throat tearing shrieks adding further emotion to the depressive melancholy the music generates on its own. The ambient work is simplistic yet effective with even Han Som Reiste (The One Who Wandered) overcoming its basic, plodding nature to turn out to be a stirring piece of work. Det som engang var can’t compete with Burzum’s next couple of albums which are amongst the best the black metal genre has to offer, but it’s an enthralling experience that clearly captures the second stage in the rapid evolution of a unique and talented young man.

More about the message than the music, but made worthwhile for the re-recorded A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit.

Burzum’s Aske EP is more renowned for the message behind it rather than the music it contains. The word Aske itself means Ash in Norwegian and when you combine that with the album cover it becomes very clear what Kristian Vikernes was referring to. The ruins that adorn this three track release are all that was left of the Fantoft Stave Church after it was burnt to the ground on the 6th of June 1992. This was one of numerous church burnings that would occur in Norway the same year and it would eventually become evident that Kristian, along with several accomplices from the black metal scene, were behind a large percentage of them. He was never convicted for the Fantoft arson, but considering he was convicted for Holmenkollen Chapel in Oslo (August 21 with Faust), Skjold Church in Vindafjord (September 13 with Samoth) and Asane Church in Bergen (December 24 with Jørn Inge Tunsberg), to go along with his blatant advertising of the event on Aske, makes it almost certain he did it. Kristian never admitted his involvement, but he did suggest openly that the church was burned as an act of retaliation against Christianity for placing a church on sacred, pagan grounds. The first 1000 copies of Aske were packaged with a lighter, an obvious call to arms for fans of Burzum to help Kristian rid Norway of Christianity.

Aske was recorded in August 1992, which was four months after Burzum’s second full length album Det som engang var. However, Kristian decided to release Aske first on Deathlike Silence in March 1993), while he set up his own label Cymophane, on which Det som engang var would be the first release in August 1993. To make matters a bit more confusing, second track Dominus Sathanas was actually recorded in the Det som engang var session, meaning only Stemmen Fra Tårnet and the re-recorded A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit were part of the Aske session. These two tracks are notable in the Burzum discography for being the only ones that Kristian didn’t handle all instruments alone. After the success of the debut album, he’d given some consideration to the idea of playing live. Obviously he would require a full line-up to do so and began auditioning drummers and bassists to become members of Burzum. Fenriz from Darkthrone and Hellhammer from Mayhem were among the drummers that tried out but it was Eric Oliver Lancelot (aka AiwarikiaR from Ulver) that Kristian would choose. On bass he would select Samoth from Emperor and the three of them rehearsed as a full band a few times in 1992. Burzum never did perform live and Lancelot and Samoth were quickly let go, but not before Samoth took part in the recording of the main tracks Aske.

These tracks are fairly typical for Burzum at this stage, but it’s apparent that some of the thrashier sections found on the debut and Det som engang var are now giving way to the cold, hypnotic black metal that goes hand in hand with the Burzum name. Stemmen Fra Tårnet (which means The Voice From the Tower) is the main attraction, with Dominus Sathanas (Master Satan) being a short instrumental and A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit a re-recording of a track off the debut. Thankfully it’s a pretty cool track, but it doesn’t quite move me the way Burzum normally does, and finishes so abruptly that the listener is jarred back to reality, all but ruining the spellbinding effect of the repetition. Dominus Sathanas is a reasonably effective guitar instrumental, with a haunting tone, but at three minutes it also doesn’t add an enormous amount of value. This leaves only A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit, which fortunately is a brilliant version of an already great track. Many fans that own the debut album with Aske as bonus tracks will only know this version as the original was replaced to prevent the track appearing twice. The Aske version is a minute longer and contains better production and performances without losing any of the emotional weight, making it the better of the two by some distance. In my opinion it’s this track that makes Aske worthwhile, but the inclusion of all three tracks on the Misanthropy debut reissue make tracking down the original EP a waste of time and money.

The first enthralling steps of a man destined for both greatness and immense controversy.

Kristian Vikernes was born on the 11th of February 1973 at 21:58 in Bergen, Norway. This now infamous individual, who seems to cause controversy through mere presence alone, appears to have lived a fairly average life, at least up until his later teenage years. In fact, when you look at the things that Kristian was passionate about in the time prior to the formation of Burzum, it becomes apparent that the man would generally be considered a geek. He had an obsession with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, played various role playing games and had pretend fights with fake swords in the forest with his friends. Yet there’s no doubt that even during these fantasy filled days of adventure and escapism, there was something very different about Kristian. Simply put, the boy, and eventually the man, took things very seriously indeed and refused to adhere to standard social viewpoints. His view on Tolkien’s work is a case in point, with Kristian not content to side with our underdog fellowship of hobbits, dwarves, elves and humans. The young Norwegian instead saw parallels between the races of Middle-Earth and those in the real world, as well as between the trilogy’s storyline and that of his own pagan ancestry. The dwarves were “greedy capitalist pigs”, the hobbits were “boring little children” and the elves were cool but “fought for the wrong side”. Kristian felt no affiliation with any of the good guys and instead found a deep connection with Sauron and his legion of evil baddies.

In his opinion, not only did the bad guys give Middle-Earth much needed adventure and adversity, but he also picked up on the possibility that Tolkien had based the darker side of his story on Kristian’s forefathers and their Óðinnic mythology. “His One Eye, the One Ring and the tower of Barad-Dur are all attributes similar to those of Óðinn. The One Eye was like Óðinn's eye, the One Ring was like Óðinn's ring, Draupnir ("Dripper"), and Barad-Dur was like the tower or throne of Óðinn, called Hliðskjálf ("Secret Ritual-Site"). His Uruk-Hai and Olog-Hai ("Troll-Race") were like Viking berserkers, the Warges were like Óðinnic werewolves, and so forth.” In his eyes, Sauron and his forces attacking the cities of Middle-Earth had distinct similarities to the Vikings attacking Christian Europe, and even the Orcish and Black Speech that Tolkien developed were based on the language of his forefathers. He couldn’t help but get behind Sauron’s push for domination and despite their inevitable loss (just as the Vikings had eventually been defeated), Kristian believed from an early age that he would rather perish fighting for what he believed in, rather than living in falsity and obedience to offensive authority. Given the above thought processes, it’s not surprising that he named his second band Uruk-Hai (his first was called Kalashnikov after his favourite assault rifle), which means Orc-Race in Black Speech, his self-associated Vikings of Middle-Earth.

Originally a three piece band, containing a separate drummer and bassist, Uruk-Hai didn’t last very long before falling apart due to internal conflicts in 1990. Kristian then spent a year playing for a thrash metal band called Old Funeral, followed by Satanel which he formed with Abbath from Immortal, before finally reviving Uruk-Hai in 1991. This time around he felt his own musicianship skills had improved enough to go it alone and decided to change the name of the band to signify this transformation. Sticking with the Tolkien theme, the name Burzum was chosen, which means darkness in Black Speech. The word can be found inscribed on the One Ring of Sauron, the greatest of the rings of power. It says “Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul” which means “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” This wasn’t the only change however, nor was it the only link to Lord of the Rings. Kristian decided that he wanted to remain anonymous, as that would increase the mystery and power of Burzum. He gave himself the pseudonym Count Grishnackh, which is inspired by a character called Grishnákh, an Orc captain in a group of Mordor Orcs that joined Saruman’s Uruk-Hai troops on the plains of Rohan. A strange choice given the characters unheroic demise at the end of a rider’s spear, but somehow suitable for one so anti-authoritarian.

The purpose of Burzum was “to create something new; darkness in a far too light, safe and boring world”. Kristian intended to do this through the use of magic. His ideas were not, as is often suggested, based on occultism or Satanism, but instead based on the fantasy magic from his role playing games (such as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) with links to the Pagan past that fascinated him to such a large extent. The songs on Burzum albums are actually meant to be spells, with each album very specifically designed so that each spell can achieve its desired result. Some tracks were positioned to prepare the listener for magic, others to make them susceptible to it, others to put them into a trancelike state, and finally others to transition them into the world of fantasy. They were also intended to be listened to at night, “when the sunbeams couldn’t vaporize the power of the magic”. This all sounds laughable of course to anyone grounded in reality, yet the hypnotic quality of Burzum’s work and the fantastical landscapes that it builds in the imagination of the listener suggest that in some way his objectives were successful. Kristian thought these magical spells were needed in a world otherwise devoid of all things adventurous and mystical. He created them as much for himself as for others that may wish to escape this unsatisfactory world even if temporarily.

While Kristian listened to bands such as Kreator, Paradise Lost, Destruction and of course Bathory (he never listened to Venom which makes claims that they were a huge influence incorrect), the majority of his musical inspiration came between the years 1989 and 1992, in which he and other likeminded individuals (including band members from Old Funeral and Immortal) would spend their days fighting each other with clubs, swords and spears in the Norwegian countryside. Taking place in ancient ruins and dark forests, it was not intended that these mock battles would cause serious injury, but most would end with some form of bloodletting or bruising, giving them all a taste of the dangers of medieval warfare. The feelings generated by this activity along with the highly atmospheric locations would inspire Kristian’s musical output and he would habitually create music on arriving home, filthy and bleeding. Pretty much all of the music for the first six releases, even the ambient Dauði Baldrs and Hliðskjálf releases he later produced from prison (they were basically keyboard versions of riffs he wrote on guitar), were created in this battle-fuelled state of towering inspiration. Ironically, it was Øystein Aarseth (aka Euronymous from the band Mayhem) that would give Kristian the chance to put his unique vision into a form others could experience, and it was the formation of this relationship that would result his eventual incarceration.

Øystein came across a couple of Burzum demo tapes and having recently formed his own label called Deathlike Silence, was impressed enough to offer Kristian a recording contract. He accepted and immediately began preparing to record a self titled debut. Recorded in January 1992, Burzum is the first of four albums he would record in a hugely productive fourteen month period, although it would take over four years for the last of them (Filosofem) to be released. Grieghallen Sound Studio was chosen for the album due to an earlier positive experience recording an EP with Old Funeral in 1990. More specifically, Kristian had thought very highly of the sound technician at Grieghallen, whom he says was “a very positive, skilled and great guy from Bergen”. Using extremely cheap equipment, Burzum took a total of nineteen hours to record and master, with every instrument for every track captured in one take. Kristian cared nothing for the small mistakes that are apparent throughout and has always believed that these variances add character to music in general. He also chose to leave these minor flaws as part of his rebellion against what was considered standard, as was his wish to sound like no other band and his purposeful use of shitty equipment. Øystein and Harald Nævdal (aka Demonaz from Immortal) assisted with carrying and setting up equipment and were present for the majority of the recording, with Øystein even contributing a lead for the track War and helped bash a large gong as part of the background sounds of Dungeons of Darkness.

As mentioned earlier, the early Burzum albums were intended as spells, however the first two albums were also designed with the LP format in mind. Each was split into two distinct halves to fit the format, with the debut albums first half labelled Side Hate and second Side Winter. As always with Burzum’s classic albums, the music is unquestionably black metal, with similarly dark instrumentals (often ambient in style) used to good effect. Heavily distorted, tremolo picked guitar riffs, fast drumming with heavy use of double bass kicking and exceedingly harsh shrieked vocals, all given an intentionally raw production make up the backbone of the Burzum sound. It’s the hypnotic aspect and the intense feelings of melancholy and despair however that give albums like Burzum its emotional hold, and while there’s no doubt that the formula would be improved upon with each subsequent album (peaking with Hvis Lyset Tar Oss), the features that make Burzum so captivating were already in place at this early stage. One thing that would lessen over time was the inclusion of thrashier elements and they were never more prevalent than on this debut. Unfortunately this facet of the album does negate from the overall experience and occasionally breaks the “spell” that Kristian hoped to generate. War is the most obvious example but this shift in tone makes its way into a few otherwise beautiful tracks to degrade their overall effect.

The musicianship is certainly not amazing from a technical point of view, but nor does it need to be with the end result far surpassing its individual parts. Repetition and simplicity work in Burzum’s favour, allowing the music to easily break into the listener’s subconscious before working its “magic”. As planned, both Side Hate and Side Winter start with aggressive tracks (Feeble Screams from Forests Unknown and War) to open the listener up, which are followed by more hypnotic, trance inducing pieces (Ea, Lord of the Depths and A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit) to prepare the listener for the magic to come. Then the true spells arrive (Spell of Destruction and My Journey to the Stars) which are intended to shift the listener to fantastic worlds far from reality, before soothing instrumentals (Channelling the Power of Souls Into a New God and Dungeons of Darkness) help calm them down and return them to reality in gentle fashion. Whether all this has the desired effect on a listener probably has more to do with them personally rather than the work of Kristian, as there’s no doubt that this atmospheric black metal touches those who accept it on a deep emotional level. The next few Burzum releases would grow in consistency and would therefore be more successful than this first effort, but there’s no denying how important this album was to the black metal scene at large, and tracks like Spell of Destruction and in particular A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit are still thoroughly impressive nearly twenty years on.

An inestimably important album in metal history, built on the dreams and ambitions of one man.

Tomas Forsberg was born on the 17th of February, 1966, in Hägersten, Stockholm. He died on June the 3rd, 2004, in Hässelby, Stockholm. If the name isn’t known to you, it’s possible you have very little interest in what is commonly known as black metal and viking metal. I say possible, rather than certain, because Tomas was known by another name for the majority of those 38 years. It’s a name that will unquestionably be forever associated with metal music and in particular, the formation of at least two of its many subgenres. I’m getting ahead of myself however, as this story begins when he was simply known as Tomas, a fifteen year old punk living in Sweden and who had a deep affection for music. Not the type of pop and disco music (think ABBA) that the majority of the Swedish population was interested in at the time, but heavy stuff from outside of Scandinavia. He’d had an interest in music and had tried his hand at it since the age of 9, but his fondness for Sex Pistols, The Exploited and KISS had left Tomas with no doubt that being some sort of rock musician was his ultimate dream. In 1981, the opportunity to get an inside view of the music industry arose, and Tomas took it eagerly. The story goes that a practical vocational guidance teacher at his school found a vacant position at a small record company where Tomas could gain some work experience and hopefully, in the process, straighten up his less than positive school results. The company was called Tyfon, and it’s here that Tomas would do general office duties, including making coffee, typing letters and packing boxes, for around six hours a week. It’s also here that Tomas would see music being recorded first hand for the first time.

During the same period, Tomas was involved with short-lived bands Agnosticum and punk outfit Stridskuk (which is Swedish for War Cock), but neither managed to release anything before splitting up. Other forms of music had started to attract his attention, with three British bands in particular leaving an indelible mark on the Swede. Heavy metal legends Black Sabbath and Motörhead held an almost permanent place in his stereo, their position only usurped by GBH’s City Baby Attacked by Rats, an album lent to him by a friend. With these new influences fresh in his mind, Tomas began to formulate his own ideas for a band, inadvertently amalgamating the gloomy darkness of Black Sabbath, the metallic drive of Motörhead, and the high energy punk of GBH. Attentive readers might have noticed that there was no mention of Venom in that list, despite the fact that many over the years have assumed that the satanic imagery and dirty metal sound that band produced at the dawn of the eighties must have had some influence on Tomas’ music (they even had a song called Countess Bathory and their debut album had a goat head in the shape of a pentagram on the cover). He claimed many times throughout the last two decades of his life that he never experienced Venom until late in 1984 (a few months after the release of the Bathory debut), so the constant mention of the band from Newcastle irked him no end. That being said, not everything Tomas said to the media could be taken as fact, as he often planted seeds of untruth (particularly regarding his real name) into interviews in some humorous social study of gullibility. There’s every chance he was lying about Venom too, but I guess we’ll never know for sure.

In 1983, at the age of 17, Tomas travelled around Stockholm, pinning up “musicians wanted” notices in record shops and music stores. These notices called for anyone interested in forming a band that would play music “in the Exploited, GBH, Motörhead and Black Sabbath style”. Just after lunch on Wednesday the 16th of March, 1983, Tomas would meet up with two interested young men outside a local music store in Kungsholmen called Musikbörsen. Their names were Jonas Åkerlund, an 18 year old drummer, and Frederick (Freddan) Melander, an 18 year old bass player. The two of them had recently played for traditional heavy metal band Die Cast, but were keen to see what this new entity was all about. The three of them clearly got on well enough, so decided to head into a basement to play some covers. It’s here that Tomas, with his newly painted black Ibanez Destroyer, Freddan, with his red and white Rickenbacker, and Jonas, with his pieced together drum kit, cranked out metal tunes at high volume, despite the basement having no sound-proofing whatsoever. They were so impressed with their efforts that the last hours of this first day together were spent toying with ideas for stage names each of them could take on. As with so many Swedish bands they listened to, it was decided they should choose Americanized monikers, and stacks of humorous suggestions were made at the time. In the end, Jonas chose the ridiculous sounding name Vans McBurger (a combination of his favourite sneakers and restaurant franchise), while Freddan was determined to be known as Hanoi, apparently not giving any explanations for this choice. Tomas however couldn’t think of one he liked at the time, but would come across one soon enough. It’s probably not the one you’re expecting though!

The name Tomas chose for himself was Ace Shot. Not a particularly evil sounding name for one of extreme metal’s most legendary figures, and thankfully not one that would be attached to the man for very long. Its origin however is fairly amusing, and gives us some insight into the teenager. While he was struggling at the time to find a name for himself, he was having no such difficulty in bedding women he met at clubs. One obviously satisfied girl (at least that’s the way Tomas describes the event) commented after he’d had his way with her that he was a real “kanon skjut”, which translates as cannon shot. After informing Jonas and Freddan of this label the next day, they immediately began calling him by that name, and realising it might actually stick, Tomas desperately tried to find something that wouldn’t entail the jesting of his mates. He began looking through his records for inspiration and found his answer in the works of Motörhead. Amalgamating the tracks Ace of Spades and Sharp Shooter, he came up with the name Ace Shoot, a name that would still lend itself to the private joke he shared with his fellow band members. Somewhere along the line it would be shortened to Ace Shot, which is the name Tomas went by all the way up to the recording of the debut album. With the individual naming ordeal out of the way, Ace Shot, Hanoi and Vans McBurger realised there was another name they were going to need if they were ever going to leave the confines of their rehearsal basement. They needed to find a name for the band! Thankfully this turned out to be a far easier process, particularly as Tomas was adamant there was only one name that was ever going to be attached to the band he started. Bathory!

Around a year prior to forming the band, Tomas had spent some time in London with a friend. Given his attraction to all things dark and mysterious, it’s unsurprising that he visited a horror themed wax museum during this trip. There was one particular display that caught his eye, for more than one reason it has to be said. Reclining in a bathtub filled with blood, in the middle of a medieval styled chamber, was a naked woman. Above the tub were three more naked women, hanging upside down suspended from chains, blood running from their slashed throats. Although the sight of naked female forms was enough in itself to captivate the 16 year old Tomas, the ghastly scene would have even more impact on him. The woman in the bath was labelled Countess Elizabeth Báthory and as soon he arrived back in Sweden, Tomas began researching who she was and how she was connected to such horrific imagery. A short summary of what he would have discovered is as follows: Elizabeth Báthory was born on the 7th of August 1560 on a family estate in Nyírbátor, Hungary. The Báthory family were of Hungarian noble blood and rose to significant influence in Central Europe during the late Middle Ages, bringing forth several Princes of Transylvania and one King of Poland. Legend has it that the family’s origins go back to the year 900, when a warrior named Vitus set out to fight a dragon, which lived in the swamps next to the castle of Ecsed. Vitus killed the beast with three thrusts of his lance and was rewarded for this victory with the castle itself. He was also given the name Báthory, which translates as “good hero”, by the people who resided there. Of course, none of this is true, and the family’s roots have officially been linked back to the 13th century, but the real story that would be connected to this family is just as unbelievable!

It was around 1602 when rumours started to spread across Hungary, with talk of missing adolescent girls striking fear into the common people. Murmurs that Countess Báthory was somehow involved in their disappearance were ignored by the court; possibly due to the power the Báthory family held as much as any thoughts that these accusations were merely wives’ tales. These whispers increased in fervour over the years to the point where King Matthias had no choice but to assign György Thurzó, the Palatine of Hungary, to investigate. Thurzó and his notaries began collecting evidence in March 1610, and would gather testimony from 300 witnesses over the course of the next nine months. According to all this testimony, Elizabeth had started luring the daughters of local peasants to Csejte, with promises of well-paid work as maidservants in the castle. There she would torture the girls to death, with witnesses naming severe beatings, burning or mutilation of body parts, freezing, surgery, starvation and sexual abuse, as the main forms of atrocity. It was also testified that Elizabeth had since moved on to killing the daughters of lesser gentry, who were sent to her gynaecium by their parents to learn courtly etiquette. On the 30th of December 1610, Thurzó travelled to Csejte Castle and arrested Báthory and four of her servants, who were accused of being her accomplices. It’s reported that numerous girls were discovered locked up at the castle, with one dead and another dying. While King Matthias called for Elizabeth to be sentenced to death, Thurzó convinced him that acting as such would disgrace a noble and influential family, so it was decided that she would be kept under strict house arrest instead. The four accomplices would not be so fortunate!

Dorota Semtész, Ilona Jó, Katarína Benická, and János Újváry were all put on trial on the 7th of January 1611. Semtész, Jó and Újváry were found guilty and condemned to death. They were burnt at the stake, but not before Semtész and Jó had their fingers torn off with hot pokers (Újváry was deemed less culpable for some reason and therefore beheaded prior to burning). It was thought that Benická had been bullied by the other accomplices and was therefore sentenced to life imprisonment rather than death. While all this went on, Elizabeth remained under house arrest, walled up in a set of rooms, where she resided for the remaining 4 years of her life. She died on the 21st of August, 1614, at the age of 54. She was never tried, and to this day there are those that believe she was a victim of politics, rather than the sadistic Blood Countess that history suggests. However, if the testimony of witnesses is to be believed, Elizabeth Báthory tortured and murdered some 650 young females over a period of around 25 years, which would make her the most prolific female serial killer in recorded history. Given that the accomplices admitted to at least 36 murders, and that castle personnel estimated the number of bodies removed to be around 200, there’s every chance that Elizabeth Báthory did actually commit the horrifying atrocities that appear to the average person the stuff of fiction. The only part of the legend that has turned up in countless movies and books (not to mention wax museums) that is certainly fictional is the bathing in blood motif, as there’s nothing in the historical documents to suggest this occurred. Regardless, the name Báthory will forever be associated with torture, murder and blood, which is why Tomas thought it a perfect name for his newly formed metal band.

Now that each member had an alter-ego and the band itself a name, there were only a couple boxes left to tick before Bathory could be considered ready to get down to business. The first box was ticked when a logo was produced, although it would take two attempts to get it right. The first effort used the Koch Fraktur font, clearly attempting to mimic the Black Sabbath logo, but this was replaced with a second effort just a few months later, this time using the Old English font. It was decided that the logo looked best in capitals, and the band immediately made homemade stickers and drew it everywhere with black marker pens. The second tick box was more troublesome, with Tomas believing Bathory would need more members if they were ever going to be considered a real metal band. He never thought of himself as a vocalist and sang at rehearsals for no other reason than there was no-one else available. He also knew that he could never pass as a lead guitarist, which is something he felt should be part of every metal band. Over the first few months of rehearsals, there would be no shortage of interested musicians, many of which were really quite talented. The problem was that as soon as these guys saw the paraphernalia in the basement (hanging chains and inverted crosses) and read some of the satanic themed lyrics, they ran out of there as though their life depended on it! Vocalists were particularly difficult to get to the audition stage, as Tomas would always show them the lyrics to tracks like Satan My Master and Sacrifice to see whether they were up for it. They never were! In fact, Jonas and Freddan were also not completely comfortable with the dark themes Tomas was toying with, and began requesting he write material in the vein of Iron Maiden.

This would be the first sign that line-up trouble might be approaching for Bathory, and the differences in musical taste between Tomas and the other band members became more and more obvious during the remainder of 1983. Tomas wanted to push the boundaries of brutality from not only a lyrical perspective, but also a musical one, and the other guys were never comfortable with it, instead wanting to emulate their heroes such as Judas Priest and Maiden. When Jonas and Freddan went on vacation to London over summer, instead of putting Bathory on hold, Tomas took the opportunity to bring in the involvement of two individuals he knew would have no problem with the themes and speed he desired for Bathory. These two musicians (bass player Rickard "Ribban" Bergman and drummer Johan "Jolle" Elvén), who Tomas had played with previously when part of Stridskuk, would partake in what was the first proper Bathory recording (excluding the terrible cassette recorded rehearsals). Recorded live in a rehearsal room with fairly low quality equipment, four tracks (Sacrifice, Live in Sin, Die in Fire and You Don’t Move Me (I Don’t Give a Fuck)) were recorded across two reels. Note: Unfortunately the first of these reels was lost over the years, but both Die in Fire and You Don’t Move Me (I Don’t Give a Fuck) can be heard on the Jubileum compilations that were released in 1992 and 1993. When listening to these early surviving tracks, it’s clearly apparent how much of an influence Motörhead (and dare I say Venom) had on the songwriting, but the macabre themes, the demonic vocals and the filthy rawness of the sound gave it a nastier tone, hinting at what was to come. The four tracks were not released in any way at the time, but Tomas was stoked to finally have something tangible to show for all his efforts.

He was more motivated than ever to take Bathory to the next stage, but unsurprisingly, things went downhill as soon as the original band members reunited after the break. They always had a great time together, but could never agree on what direction the band should take, with the end result being that no progression occurred. It seemed almost certain that they would all go their separate ways in the near future, and that Bathory would be put to rest. Fate had a different plan however, with an opportunity falling in their lap just as the guys were considering calling it quits. Tomas had recently gone back to work at Tyfon Records for 8 to 12 hours a week, more for the connection to the music industry than for the money. In January 1984, the label began planning a metal compilation to be released later that year. Of course there was no way Tyfon would consider including the unheard of band that their office hand just happened to be part of, especially when they had other bands on their label they were desperate to gain exposure for. The album would include five heavy metal bands, with each of them contributing two tracks. The bands were Oz, Trash, Spitfire, Zero Nine and another Finnish act that had to pull out at the last minute due to army duties. All of a sudden there was an empty slot on the compilation, with very little time to find a suitable band to fill it. Realising the rare opportunity right in front of his nose, Tomas pitched his own band as the perfect solution. Describing their sound as “rough and demonic stuff” and not having a demo that actually included the three members of the line-up, it’s safe to say that it’s extremely unlikely Bathory would have been part of the release, yet Tyfon had no other viable options. They were in! (There’s another more likely reason why Bathory got the gig, but more on that later.)

On the morning of the 23rd of January 1984, the band arrived at Elektra Studio to record their two tracks for Scandinavian Metal Attack. They had no car between them so apart from Tomas’ guitar, they’d not been able to bring their own gear, and would have to use the equipment that was set up in the studio. The tracks they were going to record were not so much selected as they were the only ones remaining after ruling out those they didn’t want to play. Since their inception they had written a total of eight original tracks, being Satan My Master, Witchcraft, Live in Sin, Dirty Woman, Sacrifice, The Return of Darkness and Evil, You Don’t Move Me and Die in Fire. They figured Live in Sin and Dirty Woman were a bit too “fuck you”, You Don’t Move Me and Die in Fire were more punk rock than they wanted to be seen as, and they’d never been completely satisfied with Satan My Master and Witchcraft. That left Sacrifice and The Return of Darkness and Evil as their weapons of choice to unleash upon an unsuspecting world. The guys had no studio experience obviously (apart from Tomas’ employment) and had to be told repeatedly not to jump around like madmen the way they normally did at rehearsal. Another issue they faced was that they’d always ended The Return of Darkness and Evil with minutes of chaos and feedback, so when it came time to finish the track, the guys all looked at each other with no idea of what to do. As a result, the recording just stops with no proper close at all, a problem that would be resolved by adding a guillotine chopping sound just as everything comes to an abrupt end. Other effects were added at the same time such as female screaming and backward recorded vocals, adding to the nastiness and atmosphere that already emanated from the work of Bathory.

With Bathory’s part of Scandinavian Metal Attack recorded, all that was left to do was wait until its official release some two months later, yet it became clearer than ever during this period that regardless of the response, Bathory was not going to be able to continue in its current form. They all decided that their goals and interests were far too different to go on and called it quits. In fact, Jonas and Freddan moved to London and play no further part in the Bathory story (Jonas would go on to be a successful film and music video director, working with artists such as The Prodigy, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Metallica, P!nk and Britney Spears)! Tomas was uncertain as to whether or not he would look for replacements, especially given how difficult it had been to find anyone suitable in the past. All that was about to change however! In March 1984, Scandinavian Metal Attack was released in a batch of 3000. This quickly sold out, so another batch was produced, and then another and another. By May, the compilation was Tyfon’s highest selling release and just about every review and piece of fan mail was screaming one name. Bathory! Tyfon certainly weren’t going to miss the opportunity that had presented itself, and quickly moved to secure a deal with the band. Tomas had to inform the label that Bathory didn’t in fact exist anymore, but on hearing of all the interest in the band as a result of the compilation, he was determined to find new members and signed the record deal. It was decided that Bathory’s debut album would be recorded in June, which left very little time to fill out the band, but thankfully Tomas had been working on several other tracks that fit the vision he had for the band’s sound.

Tomas began his search for musicians by going back to his former Stridskuk buddies, Ribban and Jolle. Jolle declined the offer, stating he would be on vacation in Thailand at the time of the recording, but Ribban eagerly accepted. Tomas then began to ask around to see whether anyone knew of a decent drummer that could fill the remaining slot. The name Stefan Larsson came up, who had played for a band called Obsklass. On hearing a cassette of Stefan performing, he decided he was a good fit and hired him, meaning Bathory once again had a full line-up There was however one more thing Tomas wished to do before they got down to business. Not being happy with the name Ace Shot, and with the two friends he shared the private joke with now gone, he decided to change it while it wasn’t too late. While reading a book describing satanic rituals, Tomas had come across a list of dark princes (demons) that had apparently been banished from heaven and were now in service to Satan. There was one name in particular on that list that he felt was perfect, and it would be this name that Tomas would forevermore be known as to fans and media alike. It was Quorthon! It’s worth mentioning that there were two other names on that list that would catch his attention, being Vvornth and Kothaar, but they would not show up in the Bathory story for a few years yet. Since both Ribban and Stefan were merely helping Quorthon record the debut album and not necessarily part of the band’s future, it was decided that there was no point giving them stage-names, nor would they include any photos or make mention of any members at all on the finished product.

Quorthon, Ribban and Stefan had only one rehearsal prior to recording the debut album, and that occurred on the 22nd of May 1984. Fortunately for fans, the band thought it would be worthwhile recording two tracks on the day using the primitive equipment on hand, including a four track mixer, a couple of amps and four microphones positioned around the room. These two tracks were Witchcraft and Satan My Master, both of which were intended to be part of the full length, but which never made it. These tracks can both be found on the Jublieum III compilation released in 1998, and are particularly notable for the brutally raw vocal performance of Quorthon. Three weeks later (the 14th of June to be precise) and they’d find themselves in a studio named The Garage, which was a perfectly suitable name for what was at one stage an actual garage. Costing the equivalent of around US$600 at the time, The Garage was not really a full-blown recording studio. It was more intended as a rehearsal and demo recording facility, being situated at one end of a private house. It contained only an 8 track table, two small recording machines and a switchboard, and it took the band quite a while to get a sound anywhere near what was required for a metal album. They were forced to do some fairly improper techniques to achieve their goal, including recording the bass directly into the switchboard and playing the result back out through a 20 watt amp, and even attempting double bass drums by putting their single bass drum on a cardboard box and hitting it with sticks covered in cloth. Worst of all was the fact the band could only afford one reel of two inch studio tape and one reel of quarter inch tape. This meant they were forced to record the album at half speed, which resulted in a humming and buzzing noise all over the recording.

The majority of the material that ended up on the album had been written by Quorthon just prior to entering the studio, and some of the tracks were not even close to being fully realised. A fair amount of effort was put into just piecing bits together and expanding on basic ideas during the actual recording process, so certain parts ended up quite different to initial expectations. The intro is a good example of this, as all the band knew is that they wanted to make a dark imitation of Black Sabbath’s classic opening to their self titled debut. Just as Black Sabbath did, Bathory used wind, thunder and church bells to set the album’s atmosphere, but unlike the gloomy, gothic scene the Brits work suggested, the Swedes went after a more sinister and evil mood. By setting the church bell (a recording of London’s Big Ben) at half speed and giving the wind and thunder a far harsher, more threatening tone, Bathory succeeded in their task. They were so happy with the result that they decided to run the intro for its three minute entirety on the album, instead of the thirty seconds they’d originally intended prior to recording. Second track Hades was another incomplete track, being just a bunch of chords with next to no lyrics when they entered the studio. These bits and pieces were expanded upon during the first days’ sound check and by the time the guys had found a sound they felt was adequate, they had a completed work. Once again, the band was really pleased with the result, and a decision was made that Hades should be the track that would follow the intro and introduce the album proper. Quorthon later suggested this decision was based on the excitement that came from having a fresh new track rather than on quality, but it turned out well enough nonetheless, being a suitably intense opening to proceedings.

Third track Reaper could on the one hand be considered one of the tracks written just prior to recording the album, but its roots go back to 1983. It’s actually a heavily modified version of Witchcraft, which is the real reason that track didn’t also appear on the full length. It’s not all that apparent when listening to the tracks side by side, but Quorthon obviously felt there was just a bit too much similarity to get away with including both. I’m always reminded of Megadeth’s Rattlehead when listening to Reaper, which I guess shows how much of a role speed / thrash metal plays in early Bathory. The addition of fourth track Necromansy, another newly created piece, is probably most notable for the misspelling of the song title. There’s a story behind this that suggests it wasn’t simply a case of Quorthon struggling with the English language and putting an “s” where a “c” should have been. He is quoted as saying the track was always supposed to be called Necromancy, but when it came time to design the album layout using Old English rub on letters, they realised they were missing the letter “c”. This resulted in Necromancy becoming Necromansy and In Conspiracy With Satan becoming In Conspirasy With Satan, which didn’t overly concern the band as they thought no-one would ever notice as the words remain the same when spoken aloud. Personally I have my doubts about this explanation as it seems very unlikely that they would manage to not only include both required “c”’s in the song title Sacrifice before misplacing the letter, but they also managed to include one other “c” in the word Necromansy itself. It’s more likely that Quorthon misspelt the song titles and made up a story to explain his blunder somewhere along the line.

The fifth track on the album is Sacrifice, a track the band had performed so many times prior that they could have played it in their sleep. This confidence unfortunately resulted in a fairly rushed version where the guys obviously tried to play it as fast as they could. When comparing the album version to the one found on the Scandinavian Metal Attack compilation, it’s apparent that Sacrifice works much better when performed at a more restrained speed, which is something Quorthon himself later admitted in interviews. It still remains one of the highlights of the album and a classic Bathory tune, even in its inferior state. There’s not a lot to say about the next two tracks In Conspirasy With Satan and Armageddon, other than that both were fairly old tracks, having been written around the time the band entered the studio for Scandinavian Metal Attack. The inspiration for Armageddon came from an 11th century painting that Quorthon came across when perusing a book on religious history. The image of black horned devils with pitchforks and wings tormenting the damned in hell sparked the youngster’s imagination, and he decided to write lyrics from the torturer’s perspective. This was fairly typical of the inspiration for Quorthon, and despite the rumours that he was a Satanist that spent his time drinking blood in caves, the lyrical content found in early Bathory was entirely inspired by movies, comics and paintings. After years of watching horror movies such as the Halloween series, Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, reading comics like Vampirella, Dracula and Shock, and flicking through medieval paintings and woodcuts in the local library, Quorthon needed no assistance in finding the dark atmosphere and horror themed lyrics he required.

Eighth track Raise the Dead was one of the most recently composed tracks, and is another good example of Quorthon’s inspiration. He’d recently seen a Hammer film in which the final scene had a man waking up in a coffin at his own funeral, and once again decided to write a song about what this experience would be like. The track starts with the sound of fading church bells (presumably as the coffin is lowered into the ground and covered) and a human heartbeat signifying that the “deceased” is in fact still alive. So intrigued by this idea was Quorthon that he returned to it a couple of albums later with Call From the Grave. Raise the Dead is really the first example of mid-paced Bathory, with the rest of the album moving at a vigorous pace, but thankfully given its quality, it wouldn’t be the last. The next track, War, certainly can’t be considered mid-paced, being a full throttle speed metal assault that leaves the listener beaten and bruised. Not only is it the final track on the album, it’s also one of the last ones written prior to recording. The whole thing came together after Quorthon was practicing playing an acoustic guitar glissando over and over again as fast as he could. Add some distortion and venomous religious medieval painting inspired lyrics and there you have it. All that’s left to discuss is the short ritualistic outro that closes the record, which Quorthon thought bookended things quite nicely given the aforementioned intro. On its own, this little atmospheric piece is fairly innocuous, but it would go on to close Bathory’s first five albums, albeit re-recorded in most (if not all?) instances to fit the sound of each album. The total time spent recording all ten tracks came to 56 hours, but the resulting album runs for only 26 minutes.

Bathory’s debut album was in the bag so to speak, but there were still plenty of decisions to make before it could hit the shelves. First and foremost, it was always intended that the album would have a name of its own. The name chosen was Pentagrammaton! If you don’t recognise it that’s because it was discarded just prior to designing the cover when several people mistook it for Pentagon. A little bit of research reveals that Quorthon, rather than making it up, must have come across this word while looking through religious texts at the library. I’ll quote straight from Google here as this is by no means my area of expertise. “The pentagrammaton (Greek for "five letter name") is the speculation (developed in mystic/occult circles beginning around the late 16th century) that taking the Tetragrammaton YHWH and adding a Hebrew letter ש shin in the middle of it — or יהשוה — results in the name of Jesus. However, the historically accurate Hebrew/Aramaic form of the name of Jesus is ישוע (shortened from earlier יהושע) — note the `ayin consonant ע at the end.” In other words, Quorthon was trying to be a smartass by calling the first Bathory album Jesus in a cryptic sort of way. After this plan was dropped and he didn’t have any other ideas that he liked, a decision was made that the debut album would be self-titled. As it turns out, Belgian black metal band Enthroned decided to use the word as the title of their eighth full length album in 2010. With the album title sorted, it was time to design an eye catching cover that encapsulated the themes held within. As you’ve probably guessed by now, that process also came with challenges to overcome, not to mention some controversy.

It was originally planned that the debut album cover would contain the stock standard Baphomet image, being a goat head contained within a pentagram. This obviously made sense given the original Pentagrammaton title, but it’s fairly fortunate that they chose not to go ahead with it given that’s exactly what Venom had done some three years earlier for their debut Welcome to Hell. I guess it could be argued either way that Quorthon was therefore definitely inspired by Venom, or that this is evidence he’d indeed never heard (or seen) Venom’s infamous early eighties albums. Both arguments are pure conjecture. After the decision to self-title the album, the pentagram was moved to the back of the album and a new image was chosen for the front. This is where the controversy starts! Quorthon has repeatedly stated that he created the goat head image that eventually adorned Bathory’s debut by taking various images from horror comics and making a collage. In his words, “a single monstrous goat like face was glued together from a collage of eyes, a nose and a mouth cut out from several horror comic magazines. Liberal amounts of tipex and black ink was used for masking and adding a few details such as the torso, fur, elongated ears and horns.” This, I’m afraid to say, is clearly a lie, and brings into question a lot of other statements made by Quorthon over the years. The image was lifted directly from a book by Erica Jong called Witches, which was published in 1981. The picture in question can be found on page 81 and was drawn by American illustrator Joseph Smith. To make matters worse, the little demon figure that appears on the back of a lot of Bathory albums was taken from an image in the same book.

It could be argued that many metal bands have used artwork over the years without crediting the artists that created them, but Quorthon’s blatant lies about the origin of such a renowned piece of work is more than a bit embarrassing. Anyway, that doesn’t end the story of the album artwork by any means. Quorthon had read somewhere in one of his books that the colour gold had magical power. He’d gathered that silver was a colour of goodness and light, but the magic of gold could be used for both good and evil purposes. It was therefore decided that the goat image should be in gold on a black background. Unfortunately, while discussing the idea with the printers, it turned out using gold was extremely expensive, so they asked the firm to use the closest plain colour to gold. On ripping open the first box of completed copies a couple of weeks later, Quorthon would be horrified to find his beloved debut album was adorned with a canary yellow goat. Given a shortage of funds had been the cause of the issue in the first place, it’s not all that surprising that the band was unable to get them reprinted, particularly as they’d taken the more cost effective option in getting 1000 of them printed (their choices were 300, 500 or 1000). As hideous as this first batch appears, these days they sell for a stack of cash, particularly if autographed. Fans should beware though that there are many fakes out there, created by cons looking for a quick buck. Just to add salt to the wound, the band quickly realised they’d failed to list the intro title (it’s called Storm of Damnation) or the outro on the layout description they gave to the printer, a mistake that wouldn’t be rectified until a CD version was released many years later.

There are a few other items of interest to be found when perusing the album layout. Firstly, side A (Hades through to Sacrifice) was labelled Side Darkness and side B (In Conspirasy With Satan through to War) was labelled Side Evil. Secondly, instead of finding Tyfon Records written across it, there’s another label name that to this point hasn’t been mentioned. Both Bathory and Tyfon knew that the band’s material was unlike anything else on the roster, so when Quorthon approached management requesting permission to form a sub-label just for Bathory releases, they were happy to oblige. Quorthon chose the name Black Mark and set about designing the label that would appear on the album. This also gave the band the opportunity to have their own product number range, so naturally they decided to use 666-1 for the debut. Another noticeable alteration is the studio listed as the place of recording. The guys didn’t feel that The Garage was an appropriately named studio for an album of this character and so went about coming up with a better one. Once again the answer would come from one of the books Quorthon had been reading at the time. In it were descriptions of battles between angels of light and demons of hell, with the outcome leaving the demons beaten and “scattered along the shore of Heaven”. The imagery struck a chord with Quorthon who, figuring The Garage was where he and his cohorts did battle against good, renamed the studio The Shore of Heaven. They quickly realised this was too much of a mouthful and changed it to Heavenshore and this studio name would forever be associated with Bathory!

Before moving onto just how important Bathory’s debut album was (and is), there’s one more controversy that deserves a mention. Anyone that’s ever looked at a Bathory album will see the words “Produced by Quorthon and Boss”. So who is this Boss character and what connection does he have to the band? The unquestionable answer is that Boss is Börje Forsberg, owner and founder of Tyfon Records. But over the years, rumours began to crop up regularly that Boss was in fact Quorthon’s father, not only due to their surnames being the same, but due to the close relationship the two parties had over such a long period of time. Quorthon continuously denied this rumour in interviews and the official Bathory site denies it outright suggesting there is only twelve years difference between them, that they look absolutely nothing alike, and that the rumour is a result of how much the two travelled together between 1986 and 1991 promoting Bathory albums. Quorthon further explains that he stuck by Tyfon (Black Mark), despite being popular enough to go somewhere with far greater reach and monetary potential, because Boss believed in him and the band when others did not and therefore deserved his loyalty. As it is now commonly known, this is another case of Quorthon lying for no apparent reason. Boss is in fact twenty two years older than Quorthon and, since his death, has openly spoken up about the fact that he is indeed his father. I can only think that the two of them denied it for so long so that people wouldn’t assume that Quorthon only ever got to work at Tyfon, not to mention score a spot on Scandinavian Metal Attack and subsequently get a record deal with the label, because his father was the “Boss”. These fabrications (along with the rest) unfortunately make anything Quorthon ever stated publicly difficult to trust.

In the end it matters very little if Boss was Quorthon’s father or not, just as it changes next to nothing if the cover artwork of the debut was stolen and uncredited. Whether or not Venom played a role in the formation of the sound is also a discussion of little value at the end of the day. Once Bathory’s self-titled debut album was released on the 2nd of October 1984, their place in metal history was set in stone. Anyone listening to it for the first time now might struggle to appreciate how incredibly exciting, not to mention blasphemous, its sound was in an extreme metal scene really just getting underway. Many will suggest that Venom and Hellhammer are the godfathers of black metal, but while Venom may have helped coin the name with their second release in 1982 (entitled Black Metal) and Hellhammer certainly assisted in taking audible darkness to a new level, there’s no question in my mind that Quorthon is the true instigator of this great genre. Others such as Mayhem, Darkthrone and Immortal would soon take what he started to far more serious and intense extremes, and many of the common features of what we now consider true black metal (tremolo picking, blast beats etc.) were not actually present in his work, but the atmosphere, imagery, lyrics, energy and most noticeably the vocals all played a massive role in the formation and evolution of the genre. The album also once again spread the name of Bathory throughout Europe (nearly 400 years after Elizabeth did the same), inspiring thousands of wannabe musicians to consider the darker side of music as a serious alternative to the cut and paste forms of rock that reigned at the time. Just as importantly though, it encouraged Quorthon to continue on with Bathory, making this lengthy tale of ambition and success merely the first chapter of an epic, two decade long journey.

This is my first experience with Vorna and I must admit it has taken a bit of time to appreciate. While I don't think there's much in the way of actual folk metal on this release, I do feel the band's style of melodic black metal would be a comfortable fit for fans of that genre. Black metal riffs, while often present, are not always the focus here, and there's very little in the way of darkness or brutality on offer. The vocals are often clean, with an emphasis on melodicism, although the more traditional black metal vocals are certainly effective. None of this adds up to a sound that leans into my personal preferences and yet repeat listens have brought with them increased enjoyment. While many tracks have a section or two that rub me up the wrong way, they also contain some very rousing and at times beautiful moments. The back to back run of Maa martona makaa and Aalloista in the middle of the album is undoubtedly the high point of the album for me, showcasing the potential of the band, and the album overall is quite heavily weighted towards the second half (in other words, it's starts slowly before bringing things home strongly).

This is one of those albums that's well executed for what it is and it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that it was someone's favourite release of 2019. For me it's an interesting yet inconsistent listen with high points that really hit home on an emotional level. I'll likely check out more of what the band have to offer at some point.

I took a bit of a stab in the dark when picking this EP by oddly named U.S. band Rejoice! The Light Has Come in the October North Review Draft. The only review on RYM namedropped Deathspell Omega and, given my adoration for that band, I figured I'd have to find something to enjoy here. Well I'll start by saying that the aforementioned review certainly wasn't wrong. There's a LOT of Deathspell Omega influence on display here, with the same style of dissonant riffing and drumming we've come to expect from those French legends. The vocalist even sounds like Mikko Aspa, making the connection pretty blatantly obvious. I have to say that the band have done a pretty decent job in replicating what makes Deathspell Omega so interesting, particularly on the lengthier third track (Vultures Swirling Overhead, an Obsidian Wreath Cast Above a Sleeping Mind), but there are sadly a few aspects holding their first release back. Firstly, while the production is strong overall, the drums are a bit too clicky for my liking, drawing a little too much attention. Secondly, the band stop and start more than is necessary, building and releasing momentum too regularly in my opinion. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, there just isn't enough of substance on this 14 minute EP to really get your teeth into. There's definitely potential here though, and given the right production and a full length running time, Rejoice! The Light Has Come could produce something special. I guess time will tell.

With the majority of Katatonia's albums, I find myself describing the changes that have occurred between the current release and its predecessor. This has been due to the band’s habit of constantly editing their sound, evolving from their raw death doom of the early 90s through to the still doomy but far more commercial alternative metal of the band today. This constant change could also be due to the bands line-up changing regularly over the years. But Katatonia has managed to keep a solid line-up for the past 6 years, so it's not surprising to find the last three albums that have contained these members being somewhat similar in style.

This is not a bad thing at all as 2001's "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" was in my opinion one of the biggest highlights of a long and successful career, and I'm pleased that they've chosen to run with such a good thing. "The Great Cold Distance" may not be quite as crushing as that release, but the comparisons are still plentiful. Jonas' lyrics and vocals continue to be both emotional and honest, Daniel's percussion is still constantly interesting, and Anders' and Fredrik's guitar work remains breathtakingly melodic and full.

I hope I haven't made it sound as if "The Great Cold Distance" doesn't bring anything worthy to the table, as that would not be true. This album contains a wonderful, consistent quality that while not completely unique, still manages to be thoroughly enjoyable. The band have really matured and concentrate on writing constantly moving and interesting rock music that can still be classified as metal due to the occasionally heavy riff and a generally downcast mood. The previous album, 2003's "Viva Emptiness" was solid too, yet it contained a couple of awkward moments that slightly let it down. "The Great Cold Distance" holds a steady class throughout. The highlights would have to be "Deliberation" (with its superb rousing chorus), "My Twin" and "Follower" (with that intriguing percussive beat). Surely Katatonia are close to breaking into the mainstream as some of these tracks have real chart potential.

"The Great Cold Distance" is exactly what I expected from the new Katatonia album. While it's a tiny bit more-of-the-same, it's a perfectly produced, finely crafted album that showcases the Swedes sound in all its glory. I really enjoyed it on first listen and still do so after dozens more, so I'm completely satisfied.

"The Black Sessions" is the second of the two Katatonia compilations (the first being "Brave Yester Days") to be released in consecutive years. While the "Brave Yester Days" compilation covered the bands earlier period (from 1992 through 1998), "The Black Sessions" covers the bands output from 1998 through to 2003. There's no death / doom material here, it's all in the depressive rock vein that they evolved towards through the mid-nineties. The other striking difference is that this compilation contains not only two CDs worth of material, but also a bonus live DVD recorded in Krakow, Poland. Basically, the 2 CDs contain tracks from "Discouraged Ones", "Tonight's Decision", "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and "Viva Emptiness". These are all great releases and so the level of quality amongst the tracks is very high.

But what most fans will be interested in is what rare and unreleased tracks are on here as well as what the quality of the live DVD is. As for rare material, there is only one previously unreleased track, which is "Wait Outside". This track was recorded in the "Viva Emptiness" sessions and is a decent one too, although nothing to get too excited about. There are also two tracks that were released as bonus tracks on the slip-case reissue of "Tonight's Decision". These tracks are titled "No Devotion" and "Fractured". These tracks are of less value, and I think it was correct to leave them off the original release of that album. Finally, they’ve included both the "Teargas" and "Tonight's Music" EPs in their entirety, both of which are difficult to get your hands on these days. The two original tracks on the "Teargas" EP are excellent, with "Sulfur" being a highlight. The two original tracks on the "Tonight's Music" EP are not really very good, which is a shame, since the title track is one of Katatonia's greatest moments. So, in general, there are only a few bits and pieces on here to get excited about, and for those (like myself) who already own the albums and EPs, there's almost nothing.

Which brings me to the DVD. Now don't get me wrong, Katatonia are a wonderful band. One of my favourites in fact! But they just don't seem to be able to recreate the atmosphere of the studio albums when performing live. Jonas doesn’t have any energy on stage and his vocals are a little lacking. The sound in general is decent enough and the track listing is also ok. There isn't much here for fans of their early material, which is expected since they've left that sound far behind. I don't have too many complaints about the DVD but can't say I found it tremendously exciting. I doubt I will watch it very often at all.

Overall, I'd recommend "The Black Sessions" only to the completists out there that must have everything the band releases, or the casual fan that wants a blueprint of Katatonia's output without collecting all of their albums. Then again, if you don't have the "Teargas" EP, try tracking it down or purchase this compilation for that alone. There's still an awesome array of quality tracks on here, but in my opinion, it just doesn't contain as much unreleased and rare material as the "Brave Yester Days" compilation, which is a tad disappointing.

"Viva Emptiness", Katatonia's sixth full length album, is really a continuation of its predecessor "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", with a few slight adjustments. Considering how much I love that album, this is a good thing in my book. They took a lot of the elements that worked on the previous album and have spiced things up a little to give "Viva Emptiness" its own identity. At this stage of their career, the Swedes can be labelled as a heavy rock band with elements of metal rather than a metal band with rock influences. Long gone are the death metal influences of yesteryear to be replaced with a much more commercially viable, yet still suffocatingly dreary (in a good way) atmosphere.

So, what are these little adjustments I mentioned above? For starters, there's almost a nu-metal feel to some of these tracks. Now don't get me wrong, I'd be pretty upset if Katatonia started sounding like Slipknot and they are a long way from doing so. Yet I can't deny that tracks such as "Wealth" and "Will I Arrive", with their shredding riffs and friendly clean verses bring that thought into my head. But then "Viva Emptiness" is filled with so many variations that I can't really apply that label to much else on the album. It's also noticeable that they have included far more swear words for impact than on previous releases and in general, I feel more anger in these tracks than the normal desolation and loss that pervades most of their material. But this is without a doubt a Katatonia album from start to finish. The vulnerable, almost awkward lyrics remain while Jonas' vocals once again improving. The gorgeous guitar melodies, while used far more sparingly, are still here, and the newfound percussion addition of the last album continues in full force. Many bands have copied Katatonia's sound over the years, but none have been able to keep up with their evolution.

But while I have a lot of good things to say about "Viva Emptiness", I must admit that a couple of tracks are just not quite up to their normally consistently high quality. "One Year From Now" and "Omerta" in particular are throw away tracks and drop this album slightly below "Last Fair Deal Gone Down". The highlights for me would have to be "Criminals, "Wealth" and "Complicity" along with opener "Ghost of the Sun", but there's over 50 minutes of material to dig into here.

"Viva Emptiness" is another solid album from Katatonia that further evolves their sound towards the mainstream, while never letting go of the intense nature of its content. They are a truly unique band that has miraculously kept the majority of their fan-base while completely, yet gradually, changing their sound over the years to something almost completely unrelated to its humble foundation. The reason they've been able to do this is due to the natural progression that has occurred. The members have a real understanding of the core themes and components that the fans love and have the integrity to never alienate them while consistently challenging themselves. I thank them for it with every album!

This is the second EP Katatonia released in the same year as the "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" studio album. Whereas "Teargas" was released a few months prior to the full length, "Tonight's Music" came out a few months afterwards. Once again it contains only 3 tracks, with one also appearing on the album, and once again the whole EP runs for less than 15 minutes.

The first track is "Tonight's Music", which is my favourite track off "Last Fair Deal Gone Down". It has the most incredible emotional impact from the very first notes. It's a perfect example of the way Katatonia utilize mellow moments and heavier metal sections to create such a sense of loss and despair. When the chorus kicks in, you will totally be convinced of the authenticity of the emotions involved. "What is wrong, not with the world, but me?" It's simply a beautiful song and one of my very favourite Katatonia pieces.

Up next is "Help Me Disappear" which unfortunately is of a far lesser quality. In my opinion it doesn't match up to the standard of any of the tracks on the full-length album and so I assume that it's a discard from those sessions. It contains all the typical Katatonia ingredients with quite a bit of melody and melancholy, but just doesn't manage to move me the way the band normally does with ease.

Finally, "O How I Enjoy the Light" is a cover by a band called Palace which I've never heard before. While it's clearly not written by the band, it does contain the darker, desolate tone that is the norm. But there's nothing interesting here either. The same tinny guitars, simple drumbeat and weepy vocals continue for just under 3 minutes. It's not a terrible choice for a cover but I don't find myself wanting to track down the original nor replay this version, which I guess suggests it doesn't do a lot for me.

While I highly recommended the "Teargas" EP, due to all three songs being great, I find it much harder to recommend "Tonight's Music". Diehard fans of the band will probably want to track it down for completions sake alone, but the remaining fans need only purchase "The Black Sessions" compilation, which contains all three tracks along with a whole bunch of other more essential Katatonia material.

Over the years, this Swedish band has simply refused to rest on their laurels. Sure, there are certain ingredients that have remained built into their output since day one, with the desolate sadness and despair mixed with exquisite melodies prevailing throughout their existence. Yet they continue to evolve with every release and "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" is no exception. Just as "Discouraged Ones" witnessed Katatonia shedding their skin and branching out from the wondrously hypnotic doom /death of "Brave Murder Day" into a drearier suicidal rock outfit, "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" evolves further still with a level of professionalism and maturity not prevalent on prior albums.

Almost every aspect of the band improved for this recording and I consider it to be one of their very best albums. It may not be immediately obvious what the differences are that I speak of, but it comes down to the basics. The percussion for starters is far more varied and interesting than ever before, which transforms the somewhat repetitive nature of the more hypnotic sections into a totally different beast. Jonas' vocals are superior to prior releases, leaving the awkward uncertainness behind for a much more confident and convincing performance, without losing the vulnerabilities that define his style. The guitars are heavier, have a much better sound, and contain some truly breath-taking melodies ("I Transpire" for example). There is much more variation in this new Katatonia, no longer relying on similar moods for each of their tracks. The assumingly tongue in cheek "We Will Bury You" and "Sweet Nurse" for example break up the more typically Katatonia "The Future of Speech" and the magnificent "Tonight's Music".

As you can probably tell by now, I love "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and while I will always miss their old "Brave Murder Day" sound, I simply cannot complain when every album they record is so consistently good. They continue to evolve while staying true to what made them so unique and emotionally affecting in the first place. Which is certainly a lot more than can be said about so many other bands that either remain stagnant or isolate their fan-base entirely over the years.

I haven’t managed to listen to Sanctuary’s debut album Refuge Denied, so this is my first experience of the band. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is Nevermore! But that’s hardly surprising as the vocalist, bassist and lead guitarist all started up Nevermore after Sanctuary closed shop. I happen to be a massive fan of Nevermore’s later work and so this album fell comfortably upon my ears. I guess I expected the song writing to be of lesser quality than the Nevermore albums I love as it wasn’t until about 1998 that they really hit their straps. How wrong I was!

This album is amazing! Just about every song is of the highest quality. The musicianship may not be hugely technical, but it’s just so emotionally moving and memorable. It’s been ages since I heard an album just a couple of times, and then found myself humming the tunes and singing lyrics in my head for the rest of the day. I’ve just been listening to it repeatedly. Warrel Dane’s vocals are awesome as usual and Jeff Loomis’ guitar work is just as good. This album is more heavy and power metal than thrash metal and yet manages to contain that power of emotion and intensity that normally belongs to the more extreme genres.

Highlights for me are Taste of Revenge, Long Since Dark, The Mirror Black, Seasons of Destruction and closer Communion. But there are no bad tracks on Into the Mirror Black and I simply can’t give it anything less than top marks. An essential album for anyone into heavy music.

A blatant attempt to make loads of money, Risk was an inevitable kick in the pants for all involved.

Megadeth’s previous full-length studio album, Cryptic Writings, was really the first time that I thought the band had started to seriously slide. While many of their original fans had jumped ship about five years earlier, I persevered through the likes of Countdown to Extinction and Youthanasia, finding numerous catchy and enjoyable tunes on the way. Those diamonds in the rough were far harder to find on Cryptic Writings however, with a lot of the album pushing the simplistic commercial rock elements a bit too far, so I feared that Megadeth’s run of solidity had finally come to an end. Further cause for concern arose with the news that the highly successful line-up of Mustaine, Friedman, Ellefson and Menza had finally been broken. As is often the case with anything involving Mustaine, drummer Menza’s departure was anything but amicable. On tour in 1998, Menza discovered he had a tumour on his knee and was forced to undergo surgery. Jimmy DeGrasso, formerly of Suicidal Tendencies and Mustaine’s punk side project MD.45, temporarily replaced him, but somewhere along the line that replacement became more permanent. Menza has since stated that he received a phone call out of the blue while in hospital, informing him that he no longer had a place in the band, whereas Mustaine has suggested that Menza was let go because he lied about having cancer (his tumour was benign). Whatever the case, Menza was out, DeGrasso was in.

My fears after Cryptic Writings were that Mustaine, on his eternal quest for worldwide fame and riches beyond imagining, would take Megadeth further into a commercially successful instant gratification zone, leaving the complex and exhilarating likes of Peace Sells...But Who’s Buying and Rust in Peace so far behind that comparison would become next to impossible. In the end this only half turned out to be true. Risk did indeed attempt to tap into the masses, detaching itself from anything resembling metal while ramping up the sugary pop sensibilities, and yet it failed to produce anything particularly catchy or memorable. The result is an album that finally pissed off any remaining faithful fans, while simultaneously failing to grab the attention of a new wider audience. After the inevitable critical and commercial bashing that followed its release, Mustaine was very quick to point the finger at others, suggesting that it was the granting of more control to producer Dan Huff and guitarist Marty Friedman’s desire to create pop music that led to disaster. Personally, I think one statement made by Lars Ulrich went a long way to influencing the outcome after he suggested in an interview that Mustaine needed to take more risks if he was ever going to reach the level of success he desired. Well, here was that risk, with the album apparently titled as such in an attempted middle finger to Lars that backfired in the most comprehensive fashion.

So why is Risk so bad? For starters, it’s so blatant in its objective that you can’t help but be completely turned off. Rather than concentrating on writing excellent, memorable music and allowing their fans to choose favourites and concert sing-along moments, Megadeth produced the Enter the Arena and Crush ‘Em combo, which is so obviously trying to manufacture a response (annoyingly it succeeded with the song being played at sport stadiums around America). More disappointingly, for a band called Megadeth, Risk has absolutely no conviction or aggression whatsoever. Even ignoring the overly sappy, tambourine tapping shockers like I’ll be There, Ecstasy and Seven, tracks like Prince of Darkness, which despite having lyrics that are full of venom and negativity, come across as some sort of uncomfortable parody of all things metal. There are only a few sections on the album where Megadeth come close to producing the accessible catchiness they were obviously going for, with opener Insomnia, head-filler The Doctor is Calling and the southern tinged Wanderlust all being at least mildly successful, but there are way too many grimace-inducing tunes to grit your teeth through to experience them. I must wonder what would have happened to Megadeth had Risk been the global sensation they were hoping for. Just how long would the talented Mustaine and Friedman be able to nonchalantly strum their guitars and tap their feet to simplistic beats? I for one am grateful we never had to find out.

Probably the least interesting of Katatonia's wonderful discography. Some nice moments, but just a bit bland to compete with the surrounding classics.

As concerning as it had been for a large portion of their fans, Katatonia’s Discouraged Ones album in 1998 had made it clear that the band had no intention of producing Brave Murder Day style death doom metal any longer. What was so surprising at the time is just how successful the Swedes’ first attempt at applying their depressive shades of gloominess to alternative rock was. Many of those anxious fans, myself included, eventually came to realise that most elements that made their earlier material so affecting were still entirely present in the new direction, only given a lighter and more accessible veneer. Peaceville Records clearly saw the potential of the evolution, as they quickly offered the band a boldly confident five album deal. Twelve months later and Katatonia once again entered Sunlight studio, albeit with a couple of considerable line-up changes. Firstly, Micke Oretoft’s short stay with the band came to an end, with guitarist Fred Norrman taking on bass duties for the recording. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, Dan Swanö came on board as a session guest drummer, allowing Jonas Renkse to focus entirely on vocals. As with Discouraged Ones, Mikael Åkerfeldt assisted in the studio, helping to produce the vocals. With Anders Nyström still handling guitars and keyboards, it seemed all was in readiness for yet another brilliant Katatonia recording.

Did the resulting Tonight’s Decision live up to that prediction? I have to say that the answer for me is no. On paper, Tonight’s Decision would not appear all that far removed from Discouraged Ones. Just as the predecessor could be described as melancholic, doom-tinged, alternative rock with depressive vocals and a generally gloomy atmosphere, the same could easily be said for its follow-up. Yet despite being shaped utilising the same base ingredients, the resulting album is nowhere near as stirring or memorable. The reasons for this are twofold in my opinion, with the first being the band’s slight transition towards a more modern sound. Katatonia would eventually make great use of modern alternative riffs and production on their releases, but here their presence merely dilutes the tone, with occasionally disconcerting consequences. Going back and listening to fantastic tracks like I Break, Relention and Saw You Drown on Discouraged Ones makes it clearly apparent that their simplicity and focus ultimately works in their favour. The listener is immediately pulled in and all the elements work together towards a single goal of emotional efficacy, which is not something I can say for the inconsistent material found on Tonight’s Decision. Secondly, after praising Renkse’s switch to clean vocals for the last album, the increased complexity and emphasis unfortunately reveals the limitations of his ability (he certainly improved from this point onwards however).

There are fantastic sections spread throughout the near hour-long running time, most of which can be attributed to Nyström and Norrman. While the duo ventured further towards grungy alternative with some of their riffs, they still pull off gorgeous and memorable melodies to keep the listener entranced. Opener For My Demons is the highlight of the album, but other tracks like I Am Nothing, Right Into the Bliss and closer Black Session all have much to offer any fan of Katatonia’s later albums. Unfortunately, there are too many blah moments and even some painful ones in the likes of No Good Can Come of This, Strained and Nightmares by the Sea, the latter of which is a Jeff Buckley cover, for Tonight’s Decision to match the classic releases of this awesome band. Three and a half stars seems fitting to me as I still listen to this album from time to time, but there’s no doubt for me that it’s the least essential in their discography. As a final note, Tonight’s Decision is the first Katatonia release to contain artwork by the incredibly productive and talented Travis Smith. I think this cover, along with the one he produced for Opeth’s Still Life, really made a name for him, with his work now adorning literally hundreds of metal albums. It’s a relationship that continues to this day and a case of cover art perfectly capturing the spirit of the music contained within.

A brave evolutionary step for Katatonia where they dropped the death doom while retaining the despondent tone.

To this point, it appeared that Katatonia were going to release a stop-gap EP between every full-length album. Given that they’d already followed up the wonderful Brave Murder Day album with the Sounds of Decay EP in 1997, I was eagerly anticipating a new full-length death doom metal album when the band threw an unexpected curve ball, in more ways than one. As if yet another EP less than a month after the last one wasn’t surprising, the content of this one was enough to drain the blood from my face! How could the band change so much so quickly, and had one of my favourite bands just alienated me altogether? In hindsight I shouldn’t really have been so shocked. Their evolution had already been underway for a couple of years with Brave Murder Day having a vastly different sound to Dance of December Souls. More significantly, when you consider that Renkse and Blackheim had already temporarily ended the band in 1995 due to indecision about what direction to take in the future, combined with some experimental tracks being recorded such as the gothic rock track Scarlet Heavens (originally released on the Katatonia/Primordial split) and the depressive piece Day found on Brave Murder Day, it’s not hard to see that these Swedes just weren’t going to stay entrenched in death doom metal forever.

The changes between Sounds of Decay and Saw You Drown are numerous to say the least. There were some aesthetic alterations that suggested a change in direction for the band, with the most obvious being a new logo. While the new one was still arguably metal in tone, it was less extreme than the original that contained a pentagram and devil’s tails. Drummer Jonas Renkse had already dropped his pseudonym (Lord Seth) a couple of releases ago, but now guitarist Blackheim followed suit and would go by his real name Anders Nyström from this point onwards, once again suggesting that Katatonia were attempting to distance themselves from the death and black metal elements that were present on earlier works. If these minor changes suggest a transformation in sound, the modified line-up all but confirmed it. With the band wanting a full line-up that they could take on tour, Mikael Oretoft was hired as a bassist after Anders had filled that role on the previous album. The biggest news however was that Mikael Åkerfeldt, the vocalist from Opeth, would no longer add his death growls and that after two years away from the microphone, Renkse would take up vocals once again. Considering he originally gave up the vocal role due to the damage his harsh style was doing to his throat, it could only mean that Katatonia intended to leave the growls behind for good.

My first listen to Saw You Drown was not a particularly pleasant one. I struggled so much to get past the shift in style and the disappointment that came with my expectations not being met. I didn’t sulk for too long however, and slowly but surely these new tracks started to make an impression. I soon realised that this new Katatonia may have dropped the death growls and a few levels of intensity, but the depressive tone was as present as ever. In fact, Renkse’s dreary vocal delivery and the more plodding nature of the percussion if anything took their sound to a whole new level of sorrow and despair. Any concern regarding Renkse’s vocal abilities was quickly nullified by the brilliant Saw You Drown and Nerve, on which he displays unexpected ability and total emotional conviction to go along with Nyström’s subtle yet moving melodies. Quiet World is a nice change of pace, offering soothing, tender verses before the chorus soars to such heights, that any doubts I had previously about the new direction were washed away forever. Not even the overlong yet still mildly enjoyable Scarlet Heavens could convince me otherwise and I found myself filled with hope where before there was none. Saw You Drown was a valuable lesson and one that prepared me nicely for the approaching Discouraged Ones album. I’ve never doubted Katatonia since!

Another failed attempt to produce the spirit of Burzum, with none of the means necessary to do so.

After the bitter disappointment that was Dauði Baldrs, the news that Varg had recorded another album from prison didn’t exactly fill me with excitement. The first attempt had been an exercise in tedium, made worse by the inadequate MIDI based sound that the keyboard he used produced. I did however gain a significant boost in confidence when I heard that his second attempt had a full keyboard sound rather than MIDI, but it was yet to be seen whether Varg could produce anything close to his black metal work while recording under such circumstances. Composed during the summer of 1998, Hliðskjálf would once again find the man formerly known as Count Grishnackh attempting to convey stories from Norse mythology through instrumental music alone. This time however, the tracks do not seem to follow a common theme or story, with each of them appearing to tell small disparate tales. Since I found that the tone of the tracks on Dauði Baldrs often failed to match the sections of the story they were supposedly portraying, I really hoped that this time Varg might get that right. I purchased Hliðskjálf on release in 1999 and decided to leave my apprehension behind. I would delve into this Burzum album as though Dauði Baldrs had never happened and try to find the magic that had never failed to be present within his work prior.

The first thing to notice about Hliðskjálf is the album cover. Tanya Stene, who produced the wonderful Ulver trilogy covers as well as some of the inner sleeve artwork for Dauði Baldrs, once again shows her talent by creating a vivid and evocative piece of work that perfectly captures the spirit of Burzum. Her use of shadow and the realistic three-dimensional quality of the forest scene are a real advancement over previous works I’ve seen by her. The meaning behind the name of the album has been surprisingly difficult to nail down. On the one hand, Varg seems to suggest in interviews that the word Hliðskjálf refers to a “hidden opening to Asgarðr” (one of the Nine Worlds and the supposed capital city of the Norse Gods). My own studies however point to Hliðskjálf being the name of Odin’s throne where it is said he sat to survey all lands. Given the complexity involved in the subject matter, combined with Varg’s extreme dedication to Norse mythology in general, I highly doubt that he’s incorrect. I can only assume that the throne also acts as some sort of gateway, therefore making them one and the same. Maybe someone out there can clarify the true meaning of Hliðskjálf and how it relates to the album (I can’t really see any connection), to put my mind at ease.

Hliðskjálf begins reasonably enough with the step up in sound quality obvious from the very first moments. Tuistos Herz (which translates as Tuisto’ Heart) speaks of a god named Tuisto who draws a figure on a rock that has a large penis, before admiring his own offspring. Strange story aside, this opening track contains an eerie sound that raises the shackles on the back of my neck. There’s no real structure to be found and it’s just Varg playing around on his keyboard, but I like it for some unexplainable reason. Der Tod Wuotans (The Death of Wotan) continues Varg’s tradition of writing about the final moments of the gods of Norse mythology. The track is supposed to portray an epic battle complete with war drums, before the death of Wotan causes “the universe to hold its breath”. I have to say, more than any other track Varg created from behind bars, this is the one that not only stands up as worthy of the name Burzum, but also nails the atmosphere to suit the subject matter. The shifting layers, moving melodies and even the unrealistic sounding horn combine well to create a track that touches me more than the entire Dauði Baldrs album put together. Unfortunately, this pleasing start to the album just drops off dramatically, with things starting to go downhill rapidly from there.

Third track Ansuzgardaraiwô supposedly translates as Warriors of Ansuzgarda, but it probably should be called Varg Bangs Together Some Pots and Pans and Records the Results for Our Listening Pleasure. The clattering sound he produced for this track would have been annoying if it went for ten seconds straight, but after four and a half minutes, I’m ready to smash my CD to the same monotonous rhythm. Maybe the Warriors of Ansuzgarda defeated their enemies through torturous acts of noise pollution. If that’s the case, then Ansuzgardaraiwô is sheer genius! It’s obvious Die Liebe Nerþus' (The Love of Nerthus) was strategically placed after the abovementioned racket to calm the listener down. When I first heard the track, it immediately made me think of a bunch of villagers dancing around a maypole. As it turns out, that’s exactly the scene that Varg was attempting to describe, as Die Liebe Nerþus' tells the tale of happy men and women dancing through the woods on a sunny day with not a care in the world. What this overly cheerful and not-particularly-Burzum-like tune fails to communicate to the listener, is that these contented individuals are willingly strangled and lowered into a lake while onlookers cheer and clap. It’s a harmless and forgettable sort of track that could have done with a little bit of the creepiness that the story suggests.

Into the second half of Hliðskjálf we go, but it’s worth pointing out that a quick look at the tracklisting advises that there are only about thirteen minutes remaining. Frijôs einsames Trauern (Frijo's Lonesome Mourns) takes up over six of them too, in the most tiresome fashion imaginable. It really does sound like a twelve-year-old is knocking out a repetitive tune on a glockenspiel while the family looks on with fake admiration. It’s shocking to read that this track apparently depicts the extreme loss that a mother feels for her dead son. I can only assume that this son performed just as badly on the glockenspiel, as I don’t get the impression that this mother is all that fussed that he will no longer be around. Mercifully, Einfühlungsvermögen (The Power of Empathy) brings some real darkness back to proceedings, but I can’t help questioning whether Varg has any idea about the power of empathy, otherwise he wouldn’t be such a racist twat. Regardless, the man in this little tale has had his hand horrifically removed, but still feels empathy for a dying wolf that has been defeated by two gods. It’s a beautiful piece of music that relies only on ominous background tones and what sounds like perfectly placed beats of a Nordic war hammer, yet it easily joins Der Tod Wuotans as the obvious highlights of this inconsistent album.

There really isn’t much to say about either Frijôs goldene Tränen (Frijo's Golden Tears) or closing track Der weinende Hadnur (The Crying Hadnur). Both pass innocuously by without raising even the slightest interest. Both focus once again on loss, with the former portraying Frijo’s tears for her husband who has gone to battle, while the latter speaks of Hadnur the Blind’s regret that he accidentally killed his brother Beldegir with an arrow fired at random. Both tracks are relatively short, have simplistic (or non-existent in the case of Frijôs goldene Tränen) melodies, and contain none of the darkness that pervades the better material found on Hliðskjálf. They are very clearly filler material, padding out what is still a very short album at only thirty-three minutes in total. So, after a promising start, Varg’s second attempt to produce Burzum work from behind bars has ended up being just as much of a disappointment as the first. It may be a slightly better experience due to the superior sound quality, and there’s no doubt that Varg learnt from some of the mistakes he made the first-time round, but the end result is still an album I wouldn’t go near if it didn’t have Burzum splashed across the cover. Hliðskjálf has higher highs than Dauði Baldrs, but also lower lows, so I will give it the same rating.

A perfect example of a man failing to recognise defeat when it surrounds him. Not worthy of the Burzum name!

(Cue dramatic music) “Previously on Burzum: Norwegian Psycho…”, geeky teenager Kristian Vikernes spends his days barracking for the bad guys in Tolkien’s trilogy, playing role playing games with friends and running through the forests imagining he was a Viking warrior. After performing in a couple of local groups, Kristian (using the pseudonym Count Grishnackh) forms his own band called Burzum, for which he begins the process of creating magical “spells” in the style of atmospheric black metal. Fuelled by extraordinary inspiration, Count Grishnackh records four albums and an EP in less than two years, creating his own label Cymophane along the way. During this time, not satisfied with merely creating black metal music, The Count takes the fight to Christianity directly by burning down some of the famous churches of Norway, before an interview with a local newspaper brings him to the attention of the police. With his anonymity destroyed, Kristian drops the pseudonym and officially changes his name to Varg Vikernes. In August 1993, Varg is arrested and imprisoned for the murder of scene legend Øystein Aarseth (aka Euronymous), with two recorded Burzum albums still yet to be released. Tiziana Stupia starts Misanthropy records with the sole intention of releasing these albums, with the classic Hvis Lyset Tar Oss released in May 1994. It’s at this stage that we join our incarcerated protagonist, and the next chapter of his story begins… (Dramatic music fades).

While it is difficult to feel sorry for Varg and the situation he found himself in back in 1994, there’s no doubt that being imprisoned made it next to impossible for him to continue the journey of Burzum. As incredible as it may seem, Varg had composed many more tracks than the ones he recorded during the golden years of Burzum (92/93), yet he now found himself in a position where he had no way to put them to use. There was no way he was going to be allowed to access the instruments, nor the recording equipment required to produce a black metal album, for the entirety of his time in prison, so it seemed all but certain that Varg (and his fans) would simply have to wait out the twenty-one-year sentencing. When there’s a will there’s a way however, and when Varg could play around with a synthesizer for a few months in late 1994, he set about attempting to produce some of his unused Burzum material in purely electronic form. Given the very effective and lengthy keyboard-based instrumentals found on previous Burzum albums (such as Tomhet and Rundgang um die transzendentale Säule der Singularität), there didn’t seem any real reason in theory why he wouldn’t be successful in this task. Yet, the MIDI Casio Keyboard he was using, combined with the recording technique (he used a standard tape recorder), meant that it was always going to be challenging to produce something worthy of the Burzum name.

There’s nothing technically wrong with using MIDI to produce an electronic based album. After all, there are stacks of fantastic releases out there that were created using only MIDI controlled samples, with no real instruments to speak of. The problem Varg faced was that the keyboard he had was obviously a cheap one, and the samples it contained were not at all convincing. Many have noted the similarities between the music Varg created using this technique with computer game music found on consoles such as Super Nintendo. I too get a sort of nostalgic feeling when listening to it, but it unquestionably has more to do with the inorganic sound of the instruments, rather than the compositions themselves. The equipment available to Varg may have been limited, but his ambition certainly was not. He decided that the first non-metal Burzum album would essentially be a soundtrack to the story of Baldr. He intended for the album to be called Baldrs Død (which translates as Baldr’s Death) and each track would tell a part of the story, with lyrics included in the package to help the listener associate the emotional effect of each track with the section of the tale it represents. Quite a tale it is too, with Baldr (aka Balder or Baldur) being the second son of Odin in Norse mythology, and whose death is seen as the first in the chain of events that lead to the destruction of the gods at Ragnarök.

As the story goes, Baldr had a dream of his own death, and when his mother Frigg had the same dream, she made every object on earth vow never to hurt him. Only mistletoe had not made this vow and as it seemed so young and relatively harmless, Frigg did not demand it did so. When Loki found this out, he created a magical spear of mistletoe and gave it to Baldr’s blind brother Höðr, who inadvertently killed Baldr with it. In response, Odin and the giantess Rindr gave birth to Váli, who grew to adulthood in just one day and then killed Höðr. Baldr’s funeral took place on his ship Hringhorni, where his wife Nanna threw herself onto the funeral fire with grief. The ship was pushed out to sea (with great force that shook the earth) by the wolf-riding giantess Hyrrokin. Frigg, quite clearly distraught at the loss of her son, convinced Hel (with the help of Hermod who undertook the journey) to release Baldr from the underworld, but only if all objects alive and dead would weep for him. Once again, all but one object agreed to do so, with the giantess Þökk refusing to mourn, causing Baldr to remain in the underworld until Ragnarök arrived. It soon became apparent that Þökk had in fact been Loki in disguise, so the gods hunted him down and bound him to three rocks where he was subjected to poison dripping on his face. His wife Sigyn attempted to catch the poison in a bowl and did so long enough for Loki to free himself, in time to attack the gods at Ragnarök.

It’s a grand and complex tale indeed, but surely a difficult one to attempt to convey through music alone. The question is, did Varg manage to pull it off? Opener and title track Dauði Baldrs (The Death of Baldr) covers a lot of ground from a story point of view. From Baldr first dreaming of death right through to his brother Höðr being tricked into killing him, you’d expect to find numerous shifts in emotional expression in the music. It starts with a suitably grand, perhaps medieval tone, with horns and drums backed by an ominous melody that’s effective if not particularly impressive. However, apart from a mid-track addition of tinkles to the same tune, Dauði Baldrs continues for nearly nine minutes with no changes whatsoever. I’m bored within three or four minutes and must force my way through the rest while holding off the temptation to press skip. Second track Hermoðr á Helferð (Hermóðr on a Journey to Hel) concentrates on a far shorter period in the story, covering Hermod’s journey into the underworld in search of Baldr. You’d think this environment would demand a dark atmosphere, but instead Varg produced the most pleasant and, dare I say it, buoyant section of the whole album, including some nice piano and strings (all fake of course). It really is quite enjoyable though and the fact that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, being under three minutes in length, shows what could have been achieved overall if Varg had utilised just a little bit of moderation.

Track three is titled Bálferð Baldrs (Baldr’s Burning) which unsurprisingly covers the funeral of Baldr on his magnificent ship. While I think that this track is one of the better ones when it comes to conveying an appropriate tone to match the subject matter, it’s unfortunately the lowest point of Dauði Baldrs in my opinion. It’s simplistic and tedious, and the repetition of what is a very ineffective melody, make the six-minute running time seem a bit like Hel itself. That’s why I was so surprised to read that Bálferð Baldrs is a reworking of the main riff from the awesome Jesu Død, which appeared on the Filosofem album (which it’s worth pointing out had not been released yet). I went back to have a listen to that black metal classic and the resemblance is surprisingly obvious. The main thing this comparison showed me is how much better Varg’s ideas function in the form of black metal, and it really rammed home just how far Dauði Baldrs is from his normal work. Thankfully track four is another short one (at two minutes), which portrays the conversation that took place between Hel and Hermod, with Hel explaining that Baldr will only be released from the underworld if all living and dead objects weep for him. It’s a majestic sounding piece that is unfortunately tarnished by the truly awful metallic drum sound that was used. It’s far from terrible overall though and once again reminds of how much more successful this sort of music is in small portions.

Small is not a word I’d use to describe fifth track Illa tiðandi (Ill Tidings), which depicts Hermod’s return to Asgard, along with Loki’s trickery that results in Baldr remaining in Hel. The melancholic tone may be meant to represent the tears that Hel demanded from all objects, but I can’t say this track conveys any of the emotions that would describe this part of the tale in full. It’s by far the most minimal part of the album though, with only two slightly varied piano melodies repeated for over ten minutes. Apparently an alternate version of Decrepitude I (once again off Filosofem), there’s no doubt that Ill Tidings is the most moving piece of music on the album, and one that benefits from not including any of the phony sounding horns or drums that pop up throughout the rest, but it’s length and minimalism once again result in boredom after just a few minutes. Finally, Dauði Baldrs closes with Móti Ragnarokum (Towards Ragnarök), which supposedly describes the battle of Ragnarök, where many of the gods were defeated, including Odin, Thor, Týr, Heimdall and Loki. I really can’t see how a recurring tender piano melody could possibly depict such a monumental encounter, even if it does contain some epic toned classical elements throughout. It’s no surprise to find Dauði Baldrs finishing off the album in such an indistinct and uneventful way, as is the anticlimactic nature of the release in general.

I’m sure you’ve gathered by now that I’m not that impressed with Varg’s first attempt to record an album from within his prison cell. He’d have another stab at it before the millennium ended, but it was quickly becoming obvious that even Varg Vikernes, whom I have immense admiration for when it comes to musical talent, was simply not going to be able to overcome the obstacles that imprisonment had placed upon him. This album is not a complete disaster as some would suggest, but it is so inferior to the preceding Burzum material, that it just can’t justify the name on the cover. Speaking of the cover, as a final aside before I move on from this album once and for all, it’s worth pointing out that Misanthropy stuffed up the release of Dauði Baldrs in a couple of ways that have caused some confusion ever since. As mentioned earlier, Varg had always intended for the album to be called Baldrs Død, and this name adorns the initial copies of the release, but somewhere along the line it was changed to Dauði Baldrs. More surprisingly given label owner Tiziana Stupia’s love of all things Burzum, some copies of the album were unforgivably released with the band name BURZU on the cover. In the end it wasn’t Misanthropy that made Dauði Baldrs such a disappointment. It was a combination of unfortunate circumstances and the failure of a man to accept defeat when its presence was evidently all around him.

A flawless live performance of an incredible track listing by a brilliant line-up.

There are two things you really should know about me before reading this review. Firstly, I think Morbid Angel are (or at least were) frickin' awesome! Their first 4 albums (yes, even Domination) are among the best death metal has to offer. Secondly, I don't really enjoy live albums very much. In most cases, the live format doesn't really manage to portray the power of an actual live concert at all, doesn't allow the thematic flow of an album proper, and often contains production issues with one instrument or another being all but inaudible. With these two facts out on the table, I will proceed to review what is the combined result of the previously mentioned points. A live Morbid Angel album!

Entangled in Chaos is the last Morbid Angel recording with Dave Vincent involved. In fact, the line-up on this release is close to the best line-up the band ever had. Of course, the original Altars of Madness line-up with Richard Brunelle will always be known as the ultimate version of the band, but Erik Rutan is hardly a bad replacement. Morbid Angel are really defined by Trey Azagthoth's incredible, unique guitar style, Pete Sandoval's peerless drum performances and Dave Vincent's perfect decipherable death growls. All these ingredients are present here and in flawless form. It's hard to believe that these guys can perform the complex, crushing death metal that they consistently created during their peak in a live arena and not slip-up even slightly, which is a true testament to their ability.

Considering how great everything the band had released prior to Entangled in Chaos, it's not surprising that the track listing is filled with classics. It's easy to find missing favourites as there simply isn't enough room for all of them, but I personally would have liked to have heard Suffocation and Fall From Grace. Yet any release containing Chapel of Ghouls, Rapture and Blasphemy is going to kick some serious ass. What's particularly strange about Entangled in Chaos is that while it was recorded as part of the Domination tour, it only contains one track from that album. I guess it's not completely surprising as while I personally regard that album as another total success, there are many who were bitterly disappointed upon its release. Still, it's a little surprising that the band all but ignored its existence when producing this album.

The production is close to perfect which means a lot of these tracks sound almost identical to the way they do on their respective albums. The crowd is only really part of the mix before and after tracks to remind you that this is in fact part of a concert. So, the question must be asked, if everything sounds so perfect and the crowd interaction is all but negated, why not just listen to the studio albums instead. I have to say that I don't have a great answer to this which is why I'm not going to give this full marks despite believing it to be right up there with the pinnacle of live albums. Live recordings such as Iron Maiden's Live After Death and Slayer's Decade of Aggression have far superior crowd presence and track variances that result in a vastly different experience than on their actual albums, which is not really the case here.

Despite this last statement, I enjoy Entangled in Chaos immensely and see it as a nice little bookend for the Morbid Angel Dave Vincent era, which the band have unfortunately never been able to match since his departure. His return to the band gives me hope that they may yet return to their former glory and while I wait for any sign of a studio album to be announced, I'll happily spin this little beauty and reminisce about the good old days.

I thoroughly enjoyed Sacred Reich's second album The American Way back in the early nineties, but for some reason it's taken me until 2008 to check out their debut release Ignorance. While it's not as well produced or catchy as The American Way, it's still a decent political based, thrashing album that's worth a few spins. The production does let it down a bit though as it lacks the punchiness that would have taken it to another level.

There are a bunch of fun tracks on Ignorance such as Death Squad, Victim of Demise and No Believers but, it doesn't really do anything to distinguish itself as an essential thrash album. It’s all just a little straight forward and contains almost nothing original and outstanding. On a positive note, Ignorance doesn't tend to get overly preachy and corny like the follow-up tended to do.

All up I’d say Ignorance was a decent debut from a solid of not outstanding American thrash metal band.

Pretty decent power metal with some nice thrash riffs thrown in.

I guess the first thing to say is that I'm not a big fan of power metal. I prefer my metal to be aggressive and dark, and power metal often ventures into more upbeat and at times particularly syrupy territory. I only set about reviewing Rage's Black in Mind album due to the combined facts that it was listed on RYM as thrash metal and had a damn good rating. Yet while I've been listening to it over the last few days, the thrash metal genre has been voted off the album, leaving it (correctly in my opinion) listed as solely power metal. So here I am reviewing a power metal album, completely out of my comfort zone, but all the better for the experience.

Having never heard German band Rage before, I didn't know completely what to expect. I'm not completely surprised that the album has been getting a few thrash metal genre votes as there are numerous thrashy riffs popping up throughout. But the atmosphere and song structures are much more within the realms of power metal, with numerous softer "ballads" and slightly upbeat, almost happy tunes mixed in with the odd shredding. Some of the guitar work on the album is excellent indeed, with some great riffs and fantastic leads. The vocals are a bit of a mixed bag for me. Peter Wagner comes across as a mix between Dave Mustaine from Megadeth and the guy with the funny voice on Police Academy. At times he's really entertaining and then at others (mostly the softer sections) he's awful.

At 68 minutes in length, Black in Mind is certainly an endeavour to get through. But there are undoubtedly some entertaining tracks amongst the 14 on offer. The title track, The Crawling Chaos and In a Nameless Time are cool as are the riffs on A Spider's Web, but it must be said that there is a fair amount of filler alongside them. There just seems to be a section that disagrees with me within just about every track, but that's likely to be my personal preferences getting in the way. I'll give it 3 stars but if you're a fan of power metal, you'll want to add another 1 to that score. It's not something I'll listen to much, but I can see the appeal for sure.

The Human Factor is a disappointing album to me. I really enjoyed Blessing in Disguise despite assuming I wouldn't like it much. It had several tracks that got under my skin and surprised me. Most tracks on that album were memorable and interesting, which is not the case for The Human Factor. Just about every track on this album is a solid, heavy metal tune with flashes of thrash metal thrown in. It's tight, well produced and well structured. But there are very few tracks that are anything but simply decent, and none that scream classic at me.

This album just doesn't excite me in any way to be honest. I'll give it a generous 3 as it's not terrible. Just a little lacklustre and below my expectations.

After loving the debut self-titled album, Metal Church disappointed me a little bit with The Dark. I figured this one was unlikely to win me over, particularly after hearing that vocalist David Wayne had been replaced for this release. As it has turned out, I find Blessing in Disguise to be a much better album than I'd expected. On top of that, Mike Howe's vocals are great, so the loss of Wayne had no effect on quality.

The album starts with the almost stadium rock of Fake Healer that can't help but get under your skin. Then the brilliant Rest in Pieces follows, leaving me with no uncertainty that Metal Church had come up with a winner. The riffs are consistently attention grabbing, the song structures highly memorable and the leads are decent too. Highlights for me are Rest in Pieces, Badlands and the instrumental It's a Secret. I do think that Anthem to the Estranged overstays it's welcome somewhat, being 9 and half minutes long without doing all that much for me. And Cannot Tell a Lie doesn't quite meet the standard of the rest of the album, so while I really like this album, I can't rate it higher than a solid 4 stars.

I have to say this album is a bit of a disappointment to me. After loving the debut, I figured this would be more thrashing metal goodness to bang my head to. But it turns out that Metal Church decided to tone their metal down towards stadium rock with The Dark. There are still some thrashing moments like Ton of Bricks, Psycho, Line of Death etc., but there are also a multitude a hard rock speed tracks and balladry on show. The band has taken away the riff-based metal emphasis that they had and replaced it with well...something less.

That's not to say that there are no decent moments here, as it's all mildly enjoyable, easily digested music. I still may give it a spin here and there, but I was expecting more!

The epitome of a mixed bag, there's something here for everyone, while remaining a release that will satisfy very few.

By this stage the idea of a new Metallica release contained none of the excitement of years gone by. It seemed extremely unlikely that this once great band would ever produce an album of the sort of quality they once did seemingly at will, so the news of a third release within as many years didn’t exactly have me jumping up and down in excitement. Given my general disdain for cover tracks, the idea of a double disc collection of covers was about as appealing as a romantic dinner with Lars Ulrich, but at least Metallica had the sense to put these cover tracks in a compilation, rather than tainting their studio album experiences as so many other bands tend to do. It’s fairly remarkable that they had enough cover material to make up over two hours of music, but I guess that’s a sign of how open and grateful Metallica are to their many influences. I’ll say straight off that I don’t own a single album by any of the bands covered (although I have heard the Black Sabbath, Mercyful Fate and Motörhead tracks over time), which probably doesn’t make me the ideal person to review this release. Then again, getting these bands heard by the multitudes of Metallica fans that otherwise might not have, is likely the intention of it in the first place. Garage Inc. was released on November the 24th 1998 and can easily be considered an album split into two halves. The first disc is totally new stuff, recorded at The Plant Studios in September 1998, whereas the second disc contains older recordings from various locations, recorded between 1984 and 1995.

As mentioned above, the first disc is all newly recorded post Load / Reload, so it’s not at all surprising to find tracks included that likely inspired them to take on a less metal path. In fact, there are really only three tracks out of eleven that could be considered metal at all, and my personal preferences make those easily the most enjoyable for me. Diamond Head’s Electric is yet another reason why I should really check out this British band, after Helpless and Am I Evil? (both included on disc two) already suggest they created at least one album of highly enjoyable traditional heavy metal. Metallica make a fairly decent attempt at Black Sabbath’s Sabbra Cadabra too, but the eleven minute Mercyful Fate medley (which includes sections from Satan’s Fall, Curse of the Pharaohs, A Corpse Without Soul, Into the Coven and Evil, all of which appeared on the band’s self titled EP and debut full length Melissa) is unquestionably the highlight of disc one. Thankfully, James doesn’t attempt the high pitched theatrics of King Diamond, yet his typically gruff vocals work well enough in their stead. Considering my normal dislike for anything labelled punk, I’ve found more to enjoy in the two Discharge tracks, as well as Die, Die My Darling by The Misfits than I expected, yet none of them make me want to go out and purchase their albums, especially after Discharge so convincingly support free speech on the opening track only to apparently have nothing further to say.

The rest of disc one is made up of various forms of rock, with vastly mixed results. On the positive side, Blue Öyster Cult’s Astronomy starts off quietly before the guys ramp up the volume and surprise me with a memorable and crunchy tune. Loverman, originally performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, took a little bit longer to grow on me, but eventually got its claws in with a brooding conviction that even Nick would be proud of. The same cannot be said for Bob Seger’s Turn the Page, which contains the same sort of southern truckie tone that raised its ugly head on Load not long back. It’s just not the style of music that floats my boat, and neither is Thin Lizzy’s Whiskey in the Jar for similar reasons. I have to say that I find it hard to imagine James, Lars, Kirk and Jason sitting around tapping their feet to this country style of music, yet I suppose any assumptions I might have had about what these guys get up to in the spare time were well and truly quashed by the Load photo shoot images. Finally there’s Tuesday’s Gone, which is unquestionably the most abhorrent track on Garage Inc. Not only did Metallica settle in for a nine minute unplugged southern nightmare, they somehow managed to convince members of Corrosion of Conformity, Alice in Chains and Faith No More (among others) to take part in what is a soul destroying monstrosity of karaoke-like piss-taking.

Thankfully, disc two has far more to offer long term Metallica fans, particularly those who never strayed far from the band’s full length releases. Made up of various EPs and B-Sides, this disc is high on metal, and far more indicative of where Metallica originally formed their inspiration. Things get underway with the excellent Garage Days Re-Revisited EP from 1987. I’ve reviewed this release elsewhere, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but there’s no doubt that these five tracks are right up there when it comes to highlights of the Garage Inc. compilation. Once the EP has run its course, the remaining tracks on disc two run in chronological order, starting with the original Garage Days Revisited from 1984. A lot of Metallica fans would know these two tracks from the Creeping Death EP that came out the same year, and once again they offer loads of NWOBHM entertainment. Diamond Head’s Am I Evil? has a maliciousness that modern Metallica has sadly left behind, and Blitzkrieg is just as rocking, with a very audible Cliff Burton getting some appreciated airtime. The last quarter of Garage Inc. is without question of most interest to me personally, as I hadn’t heard the majority of these covers previously. Tracks eight through twelve are made up of various B-Sides, starting off with Budgie’s Breadfan and yet another Diamond Head track, being the fantastic The Prince, which has Kill’em All written all over it, making it clear just how important Diamond Head were to the creation of Metallica.

The cover of Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy is less essential since Metallica have played it during their live set on numerous occasions over the years, but it packs more of a punch than you might expect given the poppy characteristics normally associated with the makers of Bohemian Rhapsody. Anti-Nowhere League’s So What is less to my liking, but at least gives parents within earshot something to be concerned about, with some seriously crude lyrics. The compilation comes to a close with four Motörhead covers recorded live in the studio back in 1995. They’re actually pretty good too, with James doing a more than reasonable job at impersonating Lemmy. Overkill and Too Late Too Late make me wish I’d spent more time with the British legends at some point in time. Whether or not you should pick up Garage Inc. is not an easy question to answer. Disc one does contain some tracks worth hearing, but I highly doubt there are all that many fans out there that will appreciate the whole running time. Those who enjoy their recent work will probably find all the tracks that I struggle with to be great fun, whereas the many thrash metal fans out there are just as likely to turn away in disgust, reaching for their Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets records yet again. Disc two is kind of the opposite, but then if you’re like me, you’ve already heard a lot of these tracks before on various Metallica rarities. Garage Inc. is a classic mixed bag that offers something for everyone while not being likely to really satisfy anyone.

Part two of Metallica's regression into substandard, energy deficient hard rock.

After the huge disappointment that was Load, the news that Metallica would be releasing a second part entitled Reload didn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm. The band had initially intended for Load to be a double album, but had decided in the studio that recording around thirty tracks at once was simply too demanding. They instead decided to release two separate albums one year apart, and Lars was adamant at the time that Reload should not be considered as a separate album at all, but merely the second half of Load. The idea of subjecting myself to more of the blues influenced hard rock that made Load so hard to swallow (sorry!) was about as exciting as viewing Lars and Kirk kissing in photos within the album sleeve, and I have to confess that I very intentionally steered well clear of Reload when it was released on November the 18th 1997. Hearing complaints that Reload held even less quality than Load and seeing it rated so horribly on sites like this one caused me no reason to regret that decision either, and James’ admission on the 2004 documentary Some Kind of Monster that the tracks on Reload were actually the ones Metallica considered too average to put on Load nailed that coffin closed for good...or so I thought. After reviewing Load a few weeks ago, curiosity started gnawing at me, and I finally resolved to give Reload the chance I denied it some thirteen years earlier.

I don’t know if going in with stupendously low expectations actually increased my enjoyment of Reload or whether it is actually not that bad, but I’ll state straight off that I don’t think Load Part II is really any worse than Part I. Don’t get me wrong, in comparison to the classic Metallica albums, Reload is entirely disastrous and has some particularly embarrassing moments for all involved. I have no urges to stand out on my veranda and proclaim to the world that Reload is a misunderstood gem that was simply mistreated due to some bandwagon jumping condemnation. But...after rating Load two and a half stars, I was fully convinced that Reload would sit somewhere significantly lower on the spectrum. After half a dozen listens I have to say that I’ve discovered just as many highs and lows on Reload than as on Load and will therefore rate it accordingly. The guys still show no intention of displaying their substantial talents and instead cruise in third or fourth gear for almost the entire seventy five minutes, seemingly playing for a southern American truckie bar audience as opposed to the long-haired, moshpit inhabiting crowd they owe their initial success to. The drug fuelled, abstract art loving, homosexually suggestive imagery was also retained, and even the cover art could be considered a sequel of sorts, with artist Serrano’s mixture of blood and piss following on from the blood and semen of Load.

So where are the positives? Well, as much as opener Fuel grates on my nerves and has me hoping no-one can actually hear me listening to it who might mistake me for a raving redneck, it at least gets the album off with a certain level of energy. The Unforgiven II might not be a patch on the original, containing that annoying southern twang that suddenly appeared in Metallica’s sound in recent times, but it’s not completely unpleasant. The real positives for me come mid-album, with Carpe Diem Baby overcoming that terrible name to be a surprisingly memorable and powerful track, and Where the Wild Things Are’s strangely touching and slightly progressive form completely taking me off guard. Eight minute closer Fixxxer is not too shabby either, making me think that with a little bit of tweaking, Metallica could have released an admittedly still disappointing, but not quite so staggeringly awful single album, made up of the better moments from Load and Reload. I might actually listen to an album containing Until it Sleeps, The Outlaw Torn, Carpe Diem Baby and Where the Wild Things Are, but I sure as hell won’t subject myself to over a hundred and fifty minutes of hugely inconsistent, second rate rock music just to get the occasional reminder of what this band was once capable of, particularly when it holds tracks as horrible as Cure, Ronnie, Better Than You and Low Man’s Lyric. At least I now know that I haven’t really been missing anything!