The now-deceased Karcharoth of Graveland and Infernum.
As triumphant as it was, both Infernum and Graveland were entering difficult times, and Thousand Swords would mark Karcharoth’s final appearance within Graveland, his troubled mental state severely hampering the trio’s attempts to record a follow-up to … Taur-Nu-Fuin… in 1996. In fact, it would be a decade before the group’s next release, with Karcharoth parting ways with his bandmates around this time.
“As keyboard player, I was to appear in a studio at the end of the recording session,” Darken recalls. “Unfortunately, it did not happen. Karcharoth and Capricornus recorded guitars and drums but it was a very hard time for Karcharoth. He was angry and nervous. He argued with Capricornus over everything during recording drums. During the recording session at six in the morning, the UOP police agents came to Karcharoth’s house and took him to an empty flat where he was beaten. After some hours, they let him go but made him promise to stop the recording session and dissolve the band. When the police let him go, he came to me. He was scared and shocked. He told me what had happened and started to convince me that we should stop our activities. Otherwise, the police agents would kill us all. Then he went to Capricornus to warn him.
“The same day I met Capricornus and the two of us decided to do our job and walk [our] once-chosen path,” he continues. “As Capricornus and I did not follow his warning, a few days later Karcharoth started to isolate himself from us. He spent time only with his friends from Thunderbolt and Fullmoon. From them we found out that Karcharoth started to call us ‘Nazi’ and blame us for all his problems. It was a clear beginning of his schizophrenia. He started to tell stories that were very hard to believe. When he found out that people from Thunderbolt and Fullmoon did not trust him anymore, Karcharoth decided to go to Norway. He took a ferry to Sweden where the police stopped him for twenty-four hours and sent him back to Poland. As the time passed, it was getting worse with him. Schizophrenia reduced him to a poor substitute of the person he had been in the past. He started to support left-wing ideology and became a member of communist party in Poland. In [2004], he committed suicide, jumping off the roof of a tenth-floor apartment building. Before he killed himself, he tried to reactivate Satanist black metal [band] Infernum with new people but they had to finish the recording session without him.”
Graveland’s Rob Darken has gradually moved away from the more overt trappings of black metal, while retaining a keen interest in re-enacting.
The resulting situation for Infernum was unusual and somewhat undignified. The original 1996 sessions for the second album were completed by Capricornus and Darken and released in 2005 as an album entitled Farewell on No Colours. At around the same time the remaining members of the second incarnation of Infernum set about completing the album they had begun with the now-deceased frontman, releasing this as The Curse in 2006 on the Sound Riot label. In addition, UK-based label Supernal Music re-released the debut album following the suicide, replacing the controversial political messages of the original, rather disrespectfully, with a piece of writing by an anonymous source who branded the album’s mastermind Karcharoth a traitor and portrayed his death as “the ultimate act of penance.”
Back in 1996, the remaining duo within Graveland found themselves without a label, Lethal Records dropping the band following the release of Thousand Swords supposedly due to their outspoken NS beliefs. However, it’s interesting to note that Graveland’s releases were fairly restrained, politically speaking, in comparison to most of their peers, and Darken is adamant that the label simply did not wish to pay them for their work.
“NSBM has never been an appropriate description of Graveland music and activity,” he states. “Determined and uncompromising attitudes of Capricornus and Karcharoth who supported NSBM in Thor’s Hammer and Infernum were responsible for associating Graveland with NSBM. I had my own vision of playing black metal and I stopped some ideas brought by Capricornus and Karcharoth. Maybe it caused their radicalization in their own projects.”
All the same, the band’s political stance (or perhaps, the political stance of the band’s members) was now becoming well-known within the underground, and freed from their contract with Lethal, the group soon began their long relationship with Germany’s right-leaning No Colours Records, with whom they released Following the Voice of Blood in 1997.
“Capricornus and I recorded this album under strong pressure,” Darken recalls. “We had a feeling that it could have been our last album. We were surrounded by the police and rats. Our friends were intimidated by the police. A helping hand came from Germany—true German black metal underground supported us and encouraged us. Following the Voice of Blood is a still a black metal album but one can hear the time of paganism and a cult of warrior is coming. Capricornus decided to be a session player in Graveland. He wanted to concentrate on his solo project Thor’s Hammer. After some interviews in U.S. musical magazines Graveland became a target of some Jewish organizations that fought against anti-Semitism.”
Indeed, the group’s notoriety would see them receiving an unexpected cameo on television show The West Wing, with art imitating life thanks to an investigation by U.S. secret service agents.
“The album was mentioned as an inspiration for a terrorist who wanted to murder the president of the United States,” he explains somewhat incredulously. “In this episode, a terrorist writes a letter with death threats to the president and signs it ‘Following the Voice of Blood.’ [A] secret agent explains that it is a title of an album of a Nazi band! Typical Zionist method of fight[ing] against its opponents! Recently the album was banned by German BPjM [Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons]. The police confiscated all albums stored in No Colours distro. There is no anti-Semitic or Nazi propaganda on this album. But there is something else there: a spirit of a white man. True nature of white nations. A spirit of resistance against all those who want to enslave us!”
Though the album did not turn out to be the band’s final effort, it did signal an exit of sorts from the black metal scene. Following the release, Darken would reinvent the project by promoting the epic, Bathory-inspired undertones of the previous two albums, the first result being 1998’s Immortal Pride. Along with this musical change came a dramatic transition of image and ideology, Darken turning his back on many of the non-musical trappings of the black metal scene.
“Following the Voice of Blood was the last black metal album,” confirms Darken. “On Immortal Pride I changed Graveland’s image and referred to neo-pagan tradition. At that time I was deeply disappointed by the attitude of Norwegian black metal leaders after the dissolution of the Black Circle and the commercialization of true black metal and the Scandinavian scene. I wanted to cut Graveland off from black metal when it became a commercial trend. Actions [such] as the activation of Mayhem were just business and I despised it. My convictions and views matured, I gained some experience … and decided to leave black metal to angry young men, to new generations [and] walk a way more appropriate to my nature.”
“I saw a chance for me as epic pagan metal was not quite as popular and there were only few pagan metal bands,” he continues. “So I started to work on new ideas inspired by Bathory—especially by Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods—and Manilla Road. I took inspiration from folk music, some specific melodies and rhythms. Today Graveland should not be identified with black metal or NS black metal. Some metal fans listen to Graveland albums only from times before Immortal Pride. I understand them. These older albums are much easier to listen to and not everyone likes the epic style which is much more difficult to understand in the contemporary world of corporation slavery. It is not a problem for me. I am a warrior protecting traditional white man values. Fidelity is my honor. Even if I have to go alone against mainstream, I will not turn aside.”
These epic musical ambitions were more than evident on Immortal Pride, an opus comprised of two lengthy tracks—twenty-three and sixteen minutes long—bookended by a pair of instrumentals.
Still vehemently anti-Christian, the album reflected Darken’s passion for paganism and its connection with national identity, a focus that apparently went hand-in-hand with his renouncement of Satanism and the pursuit of darkness and evil. This pivotal album would mark the final appearance of Capricornus, who instead continued with the more explicitly political music of his self-titled project and Thor’s Hammer until the mid-2000s, after which he all but disappeared from view (though many online sources suggest he has departed the scene for a more hedonistic lifestyle, even posting a photo of him apparently partying with a black friend as evidence). Darken, on the other hand, has continued to be highly prolific in his two main outfits Lord Wind and Graveland, both of which have continued with the themes of battle, paganism, and Slavic national identity.
“At that time I was involved in the activity of neo-pagan movements in Poland,” he explains. “Pagan spirit appeared in my music and it is present there till today. I still hated Christianity and church but I understood that violence and hatred were not the only possible weapon. Hatred and violence were part of black metal underground but I saw that our actions made Christianity stronger. So I was faced with a choice: destruction or creation? And I chose creation. Culture and true native beliefs of our forefathers became my new weapon. Finally,” he concludes, “I dissociated myself from Satanism when I understood that as a heathen I should not identify myself with Judeo-Christian religion and culture and Satan and Satanism are part of Judeo-Christian tradition… Approving the idea of existence of Satan implicates approving the Christian vision of world. And these are the things I do not believe in.”
38
BEHEMOTH
POLISH BLACK METAL PART II
“We’ve been friends with Nergal and Behemoth since the tape-trading days and we pretty much share the same background in terms of musical and artistic inspiration, obviously with two different expressions. Behemoth has always been a force of its own ever since their conception and has ploughed the way for themselves without hesitation and without asking anybody for permission. Their records speak volumes in terms of great musical craftmanship and their live rituals [express] such power and conviction you’d have to be both blind and deaf not to take notice. Their success is earned the hard way—the only true way!”
—Silenoz (Dimmu Borgir)
THE EXPLOSION of far-right black metal bands in Poland from 1992 onward would define the country’s scene for the rest of the decade, but its first few years were surprisingly apolitical. Formed in Gdánsk on the Baltic coast in 1991, Behemoth was an early presence within Polish black metal, appearing at a time when only a handful of other outfits (notably Xanatol, Christ Agony, Pandemonium, Mastomah, and Mastiphal) were active. Originally a trio, the group’s first incarnation brought together three young musicians, curiously all named Adam: vocalist and guitarist Adam Darski (Nergal, initially known as Holocausto), second guitarist Adam Malinowski (Desecrator), and drummer Adam Muraszko (Baal, originally known as Sodomizer). All still attending school, Nergal and Desecrator were only fourteen when the band began, with the band’s oldest member, Baal, being only one year older.
“While I was in secondary school I discovered Venom and Bathory and just fell in love, you know?” recalls Nergal, the band’s only remaining founding member. “I developed an interest in the more underground and independent scene, like Morbid Angel, Blasphemy, Beherit, Samael, Rotting Christ—the Greek school, the Norwegian school, I just got hooked. The energy was undeniable and the whole anti-religious aspect and rebellious factor was essential. Punk had some of this ‘fuck everything’ vibe, but black metal was more spiritual. I was in garage bands before [Behemoth], kid’s bands I would say. I was the only person who owned a professional instrument, so we just beat the shit out of it and made tapes, so-called albums, drawing covers ourselves and coming up with different titles. Every few months we’d come up with a tape with a bunch of shitty songs. Eventually I decided I wanted to form a band that was… well, we were not professional, but we were aiming to be professional one day.”
One of several Behemoth logos that was used briefly in the beginning of the band’s career.
The first evidence of the group’s activities surfaced in the middle of 1992 in the form of their first demo, Endless Damnation, a highly primitive slab of doomy black metal that, though undeniably amateurish, drew on some of the primeval spirit of early Samael, Hellhammer, and Beherit. 1993’s The Return of the Northern Moon proved rather more professional in terms of both production and songwriting, offering a definite nod toward the more modern sound emanating from Scandinavia, while keeping one foot planted firmly in the eighties, a point underlined by the cover of Hellhammer’s “Aggressor.” Released in early 1994, the third and final demo, ….From the Pagan Vastlands, would complete this evolution, maintaining the slower tempos of the band’s first-generation influences while nonetheless leaning toward a second-generation blueprint, with Nergal even adopting the rasping vocals that had by then become uniform within the movement.
The shifts in the band’s sound were echoed by those within the lineup itself, the group losing second guitarist Desecrator after the first demo, and gaining another on the third in the shape of Rafał Brauer, otherwise known as Frost. Throughout these tapes the band also broke up the metal tracks with keyboard instrumentals, contributed by session musicians Czarek Morawski and Darken. The latter would fall out spectacularly with Behemoth just a few years later when the band distanced itself from the increasingly politicized Polish scene and departed the Temple of Infernal Fire.
“I never met the guy personally [at the time],” explains Nergal of Darken, “the way it worked back then was that I would get a tape from him with intros or outros and he would allow us to use it. We’ve never been in the same studio working on the same songs, [but] he was a friend of the band in the very early stages.”
Even as a demo band, Behemoth had become one of the biggest names in the still-growing Polish scene, the latter two demos receiving semi-professional tape releases by Pagan Records, a relatively new label founded by Tomasz Krajewski of Holocaust zine. The licensing for the recordings was also picked up by foreign labels—namely America’s Wild Rags and Germany’s Nazgul’s Eyrie and Last Epitaph Production—further spreading Behemoth’s name in the international underground.
“I would say the first demo tape with a proper cover and proper glossy paper was the first step up,” Nergal considers, “I was like, ‘Wow.’ I was blown away….. From the Pagan Vastlands was a huge step up again, it sold four thousand or five thousand copies worldwide on cassette which is massive, I mean there’s bands that release albums these days that sell five hundred copies. Tomasz was a great buddy, he was ten years older and he’d be like a good uncle or something—thanks to him I discovered many new titles and bands. It was a very inspiring relationship.”
Despite their popularity however, these early years were a far from easy time for the band’s members, due predominantly to the circumstances in their homeland at the time. “It was very hard,” explains Nergal, “we did what we could to realize our dreams, to keep going. These days it’s easy—when you are ten you get Rock Band or Guitar Hero, then you ask your dad and he buys you a guitar. Everything is available. Back then it was the late eighties, Poland was still a Communist country and even in the nineties when we became a democratic country and our economy opened up to the European market it was still so poor, there were hardly any professional instruments available, just shitty brands. Even in 1995 you couldn’t go into a store and buy a Jackson or BC Rich, no way. I remember when I bought my first Jackson it was 1999 or 2000, before I had this guitar I didn’t have a killer instrument at all. Same goes for CDs. I remember in the early nineties the average monthly salary would be equal to like two or three CDs at the store. I remember I got the Emperor/Enslaved split and I was worshipping it! I was worshipping this piece of plastic! Obviously it’s different now, but in the nineties it was pretty fucking tough.”
1994 wou
ld also see the band’s first “official” release, namely a mini-album entitled And The Forests Dream Eternally, issued on short-lived Italian label Entropy. Still a favorite of Nergal today, its five songs granted the band a decent production for the first time and took the songwriting into more memorable territories, its updated take on the early Bathory template resulting in a sound with clear parallels to Nordic peers such as Gorgoroth. Even the bold declaration on the sleeve (“NO TRENDS! FUCK WEAKNESS! NO MORE ‘FUN’ STUFF! KILL TRENDY IDIOTS!”) seems to have its roots in the Norwegian school of communication.
While the demos had included explicit praise of Satan/Lucifer alongside pagan subject matter, the band’s lyrics were now intently focused on paganism and nature itself—in fact, the opening words of the release are “Pure Paganism I worship in the woods.” And while early demo tracks such as “From Hornedlands to Lindisfarne” had tackled the rather Nordic topic of Viking invaders, the third number of the EP, “Sventevith (Storming Near the Baltic),” now revealed distinctly homegrown inspirations, referring directly to the Slavic god of war. Indeed, interviews of the time illustrate just how intensely focused the band were on their country’s pagan roots, Baal telling the zine Kill Yourself:
“I hail Poland as the land of the Slavs, as the territory of pagan culture and the sanctuary of the nature [sic] … our lyrics are filled with the Slavonic pagan mythology, our hatred against those who destroyed paganism, the personal emotions/metaphysical relationships, about the night and the nature of the universe … I hate Christianity, as the religion which is directly responsible for the obliteration of the pagan Slavonic culture.”
Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult Page 53