Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult

by Dayal Patterson

  “You meet people, you have a similar interest and you find out you weren’t that different anymore,” explains Svein. “Suddenly you’re not seventeen anymore, you’re twenty-two, and generally the atmosphere of the music scene is different. You didn’t have this same general climate of people being skeptical. People were more interested in meeting each other and talking to each other and during the course of this time we became friends with a lot of these people. Since you had all these different musicians within one arm’s length we thought, ‘Okay, we can have this guy on this song and this guy on that song,’ and it just started snowballing.”

  By now the creative process within Fleurety was largely defined by an atmosphere of spontaneity, experimentation, and collaboration, which goes some way to explaining the record’s diversity and lack of continuity. “The main difference [between the albums] is that one of them was rehearsed and we had specific plans about how it was going to be. There was some experimenting and some spontaneity going on, but it was more pre-rehearsed, whereas the second album was much more spontaneous. It was like, ‘Okay we have a studio for a month, let’s try to see what works and use whatever idea pops up in your head.’ So the first album is more coherent and probably easier for people to listen to and it sounds like it’s the same band playing from the beginning of the first song to the end of the last song, whereas the second album sounds like a combination of a lot of strange bands.”

  The fragmented nature of the recording reflected the group’s lineup, and the band soon split as Alexander’s work saw him leaving Norway to live in a variety of locations, including England, India, Romania, and Canada. Despite this, the band continues to show signs of life, with occasional releases since 2009, and while their experimental ways are probably less capable of shock now that black metal has broadened its perimeters so drastically, they nonetheless retain their potential as a force to be reckoned with.

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  A TURN FOR THE WEIRD

  PART II

  WHILE MOST OF NORWAY’S experimental bands rose from the aftermath of the initial black metal explosion, Arcturus actually preceded it. In fact, their roots lie in the 1987 formation of Mortem, a death metal band comprised of guitarist Steinar Johnsen (“Sverd”), vocalist and bassist Marius Void (of Stigma Diabolicum/Thorns), and drummer Jan Axel Blomberg (a.k.a. Hellhammer). Arcturus was formed as a side project in 1990, but soon took priority, releasing the My Angel seven-inch in 1991. A strange, gothic, keyboard-dominated affair with death metal vocals and very little guitar, the single was actually a love song to Marius’ departed Hawaiian girlfriend. It wasn’t long before Marius himself departed, replaced by Kristoffer “Garm” Rygg of Ulver, with Emperor’s Samoth also recruited on guitar and bass, moving Sverd onto the keyboards. Three years after their first release came the Constellation mini-album, a release that ably reintroduced—and reinvented—the group.

  “I remember thinking My Angel was one of the greatest things ever,” explains Kristoffer, “at that time the synth element in metal still wasn’t too established. Steiner was a connoisseur of classical music. He was at home with his Bach CDs on full blast, he was walking around different churches playing organs and could read notes like a motherfucker. He was a very musically minded guy who was playing all day, and when he wasn’t playing he was chasing skirt. He wasn’t really into the underlying philosophy of [black metal] and never really took an interest in the fraternity aspect of it. But Mortem released the Slow Death EP in ’87, around Mayhem’s formative years, so he had some respect due to that long-standing presence.”

  Originally, Constellation had only been recorded as preproduction for a debut full-length, and two years later came Aspera Hiems Symfonia (“Harsh Winter Symphony”), featuring rerecordings of the four songs on Constellation alongside four new numbers. With a lineup that saw Samoth replaced on bass by Ulver’s Skoll and on guitar by Carl August Tidemann, Aspera presented symphonic black metal in an aggressive and catchy vein, yet with obvious progressive aspirations. Displaying sophisticated, twisting songwriting, remarkable performances, and a sense of gothic theatricality that had rarely been explored before in extreme metal, it ventured into territories of both epic majesty and carnivalesque whimsy.

  Such qualities would be more deeply realized on the 1997 follow-up La Masquerade Infernale, an album that brought the fringes of the avant-garde black metal movement to much wider attention. Originally due to be called The Satanist, the album bore heavy occult overtones, as well as a real sense of musical and intellectual depth, offering what felt like an authentic foray into sophisticated diabolical knowledge. While black metal had already boasted of its classical aspirations, the sublime track “Ad Astra” seemed to offer the most credible example yet, utilizing six classical performers (including Ulver’s Erik Lancelot on flute!) in a highly emotive manner. Yet offsetting accusations of pretension was an inherent eccentricity and playfulness that distanced the band from their more po-faced peers, the record blending Edgar Allan Poe-derived lyrics, live strings, electronic break beats (still a shocking inclusion for many at the time), and a touch of Kurt Weill/Tim Burton-esque atmosphere.

  The Slow Death cassette. Though now best known as the band that became Arcturus, Mortem made a name as one of Norway’s first extreme metal bands during the eighties.

  “The aesthetic of that record was a deliberate focus on very small elements of Aspera, especially ‘Raudt Og Svart,’ that circus-like…” Kristoffer pauses looking for the words, “dancing… dead… doll aesthetic. We kind of decided that that was something we wanted to expand upon. Black metal was extremely theatrical so it was a natural consequence of that and being a bit more playful with it, adding some humor. Taking in that whole literary aspect and things like Faust, it was kind of natural I think to make a devilish symphonic piece with a sort of humpty dumpty devil.”

  There was certainly a glorious mix of pomp and bombast on much of the record, the album largely doing away with the rasped vocals of old in favor of clean, almost operatic vocals from Kristoffer and Simen Hestnæs, who had entered the band (albeit as a guest) alongside guitarist and producer Knut M. Valle.

  “Knut and Steiner were thinking to do a side project and I was going to do vocals—the first song was ‘The Chaos Path’—but later it became part of Arcturus,” reveals Hestnæs. “Knut wasn’t very black metal at all, he was a formidable guitar player who had come to town and wanted to jam with everybody. There was talk that Garm might not be interested in Arcturus anymore and that I might take over. But I guess when he heard the first songs he became very interested and for the album I’m sure that was a good thing.”

  Spaced out: Simen Hestnæs of Arcturus, live in 2012. Photo: Ester Segarra.

  Knut would actually play a key role in the record’s realization, and while the bones of the songs were written by Sverd (who apparently only listened to Dream Theater and classical at this time, explaining the heavy progressive and classical leanings) it was left to Kristoffer and Knut—aided by various psychedelic substances—to build up the final tracks.

  The 1999 darkwave/trip hop remix record Disguised Masters reflected the self-conscious attempts at genre cross-pollination going on at the time, and it was not until 2002 that a proper third album, The Sham Mirrors, would surface. A genuinely stellar effort, it presented a more refined take on the band’s snaking sound, the lyrics now looking less to the past and more to a space-traveling future, an aesthetic reflected in the music’s use of effects and slick synth melodies.

  Frontman Kristoffer would depart soon after, but the band would survive, replacing him first with Øyvind Hægeland of Spiral Architect and then installing Hestnæs as a full-time member. The space-themed concept would also last—logical since Arcturus is actually named after a star—as would the carnival atmosphere of the first two albums. The latter surfaced most explicitly onstage, the band finally able to play live regularly, having only done so once with Kristoffer (“It’s no secret I really had bad stage fright,” he admits, �
��but I also had a strong stance that it would take away the distance and myth to be out in the world playing.”) A somewhat more lighthearted attitude was also reflected on the 2005 album Sideshow Symphonies, which saw the band forging ahead in an epic prog metal direction, with less obvious experimentation but a similarly flamboyant theatricality.

  “The most important thing was to give the impression that we really don’t give a fuck, this is not Satanic or evil or whatever it’s something completely different,” Hestnæs explains. “Musically I think it’s pretty dark, but it’s not as intense metal-wise maybe, lots of slow tunes.”

  “I think they sort of misinterpreted some of the things that I left unexplained,” ponders Kristoffer. “I think they just took the whole circus too literally, the show with people throwing balls in the air and bears and just being silly, it had nothing to do with how I perceived that stuff at the time.”

  The band would go on hiatus after the tours for Sideshow Symphonies, finally reforming in 2011. In terms of breaking new ground La Masquerade must still be their high point, and like a nineties Into The Pandemonium, it explores various tangents without restraint, incorporating foreign elements without ever deviating entirely from its metal foundations. “I hate to sound arrogant,” concludes Kristoffer, “but I think it might have been the record that coined a genre description that I don’t like too much—‘avant-garde metal.’ Not only this carnivalesque thing but also incorporating electronic beats which no one was doing then.”

  An early Manes promo, from the era of their none-more-black demos.

  Photo courtesy of Cernunnus.

  1997 was a highly significant year in retrospect, since it also saw the release of the genuinely eclectic Hail Horror Hail by Japanese act Sigh and The Linear Scaffold, the first album of Oslo-based duo Solefald, a record that echoed the bombastic and ambitious nature of La Masquerade Infernale. With similarly philosophical and intellectual aspirations—and shared musical characteristics—Solefald’s debut turned plenty of heads thanks to its bold lyrics and aesthetic. Sure, the cover art and the use of a poem by Byron suggested a familiar reverence for the past, but here too was talk of Sartre, urban architecture, modern transportation, and television—elements purposely ignored by a scene that consciously rejected modern society and its trappings. The aptly named Neonism released in 1999 would only build upon this foundation, its unapologetically contemporary lyrics (still probably the only band in black metal to mention a “broken public toilet”) matching its equally incongruous (within a black metal context) musical eccentricities.

  As a result of this wave of experimentation, along with prevailing insecurities regarding the stagnation of the genre, much of the wider black metal scene began to push their art into uncharted waters. Established acts—Mayhem, Hades, Primordial, and Enslaved, to name a few—began to offer increasingly forward-thinking works, in many cases ones that would be indicative of their general trajectory as groups. In turn, as the new millennium progressed, a new generation of bands surfaced who had grown up witnessing such experimentation and felt it was natural to keep pushing at black metal’s already loose boundaries.

  The previously mentioned Negură Bunget would be one of several groups making use of expansive ambient soundscapes, with America’s Fauna, Ireland’s Altar of Plagues, and England’s The Axis of Perdition all inspired musically and thematically by specific physical landscapes. Debuting in 1995, France’s Blut Aus Nord would begin life as an impressive but far from groundbreaking project but would move toward similarly open-ended material, making a decisive impact with 2003’s The Work Which Transforms God, its heavily instrumental material drawing on both mystical and philosophical inspirations.

  A more recent incarnation of Manes reflects the band’s musical eclecticism with some suitably unconventional press pictures. Photo courtesy of Cernunnus.

  Their countrymen Deathspell Omega, meanwhile, have also drawn acclaim with similarly inventive efforts, opting for a far denser and more intricate compositional style utilizing doom, prog, death metal and jazz (among other elements) while maintaining an impressive level of musicianship and a secretive but resolutely Satanic agenda. Elsewhere, America’s Nachtmystium have won a considerable following, broadening their perspective by evolving from a traditional second-wave sound to encompass elements of psychedelic rock and even pop.

  While the aforementioned groups would maintain their black metal identity despite musical growth, others would evolve outside of the genre entirely. Two such examples are Ulver and the group Manes, based in Trondheim, Norway. Comprising Cernunnus on guitars, keyboard, and drum programming, and Sargatanas on vocals, the duo recorded some of the most fearsome, lo-fi, and effective examples of black metal of the early nineties, releasing three demos before signing to Hammerheart and updating these songs on their haunting debut album Under ein Blodraud Maane.

  The follow-up, 2002’s Vilosophe, saw a massive shift however, throwing in elements of metal, jazz, post-rock, electronica, trip hop and more. It was too much for many fans, and indeed for Sargatanas, who departed when he heard the new material. Nonetheless the band, which now boasted a handful of new members, tapped even deeper into this vein with 2007’s How the World Came to an End, a dark and resolutely urban opus, whose Massive Attack inspirations (including rapping) shine through what is left of the metal components.

  “I never wanted to play by the established rules,” says Cernunnus. “I really liked the idea of doing the totally opposite of what people want me/us to do. The reaction was surprise and shock, both positive and negative. Black metal people didn’t know if they could like it because it had these techno things. There was one specific review, that I found really awesome, where we got a ‘minus infinity’ score! I think there are two almost separate sets of people [listening to Manes], with just a little overlap.”

  Despite such comments, there does remain a clear connection to the black metal community, since Manes not only played the Inferno festival after their transformation but have also revisited their old material on releases such as 2009’s Solve et Coagula, which consisted of demo material recorded with Niklas Kvarforth of Shining and Malefic of Xasthur on vocals.

  Indeed, while many in the black metal scene encourage an orthodox retention of particular sounds and aesthetics, it’s also true that the genre’s malicious tendrils have reached extensively into numerous other genres (prog, crust, folk, industrial, ambient, doom, classical, post-rock) in a manner other metal genres have not. The question must therefore be why so many key black metal musicians have been happy to delve into other forms of music in a manner their death or doom metal peers arguably haven’t, and why black metal fans are so often happy to embrace this.

  “Perhaps the earlier bands started with this kind of music because they liked the ‘differentness’ of it,” suggests Cernunnus. “And so, when things became too popular, too commercialized, they looked for something new, the next step.”

  “You also have to take into account that when these first records were made these guys were in their pre-twenties and you’re not in any sort of conclusive point in your creative life at that age,” concludes Kristoffer. “I guess black metal, being more endorsing of the libertine lifestyle and chaos, is kind of open for more experimentation. Black metal has an extraordinary sway or depth to it aside from the actual music. It sounds fucking pompous but it has a spirituality to it. In a way it’s not just music, that was the initial draw for me and one of the few things I still respect about it now.”

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  SIGH

  “Venom, Celtic Frost, Mercyful Fate, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Frank Zappa, Franz Liszt, Schubert, Debussy, The Beatles.”

  —Mirai Kawashima, the main composer of Sigh,

  listing the ten acts that most influenced his band’s music

  SIGH are not only one of the longest-running Asian bands to come out of the black metal scene—as well as probably the most high-profile—but also almost certainly the most eclectic. In fact, they are
one of the most eclectic bands related to metal period, their experimental approach and frequently off-the-wall compositions defying easy categorization. Yet while their albums have delved into numerous musical styles—from classical and jazz to reggae and even disco—the group still retain a recognizably black metal core.

  Now one of Japan’s most respected metal bands, the group’s birth can be traced to a humble covers outfit called Ultra Death, formed by four university students, namely vocalist Mirai Kawashima, guitarist Kassy (short for Kashiwagura), bassist Satoshi Fujinami, and drummer Kazuki Ozeki. Formed in 1989, Ultra Death paid tribute to the likes of Venom, Slayer, Death, and Whiplash, bands that by the late eighties were increasingly popular in the Land of the Rising Sun, apparently even more so than in their countries of origin.

  “Metal belonged to the mainstream when I was a teenager,” explains Mirai. “Metallica’s Master of Puppets was almost hitting the top 20 [on] Billboard, Venom came to Japan in 1987, and Slayer were popular. But after listening to those bands I started searching for more and more violent stuff and discovered underground thrash like Destruction, Kreator, Sodom, Deathrow, At War, and Post Mortem. I bought Speed Kills, a really great compilation with Slayer, Venom, Celtic Frost, Destruction and so on. I then bought their albums, looking at the thanks list, looking at the shirts they were wearing on the inner sleeve … it was really difficult to get the info on this stuff in Japan, there was no Internet or anything then, so a thanks list was a real big information source.”