Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult

by Dayal Patterson

  The album was a indeed a twisting and angular beast of a record, one that required no little investment from the listener in order to unlock its true rewards. “I thought it had the potential to sell but also to destroy a band,” says Vicotnik. “Some people got it the wrong way around though—they said that we were going commercial, but in my opinion this is one of the least commercial albums I have ever heard in my life. No real song structures, mixing two elements that really are at odds with each other, twelve-minute songs … If we ever thought about sales, we would have been most well off sticking to the KTK sound. Where reactions for Satanic Art were ninety-eight percent good, with both journalists and the public loving it, 666 was a harder sell. Our genre is very conservative and there’s not really any way to avoid massive critique as well as massive praise when you do an album like 666. But I was very happy with the reactions. Means no difference to me if you get slaughtered or worshipped, as long as it is not indifference. Indifferent art has no function.”

  Kvohst live in Oslo, 2007. Photo: Ester Segarra.

  While some prefer the older recordings, the increased use of electronics on both Satanic Art and especially 666 International was one element that undoubtedly had a profound impact on the scene, and its groundbreaking nature certainly raised the profile of the band. Where the stunning efforts of Mysticum had essentially been furious and primitive black metal songs with the addition of a distinct drum machine sound, this was an altogether more carefully constructed proposition, the industrial and non-metal elements being closely integrated into the overall sound.

  In fact, such was the apparent influence of this move that many have attributed the increased use of electronics within black metal to this one album. Interestingly, this cold and mechanized approach was also echoing within the roster of Moonfog Records, as evident in surprisingly industrial-tinged releases by Thorns (now featuring Aldrahn on additional vocals), Emperor, and Satyricon.

  “When I was about ten to twelve years old, I really loved Depeche Mode so I guess in a way it started there,” Vicotnik explains of the influences he was bringing to the band. “Many years later, in the prime of my black metal years so to speak, I on one hand listened to Celtic Frost, Bathory, Darkthrone, Mayhem, etc., and on the other hand I was an equally big fan of electronic music like Coil, Depeche Mode, Vangelis, NIN, Squarepusher. On the third there was also acoustic music like Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Chopin, Erik Satie, and Devil Doll. At some point I just felt compelled to be inspired by music in general, instead of just working within a small space of what was established and accepted.”

  A period of no less than eight years would pass before the release of the band’s next album, namely 2007’s Supervillain Outcast. Taking a more focused and streamlined approach, with an even more pronounced electronic edge, the album was a forward-thinking and often punishing example of experimental and industrial-leaning black metal, yet also showed an ear for melody, traditional song structures, and catchy riffs in tracks such as the irrepressible “Apocalypticism.” The release would be the first without co-founding member Aldrahn (who had moved out of Oslo since 666 International and was working with Snorre Ruch on Thorns), the lineup now featuring Czral on drums, Vicotnik on guitar, programming, samples, and additional vocals, Thrawn (Tom Kvålsvoll) on guitar and additional vocals, an individual known as Mort providing additional samples/programming, and a new vocalist, Kvohst, otherwise known as Mat McNerney, an English musician who had played in industrial black metal act Void with Czral and the equally progressive black metal-related band Code with Vicotnik. With Aldrahn gone, the writing process now centered almost exclusively around Vicotnik and Czral.

  “The release for Supervillain was scheduled for 2003–2004, and even that would not [have] been a swift release in relation to 666,” says Vikotnik. “The biggest issue for the delay though was that it all went to pieces in the recording process; the budget was not big enough and none of us did a good enough job. I sat doing post-production work for years. Czral was instrumental… by that time, we had such intuition that we could just play without having anything prepared. He literally set the aim for Supervillain, he always said, ‘Let’s make the best black metal album of all time,’ and even if we did or did not, that kind of became the slogan of the era. We started working a lot more professionally this time around: we made a surplus of songs, we got in a rehearsal coach, we practiced three times a week. It’s the hardest I have ever spent working on a piece of music and the blood, sweat, and tears made the album as personal as it can get, there is not a second on that album I don’t connect to. The reception was overwhelming … I never dreamt about as many top scores. Usually one would not care about this shit, but it was just overwhelming, you just could not stay totally indifferent to it.”

  The success of the album would prompt numerous tours for several years to follow, the lineup once again shifting continuously, leaving Vicotnik the only constant. With him at the helm of Dødheimsgard, however, it seems that the world can continue to expect music that steers far away from the generic, a point that harks back to one of the group’s aims at their time of formation:

  “Another aim was [always] to not make indifferent music,” concludes Vicotnik, “I have always had a strong interest for art that stirs great emotions. It would not have mattered if people hated it, as long as the hate was real, strong, and had its reasons. Then, at least, that individual’s reasoning has partly been awoken because of your music.”

  46

  MYSTICUM

  INDUSTRIAL BLACK METAL PART I

  “I got a tape with a few songs of Mysticum as they were signed on the same label as us. It was the first time I ever heard black metal with industrial and computer drums—I started to laugh at once because I thought it was so fuckin’ mind-blowing and original! I listened to it for weeks without any pause, I fuckin’ loved it! To me, Mysticum is a legendary band, and stand as one of the most original black metal bands hailing from the mighty North!”

  —Jørn (Hades/Hades Almighty)

  GIVEN THE BLEAKLY MODERN aesthetic that has surfaced within the work of bands such as Shining, Anaal Nathrakh and The Axis of Perdition, it’s easy to forget that prior to Satyricon and Moonfog Productions’ urbanization of the genre in the late nineties, black metal was almost exclusively obsessed with the ancient past. Seemingly denying the entire industrial revolution conceptually speaking, the movement was dominated by Old English fonts, primitive analog productions, old superstitions, folklore, references to folk and classical music, and numerous paeans to the glories of untainted nature and pagan religions.

  Entirely alone stood Mysticum, an outfit who appeared from within the Satanically inclined Norwegian scene with a sound and aesthetic that combined industrial imagery, modern narcotics, and a passion for electronic percussion. The latter would prove particularly significant, and despite the band’s bright flame burning comparatively briefly, their impact and influence would be huge, their use of samplers and mechanical beats a revolutionary touch that would accidentally kick-start the entire industrial black metal subgenre.

  Formed in Asker, a municipality some twenty kilometers east of Oslo, the band saw the union of two parties: on the one side two longtime friends, bassist Mean Malmberg (often listed by his real name Robin Malmberg or simply Dr. Best) and vocalist/guitarist Prime Evil (also known as Ravn, Svatravn, and occasionally his real name Preben), and on the other side a vocalist/guitarist known as Cerastes (or Herr General). As a trio the group initially went under the name Sabazios, a reference to the ancient Indo-European god whose worshippers utilized the symbol of the snake.

  The master artwork for the Sabazios demo Wintermass, 1993, later reissued as a Mysticum release.

  “Prime Evil was a neighbor,” explains Mean of his bandmate, “and he asked me if I wanted to play with him and his friend Marius. Prime Evil was five years older and Marius a year younger than me. We started a punk/grind band in my parents’ house. I started with punk, but I also listened to Iron M
aiden, Halloween, Anthrax, Testament, and some more.”

  Like Mean, Prime Evil was listening to a range of metal, punk, and grind bands (specifically “Uncle Slam, DRI, Gwar, Slayer, MOD, SOD, Carcass, Death, Cannibal Corpse, Nausea, Autopsy, Entombed, Rövarna, Dismember, Napalm Death, Scorn, Naked City, Exploited, Bolt Thrower, and Darkthrone”) and together with Marius the three would create music in the short-lived group Sewer Disgust, releasing a self-titled demo in 1991.

  “It was terrible music,” reflects Mean. “But we played a festival for the youth called Asker Festival, [and] met Cerastes who was playing in another hardcore/punk band. He was a cool guy, we shared the same backstage room, had the same music interest and friends and we started to play together [in 1992] under the name Sabazios. At that time we also had a drummer, we went to the same school and he taught me to use the computer. [Later] I did layout for Enslaved, Ulver, Emperor, Mayhem and some others as I was the only one who could use a computer! Then we got a drum machine from a friend to test and Prime Evil bought it [in the end] because the drummer refused to play black metal and of course, he loved the sound of the drum machine and it made the drummer’s escape ‘comfortable’!”

  Cerastes, Prime Evil and Mean Malmberg in a derelict asylum, 1998.

  Photo: Nikolai Funke/Fotofunke.

  Prime Evil: “The drummer we had was not really interested, and we tested [the drum machine] and fell for the industrial sound and punctuality. We did try some good drummers, but we wanted the drum machine style.”

  “When we started using the drum machine, I’ve got to say I was a bit skeptical,” admits Cerastes, who was listening to punk and grind such as PiL, The Exploited, Dead Kennedys, Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, and interestingly industrial outfit Godflesh. “But after a few rehearsals the skepticism soon disappeared. The impersonal sound and military precision really appealed to me/us, and fitted our musically direction perfectly. The use of the death metal, I think, also shaped our composing and use of riffs from that point on. A genuine style which we identified with was created. At some point in time we gave Hellhammer a shot at playing drums. He played extremely well and tight, but the sound was just very wrong for us. So it’s unthinkable for us to use something else but 0/1 drums.”

  The duty of programming the Roland TR-505, a cheap and rather primitive drum machine and MIDI sequencer, would fall to Mean, who was helped to a large extent in the early days by Einar Sjursø, drummer of Beyond Dawn and later Virus. Einar had studied at art school with Prime Evil and it was he—along with the Helvete store in Oslo—that Mean credits with introducing the group to the black metal phenomenon, though as Prime Evil explains, this was not an immediate transition.

  “No clear decision was really made,” he recalls. “We created our own style and sound which just very natural at that time. Sabazios was black metal, but we did not change over-night. We did not have any rules about how the music should be or about being ‘anti-mosh,’ it just changed by itself after listening more and more to black metal. Mourning, Diamanda Galás, Grotesque, Dissection, Ola De Violencia by Masacre, Samael, Beherit, Blasphemy, etc. And drugs, drugs, and drugs!”

  Indeed, the band would soon acquire a reputation as the biggest drug worshippers in black metal, quite a revolutionary stance as the movement had essentially distanced itself from such activities, although a number of key figures in the Norwegian scene (who will remain unnamed) did in fact take their first trips thanks to the band. As it turns out Cerastes was the catalyst within the group itself, the wild-eyed guitarist enjoying an impressively wide range of illicit substances at the time.

  “Amphetamines, LSD, psilocybin [mushrooms], MDMA, THC, PCP …” he laughs. “Happy days!”

  “Cerastes was deeply into it,” explains Prime Evil, “so it naturally infected the rest of the band.”

  “In the black metal scene there was no drug use at all at that time,” reflects Mean with a laugh. “Most bands avoided it and were beer drinkers. We poisoned the scene!”

  Later graphic designs by the band would also memorably include images of syringes, the band suggesting in interviews that heroin was something that they might experiment with in the future. Though that is met by a “no comment” by the band today, there’s no doubt that the drug-heavy—and heavily drugged—lifestyle of the band had a considerable impact on their creative process over the years, both in terms of musical inspiration and mentality.

  “[We were] going to loads of underground techno parties in the early nineties, listening to hardcore techno, being drugged to the sky,” recalls Cerastes. “Most of my musical creations have come out of a seriously fucked-up brain. At that time I was more or less marinated in amphetamines and acid and under the influence all the time. Being pretty disturbed, depressed, and quite crazy, due to the constant intake and lack of sleep, this surely had a major impact on my composing. Many times I’ve have had extremely long guitar sessions, which many of my riffs have emerged out of. Also my lyrics mostly came after being awake for many days. Our songs were written mostly together at rehearsals, where we exchanged ideas and riffs.”

  Though the drum machine was already in use by this point, Cerastes admits that the club music the band surrounded themselves with in their recreation time certainly encouraged their continued use of mechanical percussion. By 1993/1994 Mean’s programming would be directly influenced by these dance beats, giving the band a truly unique rhythmic backbone and one that shocked more than a few of their peers. Indeed, despite effectively creating industrial black metal, the band’s use of electronics was definitely inspired more by hard techno than industrial music per se.

  “We all like Kraftwerk, Laibach, and Front 242,” Mean ponders. “But our music is probably not influenced by this too much. But the differences from all other black metal bands in sound and style made us see ourselves as industrial black metal. There were maybe skeptics, but we couldn’t care less. And there were many drummers that liked it, especially Einar (Beyond Dawn) and Hellhammer. But some fans of the scene were probably not developed enough at that time, so yes, some missed the point. We think we were before our time, no doubt.”

  By December 1992, however, these influences had yet to really surface in the group’s songwriting, and the band headed into “Rolf’s Cellar” studio to record Sabazios’ sole demo, Wintermass. The original version, released in January 1993, memorably featured a piece of snakeskin on one panel.

  “The name Sabazios came from Prime Evil who loved his snakes,” explains Mean. “It was snake-worshipping—Wintermassssssss, like the snake.”

  “We used to put pressure on the ‘s’ in the vocals, sounding like a snake,” confirms Prime Evil, “this had a lot to do with the band’s old name ‘Sabazios,’ which were snake-worshippers in old Greece.”

  Soon the band would change their name to Mysticum—a moniker that gave a crafty nod to two-thirds of their “sex, drugs, and Satan” motto—a move that followed discussions with Euronymous, who had floated the idea of signing the band to his label Deathlike Silence. The initial bond between the two parties actually came through their shared interest in snakes, with Prime Evil—who then had over ten species of snakes—selling the Mayhem mainman food for his own pets.

  In June the band headed back to the same studio to record a new demo entitled Medusa’s Tears, a four-song opus that saw their sound grow toward the fast-flowing and denser style they would soon become known for. The demo sleeve would once again be of note, featuring what may be the first appearance of the Never Stop the Madness logo, a parody of Roadrunner Records’ anti-drugs campaign “Stop the Madness,” which adorned all its releases for many years. Originally floated as an idea by Euronymous, the logo (essentially a modified version of the original slogan, replacing the broken syringe with a intact version) would be used the same year by Ulver and would later appear on Malicious Records releases by bands such as Zyklon-B and Gorgoroth, before being resurrected a decade later by U.S. bands such as Nachtmystium and Krieg.

  Cannily,
the following month Mean gave both of the band’s demos to Hellhammer and Euronymous before they set off on their long drive to Bergen to record the De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas album. Listening to the material in the car, Euronymous was hugely impressed by its originality and contacted Prime Evil the next day, signing the band and beginning plans to release an album entitled Where the Raven Flies. The following month, however, Euronymous was murdered and the album plans put on hold.

  It was during this period that Hellhammer became a member of the group for a time, though as mentioned the band felt an integral part of the group had been lost and the union was brief. Robin meanwhile kept himself busy by joining Ulver, contributing to both a rehearsal tape and the Vargnatt demo. It makes sense then that the first “official” release by both groups was a split seven-inch on Necromantic Gallery Productions, a Dutch label specializing in debut EP releases by Norwegian bands including Gehenna, Einherher, and Dimmu Borgir. Rarely has such a short release showcased the artistic possibilities of the black metal movement, with Ulver’s “Ulverytternes Kamp”—a folky piece dominated by acoustic guitars—contrasting dramatically with Mysticum’s “Mourning,” a rerecording of a song from Wintermass captured during the Medusa’s Tears sessions.