Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult

by Dayal Patterson

  “You can’t honestly say that life is just misery all the way through,” explained B of the choice to include these (seemingly) positive emotions in the music. “For some people it might be, but we reflect all feelings in our lives—even if I mostly feel like shit, my life has its bright moments as well. And I think that is the case with most people feeling down.

  The Lifelover collective in 2011: H, Fix, ( ), 1853, B, Kral and LR.

  Photo courtesy of Prophecy Productions.

  “We have never recorded anything sober, nor played live sober either for that sake, and I have written almost all the music and lyrics to Lifelover while being on different opioids or benzodiazepines. Thus I am an addict—they give me inspiration—it’s tragic but what to do? Personally I take benzodiazepines (mostly clonazepam and diazepam) daily to survive my severe fucking agony and I used to take opioids daily as well, but I am through with taking them on a daily basis. I am diagnosed with ‘generalized anxiety disorder’ and have several different medications. On top of that I also do drugs like amphetamine, cannabis, and opioids now and then… but I do it only to be able to do anything at all. Otherwise I would be lying in bed all day, feeling like shit. I guess my life doesn’t fit in the picture of the life of the ordinary Joe but I live as ‘happily’ as I possibly can and create music.

  “I know the other guitarist H. and our bassist Fix is doing cocaine from time to time, they are also smoking cannabis daily as well as 1853 and LR and drummer Non. He is also stuck on benzodiazepines right now. ( ) is also smoking sometimes, but he is kind of an expert on beer, so I think alcohol is his kind of drug, but I know he enjoys pills and other stuff as well, all members do. Everything is a mirror of our lives.”

  It was a point that ( ) confirmed with me during our Metal Hammer interview in 2011. “I can’t recall any song that we have recorded without being under the influence,” admits ( ). “I am usually drunk, high, hungover or all of the above when I record my vocals and most of the others have their prescriptions. B as well, he makes most of the music, sitting in his haze with his guitar. None of us ever has an easy time, currently two of us are homeless and we have many people close to us being in bad situations, people in hospitals, people killing themselves, people trying to kill themselves. It’s hard getting work here, it’s hard getting apartments. I’m sure there are similar problems in your country but people from different countries deal with things in different ways.”

  The general themes of self-destruction were complemented in a more literal sense by the extreme self-mutilation of ( ), whose extensively scarred body is evident in sleeve art and promo shots. “I don’t think we have written any lyrics that directly have reflected self-injury regarding cutting,” explained B. “But of course most of the lyrics are rather self-destructive in a subliminal way. And what is self-harm really? Isn’t a daily use of drugs pretty self-destructive? But for the cutting, yes it’s merely ( ) who encourages this. I think every person in Lifelover at some point in their lives has cut themselves but except for in ( )’s case that lies behind us now.”

  The band’s third album Konkurs (Swedish for “bankruptcy” or “insolvency”) was issued in 2008, this time on Avantgarde Records. Now written and recorded as a five-piece without the contributions of LR, the album went for a more flowing sound, with mournfulness replacing the predecessor’s jumpiness to a large degree. This reflected the long time spent writing and recording the record, and the aim of making a more dark, depressive, and professional album “with no happy parts,” to quote B. Once again translated song titles support this claim, a few choice examples being “Time of Cancer,” “My Hospital Wing,” and “The Nail in the Coffin.”

  2009 would be the first year without an album for the band for three years, but was notable nonetheless, with mini-album Dekadens released on Osmose Records, who also set about re-releasing the band’s first two albums, reflecting the growing fan base. A undeniably strong effort, Dekadens was dominated by B’s writing and proved the band’s most organic effort, even featuring live drummer Non (“Andreas”). Having featured a previous drummer called S in live shows, the band’s recorded material was now underpinned by live percussion for the first time, a move that heavily impacted the tone of the group.

  The addition would be short-lived, however, and the band’s final album, the fourteen-track Sjukdom (meaning “illness,” “sickness,” or “disease”), released in 2011, saw a return to programmed percussion. A somewhat divisive release, it polarized reviewers thanks to its often unforgiving and impenetrable nature, particularly at the start of the record. Now featuring a lineup stripped down to ( ), B, LR, and 1853, it also saw guest appearances by Gok and P.G. of Swedish black metallers Ancient Death. Once again B wrote the lion’s share of the music, though the lyrics were contributed by all members involved. The paraphernalia that accompanied the limited-edition version of the album (including a syringe and razorblade) proved the band had not strayed too far thematically, once again conveying a bleak and urban image of depression, alienation, and drug dependency.

  The album would be the band’s last, as on September 9, 2011, Jonas “B” Bergqvist sadly passed away. The remaining members of the band soon confirmed rumors of his death with a statement that explained: “On Friday morning, September 9th, B didn’t wake up from his sleep. He didn’t take his own life nor was he victim of any apparent action. The authorities in charge are still examining his body to find the exact cause of death… We, the remaining members of Lifelover have decided to lay the band to rest. This would be the only right thing to do considering B was the main composer of Lifelover.”

  Given the bleak tapestry the band drew upon, as well as the self-destructive lifestyles of its members, a death within the group was perhaps not entirely surprising. But as it turns out, B’s death was, it seems, not self-inflicted or the result of any illegal substances. In fact, tragically, it seems to have stemmed from prescribed medication for the very anxiety disorder he had discussed in our interview. A family statement explained that the autopsy had shown an unknown poisoning and overdose and that B had been taking benzodiazepine since he was eighteen, increasing the medication as his body became used to each dose.

  B’s life was clearly a troubled one, but it’s perhaps worth remembering that a surprising positivity surfaced in both Lifelover’s music and B’s own words and communications (he was one of the more enthusiastic of those involved with this book, for example), with Lifelover’s many achievements (five essential releases in as many years, more than most bands achieve in decades of existence) providing obvious satisfaction.

  “Our fan base is very diverse,” he pondered. “We see as many black metal fans as we see ‘normal’ rock/pop fans… well, you name it, we see them all and that is a great pleasure to us. I see it as a sign that our music is so complex it appeals to so many different people. But yes, we have a lot of black metal fans, and that feels strange sometimes, but hey, to be honest, I don’t care who listens to us—as long as our music depraves as many as possible, we are satisfied.”

  Always more than happy to polarize, Lifelover won over an impressive fan base, including both fans and critics within the black metal scene. Their legacy is a body of work that exhibits a wide emotional gamut rare in extreme metal. “There are a lot of [critics] out there,” concluded B, “but I mostly just laugh against their ignorant Internet attacks. But we want to offend people too, not just ‘charm’ them. We have become that band that people love or hate, and I personally think that is great. If one looks back a bit in music history it is those bands that have become big and famous. But our goal is rather to become infamous!”

  Mission accomplished, no doubt. Rest in peace B, and rest in peace Lifelover.

  50

  POST-BLACK METAL

  PART II

  BY ITS VERY NATURE, the term ‘post-black metal’ is a loose one—in fact, the term was first thrown around during black metal’s experimental peak in the late nineties. In more recent years however, post-
black metal has come to have a more specific meaning, one that embodies the ideological/aesthetic shifts mentioned in the last chapter as well as a particular sound, which tends to integrate musical forms and emotions that are (at first glance at least) seemingly incompatible with black metal’s caustic spirit. Most notably, such music has made use of the introspection and emotional vulnerability found in post-punk, post-rock, and shoegaze, the latter resulting in the somewhat awkward term “blackgaze.”

  While Fleurety’s debut album might have established the style, a major catalyst for the sub-genre was France’s Amesoeurs, an outfit formed by two vocalists and multi-instrumentalists, namely Stéphane “Neige” Paut (then of radical French black metal act Peste Noir and Mortifera, an outfit formed by Noktu of Celestia) and Audrey Sylvain, a musician and dancer who would later join Peste Noir. Describing their efforts as a “kaleidoscopic soundtrack for the modern era,” the group offered a mesmerizing blend of black metal, post-punk, and goth music, drawing influence from such diverse bands as Burzum, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Sonic Youth, Katatonia, New Order, and Joy Division, the latter having the biggest impact on the group’s sound according to Neige. Bearing a melancholic beauty, the songs used piano, sparse gothic overtones, female vocals, and acoustic guitars alongside an occasional wall of black metal dissonance. While Amesoeurs left behind the Satanic and nationalist subject matter of Peste Noire, they nonetheless retained an overt sense of alienation from modern society, an element arguably fairly intrinsic to black metal. Explicitly urban, the band’s releases (2006’s Ruines Humaines EP, a 2007 split EP and the self-titled 2009 album) were both a celebration of city life as well as a clear rejection of it, the songs blending fascination with repulsion.

  Though the band split after their first and only full-length, Neige would continue to follow a similar path musically with Alcest, which actually began life as a raw black metal solo project in 2000. Releasing a single demo, Tristesse Hivernale (“Winter Sadness”) in 2001, Alcest took a hiatus before returning in 2005, reinventing itself in a fairly dramatically manner with the Le Secret EP, following this up two years later with debut album Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde (“Memories of Another World”). With Neige very much the central figure, the group (which has featured several members of both Peste Noir and Amesoeurs over the years) moved even further away from black metal (and even depressive rock) with Souvenirs, creating instead overwhelmingly uplifting and ethereal music dominated by clean vocals and equally clean guitars. Later releases such as the 2010 album Écailles de Lune (“Moonscales”) and its follow-up Les voyages de l’âme (“The Journeys of the Soul”) would see Neige returning to his roots somewhat, integrating fragments of black metal into the formula, this surfacing periodically in the guitar work and the occasional screamed vocals. Unsurprisingly, given their sound, Alcest have long found themselves labeled shoegaze/blackgaze, though as Neige explained to me in Metal Hammer in 2010, this actually came as something of a surprise to the band.

  “At the Le Secret/Souvenirs period my musical inspirations were Yann Tiersen [a French musician whose work famously made up much of the soundtrack to the film Amélie], Ataraxia [an Italian neo-classical act], and Burzum, and for Écailles De Lune it was the fantastic and so underrated British post-punk band The Chameleons… As I said a lot of times in previous interviews, Alcest music never had any link with shoegaze for the simple reason that I discovered this style of music after having composed Souvenirs. Now I am listening to it a lot, it’s great, especially bands like Slowdive, Pale Saints, Ride, etc.”

  While Amesoeurs’ lyrics were bleak and drew heavily on exterior influences, Alcest’s have, in contrast, been drawn exclusively from the intensely personal memories and inner reality of its central protagonist. In fact, the title of the first album is something of a key to the entire project, namely Neige’s own childhood, in which he reportedly experienced overwhelming visions that he believes may have been of another reality.

  “My aim with Alcest is to depict a dimension I used to see in visions when I was a child,” he explained to me in our Metal Hammer interview. “It was like flashes, exactly like if you were reminding a nice moment of your life, with all the precise emotions you could feel with it but in my case these memories had nothing to do with what I was seeing around me in the real world. And this place was so indescribably beautiful and perfect, like an immense heavenly garden with pearly shiny streams and emerald green fields all around. Nobody can imagine the beauty and the serenity of it. Everything being static and moving at the same time, like water waves, all bathed in pearly colors and lived by kind of benevolent spirits. It was very strong, real, and had nothing to do with what we can see here, that’s why I know it was not just my imagination. Well after a lot of research I guessed that it was memories of what could be ‘afterlife’ like you say, or ‘before life’ in my case because I’ve noticed that they are very similar elements with what describe people that had a near-death experience. It could be a place where the soul would rest between two earthly incarnations, a kind of peaceful haven of pure light and serenity. When I say ‘memories from another world’ this has to be taken literally.”

  While Neige maintains clear links to the black metal scene due to his membership in long-running Norwegian act Forgotten Woods (as well as working on a more explicitly post-rock/shoegaze project Old Silver Key with members of Drudkh), he has always been quick to highlight the overtly positive nature of Alcest. If Amesoeurs presented an emotional range and aesthetic apparently out of kilter with black metal, Alcest has marked an even greater leap, with both the emotional disparity and musical ingredients a point of departure, a point that Neige is very conscious of.

  Urban alienation: The short-lived Amesoeurs.

  Photo courtesy of Code666.

  “I never consciously included happy parts in my music,” Neige explained to me in the aforementioned articles, “they are here because I tried to make a musical interpretation of this otherworldly realm I was seeing as a child. And this realm was so beautiful and serene, I remember having an ecstatic feeling there, a feeling of pure and perfect joy. That’s what I tried to reproduce in some passages of my music… when I had a lot of projects, these were a way to express feelings that were out of the Alcest purpose. It allowed me to keep Alcest away from disturbing feelings… A lot of people don’t like… the fact Alcest is very positive and luminous. This is a critic [sic] I totally understand. I am conscious that Alcest is very special in this way and that its ‘positive’ emotions can’t be appreciated by everyone.”

  While they have certainly remained closer to the modern black metal template than both Amesoeurs and Alcest, England’s Fen are another act whose work falls fairly undeniably under the post-black umbrella. Formed by Frank “The Watcher” Allain (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and his brother Adam (“Grungyn”), both of whom played—along with original drummer Daniel “Theutus” Spender—in black metal bands Antigone and Skaldic Curse, Fen have taken much of their inspiration from the territory in which the Allains spent their youth. Though a literal reference to the physical characteristics and bleak atmosphere of the marshy fenlands of eastern England, the significance of the name goes somewhat deeper, and like Alcest, Fen draws heavily upon the youthful memories of its primary songwriter.

  “We utilize landscape primarily as a metaphor,” explains Frank. “Of course, there is a face-value element to this and much of the imagery described can be taken as read. Nonetheless, there is a deeper meaning to this—the external reflecting the internal—which has to be acknowledged. Heritage and the preservation of nature is important to me but every experience I undergo, every thought I have, is channeled through the prism of my own mind. It would be a fallacy to attempt to write objectively and as—for me—music is a very personal expression, this must also take shape within the lyrics as well. The name Fen refers to the area and landscape in which I grew up, but it also represents a mindset in which I felt trapped during this period. Bleak, desolate, solitary, and isolating
.”

  Forming in 2006, the band released the Ancient Sorrow EP on Northern Silence Productions the following year, before signing to Italian label Code 666 and releasing their debut album The Malediction Fields in 2009. The album showcased a sound that balanced a significant black metal core with prog, shoegaze, folk and post-rock influences, the all-encompassing wall of dissonant, layered guitars, screamed vocals, and synth engulfing the listener before drawing back to allow the acoustic guitars to weave serene, even uplifting, textures.

  “First and foremost, it is the originators of the second wave of black metal that are the main driving force behind my musical inspiration,” states Frank. “The Scandinavian originators such as Ulver, Enslaved, Emperor and Dissection managed to invoke something at once otherworldly and evocative, yet simultaneously rooted within earthly landscapes… From outside the ‘metal’ spectrum, I personally draw a wide range of influences and guitar-led bands such as Slowdive, The Chameleons, Fields of the Nephilim, Sad Lovers and Giants, Sigur Rós, The Verve (first album and EP only) and My Bloody Valentine are just as important as the aforementioned black metal acts. Post-rock plays a part—Mono, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai—as well as bands that essentially defy categorization like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the mighty Swans. Neofolk and dark ambient are also relevant—Death in June, Sol Invictus, Of the Wand and Moon, Tenhi, Lustmord, Triari… some of the more ambient/less ‘dancified’ elements of the electronica spectrum resonate also. Boards of Canada, The Black Dog, Beaumont Hannant, B12 and others are all effective at weaving captivating atmospheres.”

  Atmosphere is an area in which Fen excel, the band continuing to utilize a sense of contrast within their compositions on 2011’s Epoch album and 2013’s Dustwalker (as well as Towards the Shores of the End, a split with like-minded project De Arma), running an emotional gamut that touches upon anger, frustration, and sadness, and at times even joy or hope. With an expansive yet introspective sound that explores both soil and soul, they share a certain resonance with acts such as Altar of Plagues, Negură Bunget, Agalloch, Drudkh, and Wolves in the Throne Room. Interestingly, while Fen retain a clear link to their black metal heritage, they do not shy away from the post-black label, even arguing its value as an extension of the movement that birthed them.