Live Report: Nails, Woe, & Couch Slut
Nails, Woe, and Couch Slut played an Invisible Oranges presented and curated show on Saturday (11/18) at Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, part of the venue’s 30th anniversary celebration that also included a This Will Destroy You / Sannhet show earlier in the week.
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I need to eat my shoe. A year ago I argued that the legacy of Nails may have been better served if their brief “indefinite” hiatus had been a permanent breakup. I goofed. It’s great having Nails around, especially as a live act. Despite the fact that their live shows last longer than any of their albums, they’re surprisingly more manageable in person. The vibe isn’t as punishing as you’d expect… it’s more communal and celebratory.
Don’t get it twisted though: Nails aren’t writing campfire singalongs or anything. Live, they are astoundingly intense, like an armored truck moving at the speed of a Ferrari. Over the course of three records, they’ve condensed the dynamic range of heavy metal and hardcore to their heaviest moments and written exclusively from that. Each song is a finishing blow.
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Finding a way to challenge a crowd that actively signs up to be bowled over by Nails is no easy task, but Brooklyn’s Couch Slut were the perfect band for the job. The bands share little outside of their sheer intensity. Couch Slut’s lurching, sludgy approach to noise rock is custom-made to confound moshing. Instead, singer Megan Osztrosits patrolled the venue floor, confronting the audience directly, but also asserting control over them. Couch Slut will not allow you to experience them passively. They aren’t part of the ambiance at a party. As the band slowed down over the course of their set, they only became more punishing, finishing a skin-peeling crawl.
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Nell’ Ora Blu
On “Nell’ Ora Blu,” Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats Venture Into Cinematic Darkness (Interview)
Kevin Starrs and the rest of Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats have been quiet on the album front since 2018’s Wasteland, and when it was announced that the forthcoming Nell’ Ora Blu was going to essentially be a concept album derived from Starrs’ affinity towards 1970’s Italian film, I’m sure it raised more than a few eyebrows. What follows is an album that works in the way that old radio did with scenes composed of a combination of dialogue and Starrs’ haunting approach to music writing in general.
Much of this album is a result of the self-isolation of a COVID-stricken earth and was done via telephone calls and other members of a semi-mobile crew. Starrs even admits to being uncomfortable being away from his guitar, as it is his main and most comfortable instrument to wield. He carefully curated what classic Italian actors to contact, including some who had never appeared on screen with one another, and one who passed away shortly after he was done being recorded. A lack of knowledge of the Italian language and formal training in music theory notwithstanding, Nell’ Ora Blu comes together as a full-fledged revenge story driven by its time-period-specific film score.
We go on to discuss Italian film history as a whole, including his recommendations for favorite movies and the bits and pieces that Starrs collected from others for the album before pen hit paper. The tall task of playing the album in full as intended in a live setting seems like an arduous endeavor but certainly one that is in the pipeline. If you have the time and patience to give the album a proper and complete spin in one fell swoop, then go right ahead. Until then, read on below for more specific details.
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Kevin, what was it like recording this album as a whole?
It was quite a long process, but enjoyable. Seeing it all come together has been really rewarding. It's hard to judge an album when you're so deep into it, but when everything is finally mastered with the artwork and everything, you can just sit back and enjoy it. Or endure it, as the case may be for everyone else!
What was it about conventional recording that you wanted to eschew this time around?
I wanted to be totally out of my comfort zone, so I started writing and improvising on other instruments. Normally when we record, everything is perfectly planned where everyone knows exactly what to play. This time it was mostly improvised. Also, circumstance played a part. The band lives in three different countries, and we had an 18-month period where we couldn't travel, so I had to just get on with it and record as much as I could.
I probably recorded three hours’ worth of music, but you can't use it all. Vaughn also sent me a couple of ideas that he had written and recorded which worked out really great. I didn't tell him I was working on an “Italian” project, but weirdly he sent me a track called “Sardinia.” Absolutely perfect for the album, so I added a second part to it and some dialogue. I had already recorded Franco Nero at that point, and coincidentally during our conversation he mentioned that he'd just been to Sardinia on holiday, so I assembled a whole scene out of that comment and the track became Il Tesoro Di Sardegna (Treasure of Sardinia).
How did you go about deciding what Italian actors to use for the album?
I knew my top choices would be Franco and Edwige. They're two great actors and two of the biggest names from that era and have never appeared together before. Same with Luc Merenda, so it's nice to finally have the three of them on a project together. Franco was the first person I contacted. He was totally into the idea straight away, I think mostly because it was so weird and something he'd never done before. Once he was on board it gave the project some legitimacy and meant other actors maybe felt more comfortable in getting involved. I went through some films and tried to find people who were still alive! It was difficult as so many have either retired or they don't have agents or any way of contacting them. I really wanted Henry Silva but it wasn't to be. Massimo Vanni turned out great as the killer. He's an actor but also an ex-stuntman, so he has that hard edge to him. He puts in a really threatening performance and delivers some of my favorite lines on the album.
Nell’ Ora Blu seems so meticulously well put together, when you consider it started out in myriad different disconnected pieces; how were you able to assemble this Frankenstein’s monster of an album?
Just good planning I suppose. Once the dialogue was recorded, it was a case of putting together music around those scenes. Then I added foley and various sound effects, before finally mixing it all together. Some people have called it "a soundtrack to a film that doesn't exist," but that is not really what this is. The scenes are there; they've been scripted, acted out, and recorded. It's not a fake film, or even a traditional soundtrack. If anything, it's closer to a radio play with music. I can't really think of anything like it, so it's tricky to explain, even for people that have heard it.
Did you find it difficult to record dialogue remotely and direct with a language barrier?
I had to use Google translate for a lot of the correspondence. I was also fortunate that I found Eugenio Ercolani, an Italian film historian who also makes a lot of DVD extras for these films. He put me in touch with Massimo Vanni and recorded Luc Merenda in Rome for me. I actually thought Luc had passed away, so I was happy to learn that he's still around, and could speak Italian! He brings a nice ”fuck you” French attitude to the role. Other than Franco, the only other actor who could speak English was Giovanni Lombardo Radice. He had a great voice and was totally into the concept. I think this may have been his last role, as he died a few months after I recorded him. The dialogue was pretty straightforward to record. Because so much of the story is based around phone calls, the sound quality wasn't that important. I just took a feed from the phone into a preamp. The sound was actually clearer than I wanted, so I distorted it and used an old pultec EQ that has a “telephone” filter built in.
What was your comfort level like with unfamiliar instruments? Which ones in particular were the most problematic?
Other than guitar, I'm not totally comfortable with anything else, including singing, but you just have to go for it. I find keyboard playing quite difficult, so I bought a couple of nice analogue synths and made the effort to really practice. I wrote most of the album on keys by imagining the scene, listening to any dialogue I had, hitting “record,” and then improvising. I can't read music, and I don't know any theory, so I have no way of making notes on what I was doing. I just knew if it sounded right, I could start layering ideas.
Were there any Italian films in particular that you drew inspiration from for the album? Or was it the synthesis of Giallo and Poliziotteschi genres?
No films in particular; it's mostly inspired by things that I see going on. Obviously I wouldn't suggest taking the law into your own hands. That side of the story comes from the ultra-violence of those genres.
What are five essential 1970’s Italian films for your fans to check out?
Almost Human, The Fifth Cord, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, Profondo Rosso, Milano Calibro 9. I would say those are good starting points.
Do you feel your level of creativity lends itself to the dark themes of violence and murder as they have over the course of the band’s career?
It's just part of what I wanted to do with this band, mix dark themes with very light melodies. I like the contrast.
What kind of environment do you anticipate entire album live performances of Nell’ Ora Blu to evoke? Would it be a seated, cinematic experience? Or just general mayhem?
It would need to be seated, like a theater experience. I don't think it would work with people just standing around in a club setting. I think a few shows in Europe next year will be enough. It will take a lot of planning, and we'd need to bring in extra musicians. It's not something we'd be able to extensively tour.
Are you working on a follow-up to the album or what are your plans going forward with this release cycle?
I've always got new songs ready to go, but this one's not even out yet! I know it's going to take time for some people to fully appreciate the album because it's not what's expected. It's something different that doesn't fit on playlists or algorithms or any of that. It's the complete opposite of whatever's going on in the mainstream. The plan is to put it out, hopefully play a few shows, and that will be that. Going into a cycle of doing things the way that it's always done is not what I'd want for this.
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Nell' Ora Blue releases on May 10th via Rise Above Records.
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Hekseblad (Review + Interview)
Netflix’s The Witcher series is set to conclude after its fifth season, and it seems like nobody will mourn its passing. It squandered Andrzej Sapkowski’s beloved book series, sparked unanimous fan umbrage, and destroyed Henry Cavill’s fanboy enthusiasm. You can see how it broke his heart by comparing how giddily he spoke about the show before it aired and his disappointment after he walked away from it. Of course, the television series wasn’t the only large-scale adaptation of The Witcher, with CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt igniting a flame in English-speaking countries that had largely ignored the series until that point. It was a Game Informer cover story featuring Geralt of Rivia ahead of The Witcher 3’s 2015 release that originally caught Bruxa’s attention, stoking the first flames of their love for Sapkowski’s original novels and the games and driving them to form Hekseblad alongside Frosk much later.
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Kaer Morhen by Hekseblad...
The US-based black metal duo began in the midst of the pandemic and debuted with their first EP, The Fall of Cintra, not long after in 2021. Three years later, they followed it with their first full-length album, Kaer Mohren, drawing its title from the stronghold witchers retreat to during the winter to rest. The location holds some significance for Bruxa who spent most of their time writing the album in northern Ontario during the winter, where temperatures range from damn cold to punishingly cold. Yet, Bruxa still found comfort and community there that fostered a shelter of sorts, mirroring the exact solace Geralt and other members of the School of the Wolf draw from Kaer Mohren.
While it doesn’t bear many direct nodes to frigid climates, Kaer Mohren draws from two of the most celebrated and frosty black metal albums, Dissection’s Storm of the Light’s Bane and Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse. These influences meld quite well with The Witcher’s lore and its focus on isolation and humanity amongst tales of monster slaying, romance, and politics. Hekseblad’s lyrics retell Witcher stories that fit like a glove with melodic black metal that isn’t afraid to exert itself. So even though most listeners will approach Hekseblad because of their The Witcher iconography, they’ll soon realize the pair’s allure lies beyond it.
Hekseblad strings black metal’s innate evil sentiments through a stylized lens for grin-inducing results. Although the lo-fi vocals and wicked atmosphere are appropriate for the subgenre, Kaer Mohren possesses a nerd’s heart. It’s jagged and scowling and seemingly retreating from the light of day, but beneath its skin lays an ecstasy to convey Geralt’s tales. No track better captures this than “The White Flame” as it throws around all manner of dinky keyboards and Emperor-worshiping guitars without reservation. There’s also the title track that mirrors Kaer Mohren’s restorative abilities with folkish acoustic guitars and synths. Hekseblad howls their newfound strength through solitude and then displays it through a diabolic guest solo from Sörjande. It’s a little on-the-nose but fitting for Geralt, who is prone to outbursts despite his attempts to subdue his emotions.
There’s also a sense of humbleness that cuts through the album as if Hekseblad knows how ridiculous corpse paint and a wintery focus can be and only indulges it further. To reel away from it would reek of cowardice. By diving headfirst, Hekseblad conjure black metal’s might for narratively apropos cuts like the epic “Taste of Ash,” with Frosk as the principal architect. Their melodies and solos are Kaer Mohren’s primary engines, acting as lanterns through unlit pathways while Bruxa’s vocals remain fuzzy and obscured. The contrast between the two bandmates--one heroic and the other clandestine--are personifications of Geralt himself, a character whose moral compass drives him to act as a hero but who seeks no fame and sees himself as an outsider. On a more basic level, the balance also takes care of any potentially cheesy overtones while staying true to The Witcher’s themes and tone. Through it, Hekseblad has free reign to be as jubilant as they see fit without sacrificing any grit.
Keep reading to find out what Bruxa had to say about how Gwent, the debate between Yennefer and Triss, and other aspects of Witcher lore.
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How did you first get into The Witcher series and what about it drove you to base Hekseblad on it?
I first got into The Witcher series maybe a year or so before the third game came out, I randomly happened to stumble across an issue of Game Informer or some other gaming magazine at a comic shop, Geralt was on the cover so I flipped through it and read the cover story, which immediately got me excited, so I went back and checked out the first two games to prepare myself for the imminent release of the third game. I was late to switch consoles and kept my Xbox 360 a few years longer than I should have, but when I finally upgraded to a PS4 the first two games I bought were Bloodborne and The Witcher 3. Since then I’ve gone back and read the novels as well as a good handful of the comics Dark Horse published.
As for basing the band off of the series, it all started from a band I had at the time of the third game’s release. I was very captivated by the different monsters in the series and I had planned to write a whole EP about them for that project. It never materialised but I kept that idea in my back pocket for whenever I formed a new band.
In your mind, what separates The Witcher from other common black metal inspirations like Lord of the Rings regarding how they adapt to music?
Aside from the fact that there are hundreds of bands who write about LOTR the big thing for me is that it’s just the fact that The Witcher is a pretty untouched resource when it comes to black metal. Aside from us, I can really only think of a handful of bands who have taken inspiration from the series (and even fewer are themed around it entirely as we are.) Firienholt released an album last year based around the third game and it was fantastic, but really the band that I think captured the series the best was a one-off project from Germany called Kaer Morhen who released the album, Aen Ithilnnespeth, after playing the very first game in the series. I think we set ourselves apart from both of those projects by taking a majority of our influence from the novels as opposed to the games.
You adapted a few short stories for your songs rather than focusing on the larger witcher saga that takes up the later novels. What made you pick those stories?
My favorite novel in the series is The Last Wish, which is a collection of short stories Sapkowski wrote before actually sitting down to flesh out the main series. I’ve read all the books but I’ve re-read the short stories more (because they’re more easily digestible since they’re just one and done). For our future releases I do plan on focusing on the main series storylines a bit more, or focusing on aspects of it and highlighting them. I don’t just want to retell the story Sapkowski wrote (I could never do it as well as he did) so in the future I need to figure out the balance between taking inspiration and reinterpreting the story, rather than just parroting it back to the listener.
I read that your inspiration was the books rather than the show and the game. You wanted more people to get into the books. What do they hold that the adaptions in other mediums don’t?
We aren’t entirely based on the books; we do take some influence from the games (namely, songs like “A Taste of Ash” off our new record and “The Baron’s Lament” off of our split with Nachtheir and Vér are both based off of quests in the third game). The novels just gripped me in a way that other fantasy series haven’t, and I’ve read a lot of fantasy in my time. I’m not trying to say that Sapkowski commands language or storytelling the same way Tolkien or Moorcock did, but what I really appreciate about the novels compared to the games or Netflix series is just how much more in depth his writing can take the reader when it comes to the emotions and motivations of the characters. A great example of that would be the inner turmoil and betrayal Geralt felt in A Shard of Ice (from the Sword of Destiny collection), and that sort of stuff doesn’t really translate that well to non-written mediums.
What musical concepts did you feel you had (or wanted) to include to capture The Witcher’s spirit?
We definitely made a point to include plenty of acoustic and folk instrumentation on the record to sort of reflect Dandelion’s character (the original working title for the album was “Bardic Tales and Elder Blood” but we thought that was a bit too wordy). I liked that we tried to capture the essence of Dandelion and the role of a Bard, travelling village to village and singing songs of Geralt’s adventures, that’s kind of what we do, writing songs about these adventures.
Do you feel like there’s a limit to how much you can write about The Witcher, seeing as how the series is finished?
Of course there’s a limit to a series that’s finished, and that weighs on me a bit, but so far over our releases we’ve only really covered stuff from the first two collections of short stories without touching much of the main series. Realistically I think I can get a few more full-lengths out of the lore before I start retreading the familiar ground, so I’m not that worried about that just yet. If rumours are to be believed though, Sapkowski is supposedly working on a new entry to the series, so I wouldn’t write it off just yet.
“The Taste of Ash” ends with this great line from Sapkowski: “You forget; I slay monsters, Not men in twisted forms.” How did his prose influence your lyrics?
I really try not to lift quotes directly from his writings unless I feel it fits the song’s ideas. I think the most obvious one we really lifted was the fantastic quote from A Time of Contempt where Vilgefortz tells Geralt, “You mistook the stars reflected in a pond for the night sky” which we printed on the slipcase for our debut EP’s cassette repress. Sapkowski’s words resonate with me (even after being translated to English and losing some of the original meaning) and I would never want to step on his toes by just directly stealing his quotes for a majority of our lyrics.
The Witcher series has many vibes—epic, romantic, ridiculous, and heartbreaking (I cried when Ciri and Geralt reconnected at the end of The Sword of Destiny). As such, how did you approach your music to reflect those vibes?
There’s also a lot of themes in the novels about the hardships that peasantry faces at the hands of the ruling class (you also see this illustrated very well in the video game adaptations) and that struggle is unfortunately very applicable to the real world and society we all live in. I tried my best to convey those themes on our track “The Fall of the Northern Realms”, where I take the POV of a peasant watching my homeland destroyed by the invading armies of the Nilfgaardian Empire, while also being besieged by the monsters and ghouls that plague the more wild lands outside of the village, and grappling with that feeling of, “Wow, we’re fucked no matter what we do, the world is cruel and unforgiving outside of the safety of our homes, the rulers don’t care what happens to us, so what makes them any better than the monsters that hunt us at night?”
The Witcher is about monsters and politics but also what it means to be human, isolation, and destiny. Which of its themes did you want to represent in your music and how did you ensure they can out?
A big thing Geralt struggles with for a majority of the series is his denial of fate, grappling with destiny, and the fear of losing the people he loves. I really try to reflect those sentiments on the record, especially on the closing track “Vatt’ghern”. The way Sapkowski writes about isolation and humanity also influences other moments in the record, especially the title track, which tells about the keep of Kaer Morhen, where Witchers return for the winter to isolate and recharge before setting back out in the spring to follow The Path. It’s that feeling of wanting a home but also understanding that the concept of “home” can be very lonely.
Geralt is a complex character and I feel you captured that well—beyond just killing monsters. What was the biggest difficulty with translating his character?
Geralt is very complex and truthfully very flawed, he has this destiny that he knows he has to carry out and see through to its conclusion, but he rejects it, he denies it. He sees himself early on in the series as someone who is above destiny and fate. He (annoyingly at times) often takes a stance of neutrality, which he ultimately learns that he cannot do that because he ends up failing the people he cares about. I truthfully don’t feel like I delved as deeply into those themes as much as I wanted to, so it’s already a bullet-point for our next release (whenever we end up sitting down to write it). I feel that there’s a lot to his characterisation and how he interacts with the politics of his time, the oath he swore to his order, and his inter-personal relationships with the people he cares about and protects.
Could you make a black metal song about Dandelion?
I’ve had a few lines written about Dandelion for awhile now, I just haven’t found the right way to flesh it out into a full idea for a song, but I do love his character and the shenanigans he gets into, a lot of people just see him as a womanising bard but really his character is more complex than that, he’s very loyal, he’s very committed to his loved ones, he’s always there to help when it’s needed.
How do you feel about Gwent?
I think Gwent was a very fun addition to the game (to the point where I ignore main quests just to travel the land playing with various merchants and shopkeepers). I’ve played the standalone Gwent game on Steam, and for Christmas last year I was given a custom made card set that I’ve spent many hours obsessing over and playing with people I care about.
My partner needs to know if you’re team Yen or team Triss.
I am very strongly on Team Yen. Our song “Obsidian Star” (off of The Fall of Cintra EP) is based around Geralt and Yennefer’s bond. I understand why people who have only played the third game may be Team Triss, but playing the other two games or reading the novels it just really goes to show how truly awful Triss Merigold is as a person, only caring about her own selfish goals and not caring about the repercussions. I always get a kick out of the moment from the series where Yennefer comes to Kaer Morhen and literally throws Geralt’s bed out of the tower window because he slept with Triss in that same bed, and she doesn’t want to sleep where something like that happened.
None of that even touches on how much I love how Yennefer’s character is written and her motivations for her actions. She’s not perfect, but she mirrors Geralt’s own characterisation in an almost perfect way. The bond Geralt and Yennefer have is such a huge driving force for his actions early on, and leads to some of the best character moments in the series (Geralt’s conflicts with Istredd in Shard of Ice always stands out, as does the infamous “Dear Friend” letter from Blood of Elves).
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Kaer Mohren is available now through Hypnotic Dirge Records.
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Hekseblad (Review + Interview)
Netflix’s The Witcher series is set to conclude after its fifth season, and it seems like nobody will mourn its passing. It squandered Andrzej Sapkowski’s beloved book series, sparked unanimous fan umbrage, and destroyed Henry Cavill’s fanboy enthusiasm. You can see how it broke his heart by comparing how giddily he spoke about the show before it aired and his disappointment after he walked away from it. Of course, the television series wasn’t the only large-scale adaptation of The Witcher, with CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt igniting a flame in English-speaking countries that had largely ignored the series until that point. It was a Game Informer cover story featuring Geralt of Rivia ahead of The Witcher 3’s 2015 release that originally caught Bruxa’s attention, stoking the first flames of their love for Sapkowski’s original novels and the games and driving them to form Hekseblad alongside Frosk much later.
...
Kaer Morhen by Hekseblad...
The US-based black metal duo began in the midst of the pandemic and debuted with their first EP, The Fall of Cintra, not long after in 2021. Three years later, they followed it with their first full-length album, Kaer Mohren, drawing its title from the stronghold witchers retreat to during the winter to rest. The location holds some significance for Bruxa who spent most of their time writing the album in northern Ontario during the winter, where temperatures range from damn cold to punishingly cold. Yet, Bruxa still found comfort and community there that fostered a shelter of sorts, mirroring the exact solace Geralt and other members of the School of the Wolf draw from Kaer Mohren.
While it doesn’t bear many direct nodes to frigid climates, Kaer Mohren draws from two of the most celebrated and frosty black metal albums, Dissection’s Storm of the Light’s Bane and Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse. These influences meld quite well with The Witcher’s lore and its focus on isolation and humanity amongst tales of monster slaying, romance, and politics. Hekseblad’s lyrics retell Witcher stories that fit like a glove with melodic black metal that isn’t afraid to exert itself. So even though most listeners will approach Hekseblad because of their The Witcher iconography, they’ll soon realize the pair’s allure lies beyond it.
Hekseblad strings black metal’s innate evil sentiments through a stylized lens for grin-inducing results. Although the lo-fi vocals and wicked atmosphere are appropriate for the subgenre, Kaer Mohren possesses a nerd’s heart. It’s jagged and scowling and seemingly retreating from the light of day, but beneath its skin lays an ecstasy to convey Geralt’s tales. No track better captures this than “The White Flame” as it throws around all manner of dinky keyboards and Emperor-worshiping guitars without reservation. There’s also the title track that mirrors Kaer Mohren’s restorative abilities with folkish acoustic guitars and synths. Hekseblad howls their newfound strength through solitude and then displays it through a diabolic guest solo from Sörjande. It’s a little on-the-nose but fitting for Geralt, who is prone to outbursts despite his attempts to subdue his emotions.
There’s also a sense of humbleness that cuts through the album as if Hekseblad knows how ridiculous corpse paint and a wintery focus can be and only indulges it further. To reel away from it would reek of cowardice. By diving headfirst, Hekseblad conjure black metal’s might for narratively apropos cuts like the epic “Taste of Ash,” with Frosk as the principal architect. Their melodies and solos are Kaer Mohren’s primary engines, acting as lanterns through unlit pathways while Bruxa’s vocals remain fuzzy and obscured. The contrast between the two bandmates--one heroic and the other clandestine--are personifications of Geralt himself, a character whose moral compass drives him to act as a hero but who seeks no fame and sees himself as an outsider. On a more basic level, the balance also takes care of any potentially cheesy overtones while staying true to The Witcher’s themes and tone. Through it, Hekseblad has free reign to be as jubilant as they see fit without sacrificing any grit.
Keep reading to find out what Bruxa had to say about how Gwent, the debate between Yennefer and Triss, and other aspects of Witcher lore.
..
How did you first get into The Witcher series and what about it drove you to base Hekseblad on it?
I first got into The Witcher series maybe a year or so before the third game came out, I randomly happened to stumble across an issue of Game Informer or some other gaming magazine at a comic shop, Geralt was on the cover so I flipped through it and read the cover story, which immediately got me excited, so I went back and checked out the first two games to prepare myself for the imminent release of the third game. I was late to switch consoles and kept my Xbox 360 a few years longer than I should have, but when I finally upgraded to a PS4 the first two games I bought were Bloodborne and The Witcher 3. Since then I’ve gone back and read the novels as well as a good handful of the comics Dark Horse published.
As for basing the band off of the series, it all started from a band I had at the time of the third game’s release. I was very captivated by the different monsters in the series and I had planned to write a whole EP about them for that project. It never materialised but I kept that idea in my back pocket for whenever I formed a new band.
In your mind, what separates The Witcher from other common black metal inspirations like Lord of the Rings regarding how they adapt to music?
Aside from the fact that there are hundreds of bands who write about LOTR the big thing for me is that it’s just the fact that The Witcher is a pretty untouched resource when it comes to black metal. Aside from us, I can really only think of a handful of bands who have taken inspiration from the series (and even fewer are themed around it entirely as we are.) Firienholt released an album last year based around the third game and it was fantastic, but really the band that I think captured the series the best was a one-off project from Germany called Kaer Morhen who released the album, Aen Ithilnnespeth, after playing the very first game in the series. I think we set ourselves apart from both of those projects by taking a majority of our influence from the novels as opposed to the games.
You adapted a few short stories for your songs rather than focusing on the larger witcher saga that takes up the later novels. What made you pick those stories?
My favorite novel in the series is The Last Wish, which is a collection of short stories Sapkowski wrote before actually sitting down to flesh out the main series. I’ve read all the books but I’ve re-read the short stories more (because they’re more easily digestible since they’re just one and done). For our future releases I do plan on focusing on the main series storylines a bit more, or focusing on aspects of it and highlighting them. I don’t just want to retell the story Sapkowski wrote (I could never do it as well as he did) so in the future I need to figure out the balance between taking inspiration and reinterpreting the story, rather than just parroting it back to the listener.
I read that your inspiration was the books rather than the show and the game. You wanted more people to get into the books. What do they hold that the adaptions in other mediums don’t?
We aren’t entirely based on the books; we do take some influence from the games (namely, songs like “A Taste of Ash” off our new record and “The Baron’s Lament” off of our split with Nachtheir and Vér are both based off of quests in the third game). The novels just gripped me in a way that other fantasy series haven’t, and I’ve read a lot of fantasy in my time. I’m not trying to say that Sapkowski commands language or storytelling the same way Tolkien or Moorcock did, but what I really appreciate about the novels compared to the games or Netflix series is just how much more in depth his writing can take the reader when it comes to the emotions and motivations of the characters. A great example of that would be the inner turmoil and betrayal Geralt felt in A Shard of Ice (from the Sword of Destiny collection), and that sort of stuff doesn’t really translate that well to non-written mediums.
What musical concepts did you feel you had (or wanted) to include to capture The Witcher’s spirit?
We definitely made a point to include plenty of acoustic and folk instrumentation on the record to sort of reflect Dandelion’s character (the original working title for the album was “Bardic Tales and Elder Blood” but we thought that was a bit too wordy). I liked that we tried to capture the essence of Dandelion and the role of a Bard, travelling village to village and singing songs of Geralt’s adventures, that’s kind of what we do, writing songs about these adventures.
Do you feel like there’s a limit to how much you can write about The Witcher, seeing as how the series is finished?
Of course there’s a limit to a series that’s finished, and that weighs on me a bit, but so far over our releases we’ve only really covered stuff from the first two collections of short stories without touching much of the main series. Realistically I think I can get a few more full-lengths out of the lore before I start retreading the familiar ground, so I’m not that worried about that just yet. If rumours are to be believed though, Sapkowski is supposedly working on a new entry to the series, so I wouldn’t write it off just yet.
“The Taste of Ash” ends with this great line from Sapkowski: “You forget; I slay monsters, Not men in twisted forms.” How did his prose influence your lyrics?
I really try not to lift quotes directly from his writings unless I feel it fits the song’s ideas. I think the most obvious one we really lifted was the fantastic quote from A Time of Contempt where Vilgefortz tells Geralt, “You mistook the stars reflected in a pond for the night sky” which we printed on the slipcase for our debut EP’s cassette repress. Sapkowski’s words resonate with me (even after being translated to English and losing some of the original meaning) and I would never want to step on his toes by just directly stealing his quotes for a majority of our lyrics.
The Witcher series has many vibes—epic, romantic, ridiculous, and heartbreaking (I cried when Ciri and Geralt reconnected at the end of The Sword of Destiny). As such, how did you approach your music to reflect those vibes?
There’s also a lot of themes in the novels about the hardships that peasantry faces at the hands of the ruling class (you also see this illustrated very well in the video game adaptations) and that struggle is unfortunately very applicable to the real world and society we all live in. I tried my best to convey those themes on our track “The Fall of the Northern Realms”, where I take the POV of a peasant watching my homeland destroyed by the invading armies of the Nilfgaardian Empire, while also being besieged by the monsters and ghouls that plague the more wild lands outside of the village, and grappling with that feeling of, “Wow, we’re fucked no matter what we do, the world is cruel and unforgiving outside of the safety of our homes, the rulers don’t care what happens to us, so what makes them any better than the monsters that hunt us at night?”
The Witcher is about monsters and politics but also what it means to be human, isolation, and destiny. Which of its themes did you want to represent in your music and how did you ensure they can out?
A big thing Geralt struggles with for a majority of the series is his denial of fate, grappling with destiny, and the fear of losing the people he loves. I really try to reflect those sentiments on the record, especially on the closing track “Vatt’ghern”. The way Sapkowski writes about isolation and humanity also influences other moments in the record, especially the title track, which tells about the keep of Kaer Morhen, where Witchers return for the winter to isolate and recharge before setting back out in the spring to follow The Path. It’s that feeling of wanting a home but also understanding that the concept of “home” can be very lonely.
Geralt is a complex character and I feel you captured that well—beyond just killing monsters. What was the biggest difficulty with translating his character?
Geralt is very complex and truthfully very flawed, he has this destiny that he knows he has to carry out and see through to its conclusion, but he rejects it, he denies it. He sees himself early on in the series as someone who is above destiny and fate. He (annoyingly at times) often takes a stance of neutrality, which he ultimately learns that he cannot do that because he ends up failing the people he cares about. I truthfully don’t feel like I delved as deeply into those themes as much as I wanted to, so it’s already a bullet-point for our next release (whenever we end up sitting down to write it). I feel that there’s a lot to his characterisation and how he interacts with the politics of his time, the oath he swore to his order, and his inter-personal relationships with the people he cares about and protects.
Could you make a black metal song about Dandelion?
I’ve had a few lines written about Dandelion for awhile now, I just haven’t found the right way to flesh it out into a full idea for a song, but I do love his character and the shenanigans he gets into, a lot of people just see him as a womanising bard but really his character is more complex than that, he’s very loyal, he’s very committed to his loved ones, he’s always there to help when it’s needed.
How do you feel about Gwent?
I think Gwent was a very fun addition to the game (to the point where I ignore main quests just to travel the land playing with various merchants and shopkeepers). I’ve played the standalone Gwent game on Steam, and for Christmas last year I was given a custom made card set that I’ve spent many hours obsessing over and playing with people I care about.
My partner needs to know if you’re team Yen or team Triss.
I am very strongly on Team Yen. Our song “Obsidian Star” (off of The Fall of Cintra EP) is based around Geralt and Yennefer’s bond. I understand why people who have only played the third game may be Team Triss, but playing the other two games or reading the novels it just really goes to show how truly awful Triss Merigold is as a person, only caring about her own selfish goals and not caring about the repercussions. I always get a kick out of the moment from the series where Yennefer comes to Kaer Morhen and literally throws Geralt’s bed out of the tower window because he slept with Triss in that same bed, and she doesn’t want to sleep where something like that happened.
None of that even touches on how much I love how Yennefer’s character is written and her motivations for her actions. She’s not perfect, but she mirrors Geralt’s own characterisation in an almost perfect way. The bond Geralt and Yennefer have is such a huge driving force for his actions early on, and leads to some of the best character moments in the series (Geralt’s conflicts with Istredd in Shard of Ice always stands out, as does the infamous “Dear Friend” letter from Blood of Elves).
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Kaer Mohren is available now through Hypnotic Dirge Records.
Demersal Run Through An Emotional Gauntlet on “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” (Video Premiere)
After wrapping up a short tour in Europe with Kollapse, the Danish screamo group Demersal has released a new music video for “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” off of their new LP Demersal. It’s the album’s final track, so it spoils the ending, but damn, what a spoiler it is. It captures the full spectrum of emotions associated with screamo, going from hostile to pensive to pure catharsis in the span of four minutes. It’s not nearly as aggressive as "Lys I Natten," the first single from Demersal that played more like Demersal were sticking forks into power outlets. Although “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” begins on a similar note, it’s with a more tempered pace. That pacing eventually comes to a crawl as Demersal lean heavily into screamo and post-rock’s shared roots in quiet-loud dynamics. The horns that appeared in “Lys I Natten” return in somber fashion and add to a climax that doesn’t feel as triumphant as it should, as if Demersal are consciously not celebrating a victory of any sort. It’s a musical representation of the album’s thesis, in which Demersal encourages listeners “to share one’s vulnerability with caring people and to reach out when the world feels the most incomprehensible.”
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The band comments:
"Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst" is the last song on our upcoming self-titled album. The song is essentially about the importance of taking part in communities with people you love and trust - whether it be family, music communities, activism, friendship, romantic relationships and so on. The whole album is mainly about facing global crises - climate change, war, extremism and so on. It can seem immensely incomprehensible to figure out what one can do as an individual to make a difference in a global perspective. But one thing we can do is to find comfort and love in the people we trust, as a way of dealing with our world that, in many ways, is slowly decaying.
"The video consists of footage from our recent tour with Kollapse in Germany, France and Switzerland. It portrays one of the communities that we value and trust - our band and the scene we’re a part of."The video consists of footage from our recent tour with Kollapse in Germany, France and Switzerland. It portrays one of the communities that we value and trust - our band and the scene we’re a part of.
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Demersal releases May 10th via Tomb Tree (Canada/US), Fireflies Fall (France), Pasidaryk Pats (Lithuania), Dingleberry Records (Germany), Ripcord Records (Scotland), Vinyltroll (Denmark), and Nothing To Harvest (Greece).
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It speaks volumes about the two bands that sandwiched them to say that Woe felt like a breather. Unlike the rest of the bill, Woe aren’t a physical band — more like a gust of wind than a rolling boulder. Their style of black metal is heady without being overly brainy, i.e. compositionally smart but direct. Drummer Lev Weinstein, free to blast his way to oblivion and back, was a force to behold. Especially so on a brand new song that the band debuted. While they still had a few performance details to tighten up, the underlying composition was the most thrilling of the entire set. By the end, even the most ardent hardcore Nails-bros were nodding in approval.
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Demersal Run Through An Emotional Gauntlet on “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” (Video Premiere)
After wrapping up a short tour in Europe with Kollapse, the Danish screamo group Demersal has released a new music video for “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” off of their new LP Demersal. It’s the album’s final track, so it spoils the ending, but damn, what a spoiler it is. It captures the full spectrum of emotions associated with screamo, going from hostile to pensive to pure catharsis in the span of four minutes. It’s not nearly as aggressive as "Lys I Natten," the first single from Demersal that played more like Demersal were sticking forks into power outlets. Although “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” begins on a similar note, it’s with a more tempered pace. That pacing eventually comes to a crawl as Demersal lean heavily into screamo and post-rock’s shared roots in quiet-loud dynamics. The horns that appeared in “Lys I Natten” return in somber fashion and add to a climax that doesn’t feel as triumphant as it should, as if Demersal are consciously not celebrating a victory of any sort. It’s a musical representation of the album’s thesis, in which Demersal encourages listeners “to share one’s vulnerability with caring people and to reach out when the world feels the most incomprehensible.”
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhHEKmg0JQ4&ab_channel=DemersalBand...
Demersal releases May 10th via Tomb Tree (Canada/US), Fireflies Fall (France), Pasidaryk Pats (Lithuania), Dingleberry Records (Germany), Ripcord Records (Scotland), Vinyltroll (Denmark), and Nothing To Harvest (Greece)
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Demersal Run Through An Emotional Gauntlet on “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” (Video Premiere)
After wrapping up a short tour in Europe with Kollapse, the Danish screamo group Demersal has released a new music video for “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” off of their new LP Demersal. It’s the album’s final track, so it spoils the ending, but damn, what a spoiler it is. It captures the full spectrum of emotions associated with screamo, going from hostile to pensive to pure catharsis in the span of four minutes. It’s not nearly as aggressive as "Lys I Natten," the first single from Demersal that played more like Demersal were sticking forks into power outlets. Although “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” begins on a similar note, it’s with a more tempered pace. That pacing eventually comes to a crawl as Demersal lean heavily into screamo and post-rock’s shared roots in quiet-loud dynamics. The horns that appeared in “Lys I Natten” return in somber fashion and add to a climax that doesn’t feel as triumphant as it should, as if Demersal are consciously not celebrating a victory of any sort. It’s a musical representation of the album’s thesis, in which Demersal encourages listeners “to share one’s vulnerability with caring people and to reach out when the world feels the most incomprehensible.”
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Demersal releases May 10th via Tomb Tree (Canada/US), Fireflies Fall (France), Pasidaryk Pats (Lithuania), Dingleberry Records (Germany), Ripcord Records (Scotland), Vinyltroll (Denmark), and Nothing To Harvest (Greece).
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Demersal Run Through An Emotional Gauntlet on “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” (Video Premiere)
After wrapping up a short tour in Europe with Kollapse, the Danish screamo group Demersal has released a new music video for “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” off of their new LP Demersal. It’s the album’s final track, so it spoils the ending, but damn, what a spoiler it is. It captures the full spectrum of emotions associated with screamo, going from hostile to pensive to pure catharsis in the span of four minutes. It’s not nearly as aggressive as "Lys I Natten," the first single from Demersal that played more like Demersal were sticking forks into power outlets. Although “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” begins on a similar note, it’s with a more tempered pace. That pacing eventually comes to a crawl as Demersal lean heavily into screamo and post-rock’s shared roots in quiet-loud dynamics. The horns that appeared in “Lys I Natten” return in somber fashion and add to a climax that doesn’t feel as triumphant as it should, as if Demersal are consciously not celebrating a victory of any sort. It’s a musical representation of the album’s thesis, in which Demersal encourages listeners “to share one’s vulnerability with caring people and to reach out when the world feels the most incomprehensible.”
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The band comments:
"Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst" is the last song on our upcoming self-titled album. The song is essentially about the importance of taking part in communities with people you love and trust - whether it be family, music communities, activism, friendship, romantic relationships and so on. The whole album is mainly about facing global crises - climate change, war, extremism and so on. It can seem immensely incomprehensible to figure out what one can do as an individual to make a difference in a global perspective. But one thing we can do is to find comfort and love in the people we trust, as a way of dealing with our world that, in many ways, is slowly decaying.
"The video consists of footage from our recent tour with Kollapse in Germany, France and Switzerland. It portrays one of the communities that we value and trust - our band and the scene we’re a part of."The video consists of footage from our recent tour with Kollapse in Germany, France and Switzerland. It portrays one of the communities that we value and trust - our band and the scene we’re a part of.
Demersal releases May 10th via Tomb Tree (Canada/US), Fireflies Fall (France), Pasidaryk Pats (Lithuania), Dingleberry Records (Germany), Ripcord Records (Scotland), Vinyltroll (Denmark), and Nothing To Harvest (Greece).
Demersal Run Through An Emotional Gauntlet on “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” (Video Premiere)
After wrapping up a short tour in Europe with Kollapse, the Danish screamo group Demersal has released a new music video for “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” off of their new LP Demersal. It’s the album’s final track, so it spoils the ending, but damn, what a spoiler it is. It captures the full spectrum of emotions associated with screamo, going from hostile to pensive to pure catharsis in the span of four minutes. It’s not nearly as aggressive as "Lys I Natten," the first single from Demersal that played more like Demersal were sticking forks into power outlets. Although “Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst” begins on a similar note, it’s with a more tempered pace. That pacing eventually comes to a crawl as Demersal lean heavily into screamo and post-rock’s shared roots in quiet-loud dynamics. The horns that appeared in “Lys I Natten” return in somber fashion and add to a climax that doesn’t feel as triumphant as it should, as if Demersal are consciously not celebrating a victory of any sort. It’s a musical representation of the album’s thesis, in which Demersal encourages listeners “to share one’s vulnerability with caring people and to reach out when the world feels the most incomprehensible.”
...
...
The band comments:
"Som Et Barn Mod Dit Bryst" is the last song on our upcoming self-titled album. The song is essentially about the importance of taking part in communities with people you love and trust - whether it be family, music communities, activism, friendship, romantic relationships and so on. The whole album is mainly about facing global crises - climate change, war, extremism and so on. It can seem immensely incomprehensible to figure out what one can do as an individual to make a difference in a global perspective. But one thing we can do is to find comfort and love in the people we trust, as a way of dealing with our world that, in many ways, is slowly decaying.
"The video consists of footage from our recent tour with Kollapse in Germany, France and Switzerland. It portrays one of the communities that we value and trust - our band and the scene we’re a part of."The video consists of footage from our recent tour with Kollapse in Germany, France and Switzerland. It portrays one of the communities that we value and trust - our band and the scene we’re a part of.
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Demersal releases May 10th via Tomb Tree (Canada/US), Fireflies Fall (France), Pasidaryk Pats (Lithuania), Dingleberry Records (Germany), Ripcord Records (Scotland), Vinyltroll (Denmark), and Nothing To Harvest (Greece).
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Noise Pollution #38: Second Chances
Two columns ago I devoted a few sentences (and then constructed an entire piece around) to Darkthrone and their new album, It Beckons Us All, entirely out of my dislike of the last two records and Fenriz’s incessant need to either do funny “metal” voices or talk about obscure metal references in songs. I do not like heavy metal, or very much of it anyway, and the platitudes thereof, which wouldn’t have bothered me (as they haven’t for the last decade or however long this has been there…um..thing) at least as much if I didn’t find the music to be boring. So I figured that was that, harp a little in a column and maybe a throwaway line during the year end writing bonanza.
Then my pal, the Spotify DJ that I keep on during car rides, played a song (“Black Dawn Affiliation”) from it.
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I ordered “Fenriz Blue,” if anyone was curious.
Grabbed me instantly, and dug in deeper (and quicker) than any record they’ve done since Sardonic Wrath. Sure, heavy metal is all over this fucking thing but the riffs are dark, dirty, or both. Sure, Fenriz said it sounds like a thirty seven second part of a song on a Queensryche record (pre “Silent Lucidity”) but what I hear in this record is certainly closer to traditional black metal than their last two, with the specter of Neptune Towers all over it. Black ‘N Roll with a space theme? Sounds like what we tried to do with Hidden, except that people actually care about Darkthrone and the record isn’t ridiculous. With each listen It Beckons Us All continues to hold my attention. Is it the Darkthrone that I grew up with in the 90s? No, and it never will be again. Anyone who still holds out hope for another Transilvanian Hunger lives a life of illusion and disappointment. For Darkthrone to do a pure black metal record would mean something completely disingenuous and there’s thousands of bands doing that now for you to choose from.
My intention for this piece was oddly based on second chances before I even gave the aforementioned record a shot. Basically, albums that I did not like upon initial listen(s) that eventually clicked and I grew to love. It’s difficult now to give things second chances because of the constant influx of new music rendering the need to revisit records somewhat obsolete for those with shit attention spans (which is most of us, unfortunately.) Anyway, here’s five I changed my tune with.
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Khold - Svartsyn
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I hadn’t really given Khold much though in a long time. I really enjoyed the first two records (which I first heard and bought when I was staying at Redstream HQ to record the second Hidden record, to bring it back to shit no one cares about) and remember digging bits of the subsequent two but losing track of them around the time I stopped giving a shit about black metal. Svartsyn came to my attention when I was looking up the Swedish band, probably for this very column (because everything fucking revolves around me, afterall) and, remembering I dug their older stuff, I gave it a listen. And I was vastly underwhelmed. Maybe because I was listening on laptop speakers at work or maybe because I just was uninterested in adding even more to my listening plate I just could not get interested in the record. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and Spotify’s erstwhile DJ played a song from a more recent album and I dug it, so when Soulseller Records announced a new full length and premiered a track I was all in.
I decided to work backwards on their discography, with Svartsyn directly preceding the newest record and I don’t know what I was hearing two years ago but this record might be better than the new one, which I already feel will be in my top of the year list. Filthy black ‘n roll with punishing riffs and a stellar vocal performance, this record is great from start to finish. Fortunately I corrected the course early here, before it becomes difficult to find.
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Gorgoroth - Instinctus Bestialis
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Anyone who’s paid attention to this column over the last few years, or read any interview with me during that time, or paid attention to me at all (please pay attention to me) knows that I’ve become obsessed with the classic first three Gorgoroth records, as well as the post-Gaahl years when Pest was back in the band. There’s something about these records that reaches deep within me, that I sort of pushed to the wayside during the years where it seemed they were all style and no substance (ie King ov Hell) only to rediscover a few years ago when driven by nostalgia and a desire to remember where I came from. Since then I’ve been annoyingly vocal about these records and their importance but when I gave 2015’s Instinctus Bestialis a listen I just didn’t mesh with the vocals at all, which are deeper, closer to death metal, than Pest, who I’ve grown to consider to be the best of the Gorgoroth vocalists.
Then I heard the song “Awakening” and my opinion swiftly changed. It’s a simple, straight forward song bringing to mind Bathory, VON, and Beherit (and early Gorgoroth, which..yeah, no shit) that just delivered the kiss of a nuclear warhead. After listening to the song on repeat for the better part of an afternoon (because I probably have some issues) I gave the rest of the record a proper chance. While it’s not Pentagram it fits very strongly with the best of Gorgoroth’s catalog, which has been silent for close to a decade. Hopefully all these fest appearances are a sign of things to come.
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Blut aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God
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Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t have very much history with Blut Aus Nord. I picked up the first two records when they came out but didn’t think much of them outside of being competent (albeit unoriginal) black metal records that fit well within that whole Impure Creations/Velvet Music thing. When Mystical Beast of Rebellion came out I remember people telling me how it was like a more elevated Velvet Cacoon (pre that whole...what have you) and so I picked it up and enjoyed it but, again, didn’t pay it much mind. Then The Work Which Transforms God is released. I remember having conversations with Jef Whitehead and him explaining that this record rendered anything he (or nearly every other modern band that had any kind of “weird” bent to them) obsolete. Obviously I needed to hear it, so I picked it up and gave it a listen and….felt none of that. I found the record to be cold, almost sterile, and I just didn’t see in it what everyone else did. So I shelved it and moved on.
Years later, while going through my CD collection trying to sell things to cover rent, I came across BaN’s Odinist, which I guess belonged to my ex. For whatever reason I decided to give it a spin and was instantly drawn in. Two or three years later Hallucinogen nearly tops my year end list. From then on I would go through various records, trying them out, but for whatever reason I avoided The Work Which Transforms God until a month or so ago when I found a copy cheap on Discogs and figured, fuck it. When it showed up in the mail I threw it on and I finally, from the first moment on, heard what Jef was talking about nearly twenty years ago. The absolute brilliance, how ahead of its time it is. The Work Which Transforms God is actually what inspired this column. Aren’t you happy I bought it?
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Merauder - Master Killer
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Master Killer came out via Century Media at a time where all I wanted to hear from the label was death and black metal. Merauder were not at all my taste, I think I lumped them into the same category as Stuck Mojo: just meat headed jocks playing meat headed bullshit with grooves and a martial arts theme, which I thought was silly. I had this thought while I donned a robe and corpse paint to take pictures on a local golf course in broad fucking daylight (wait for the memoir, I guess) so my authority on aesthetic choices may not have been the greatest. I put Merauder on the pay-no-mind list and went on with my life. A few years later I got into a fight at a club in NYC and, as the scary as fuck bouncer made his way through the crowd towards the ruckus, I grabbed the guy who I was fighting’s friend and tossed him towards the bouncer, who thought he was the one fighting and drug him out with the ease of someone lifting a feather. Turns out this man was the singer for Merauder and I (undeservedly) avoided an ass kicking.
Years and years later and I’ve obviously become a fan of hardcore, though I never ran across Merauder in my listening exploration until they randomly popped up on a playlist. Instantly hooked. My first (second, since this was a few decades later, you get it) impression was how the vocals sounded close to Pete Steele’s performance on the first Carnivore record and just what an assbeating of a sound the band had. I guess being nearly thirty years late to the party is better than never?
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Venom - Welcome to Hell
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If I didn’t already give the internet dozens of reasons to wish ill upon me through my charming demeanor, then here’s another gift to you. I first heard Venom sometime in 1994/95 on WLFR’s “Hours of Desolation” radio show with my introduction being “Red Light Fever”, which I thought had the fucking dumbest lyrics possible. God, I just thought it fucking sucked and that Celtic Frost were much better because they had a more “serious” approach. I couldn’t believe this was the band that inspired so many of the second wave black metal bands I was becoming obsessed with. It just seemed goofy to me.
It didn’t take more than two or three weeks to realize the error of my ways, with my second impression being “In League with Satan” and “Witching Hour” a few episodes later. Within a month or two I owned all of the classic records, which remain favorites to this day. I still think “Red Light Fever” sucks, though.
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I bet the title of this one was a little misleading since you would imagine it would have to do with me and folks' opinions of me. Surprise, gotcha bitch. Unless you know me personally you don’t really have any inkling of me outside of these charming tales. But, by all means, keep me in your thoughts and prayers.
As for the next one of these? I don’t know, I guess we’ll see in two weeks.
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Because the first two bands denied the crowd cheap thrills, the raw power of Nails lit the room up like it was a powder keg. The band ripped through their material at a startling pace. Calls for a circle pit mostly fell on deaf ears, but the crowd needed no coaxing to get rowdy. While standing at the lip of the pit, I received a hit that literally spun my beer full circle through the air and back into my hand. Nails inspires that kind Looney Tunes-esque absurdity. They leave you feeling like you’ve got keys for teeth after standing under a falling piano. This shoe tastes delicious; long live Nails.
Browse more photos from the show, by Chris Harrington, in the galleries above.
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