Noise Pollution #18: RIP Olav Berland
I had most of a column written to continue the summer theme I’ve been beating you over the head with until two things stopped me in my tracks. Some of you who’ve followed me on social media for any period of time may know that I suffer from pretty frequent migraines and, after a seven month wait, I’ve just started seeing a PCP for it who’s figured it stems from an issue with my neck and cervical spine and prescribed me a muscle relaxer for sleepy time so that I don’t wake up in agony. Well, he forgot to fucking call in the prescription this week and I experienced a migraine so severe that I temporarily experienced amnesia and had such profuse vomiting that I passed out from the force of it (my ribs still hurt when I cough or laugh, days later). This completely sidetracked my life and kept me (mostly) off social media for a few days. The one time I did log in I was struck by the news that Olav Berland had passed away.
To say that it was a shit week would be a merciful understatement.
Olav Berland was the creative force (alongside Rune Vedaa, also known for the black metal band Ravn) within Forgotten Woods and the mastermind behind Joyless, two bands that have been instrumental to my own personal musical development both as an artist as well as a listener. It’s been over a decade since his last (public) musical expression was released, Joyless’ Without Support, so I hadn’t even considered any new sounds coming but this was a harsh confirmation of that.
I had first heard Forgotten Woods back in the winter between 1996 and 1997 on the recommendation of Ted Tringo, who ran Dark Symphonies (and now The Crypt). From 1995 until later in the ’90s, Ted was a guru for myself and my friends, the connection to the underground that we just couldn’t build ordering through places like Metal Disc or Relapse and rarely, if ever, steered us wrong. He said that something to the effect of Forgotten Woods having a similar atmosphere to the more well known Norwegian bands while having something special all their own. Just a few minutes into their debut full length, As the Wolves Gather, was enough to both convince and then hook me.
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Forgotten Woods was raw and had the overall aesthetic of the early Norse bands, which I found appealing, but there was also an underlying melancholy to them that was (at the time) fairly uncharacteristic in most black metal, but even more subtle than that was the de-emphasis of the metal in black metal. You didn’t hear the presence of Sodom or Possessed or any of the thrash that helped bond the skeleton of the movement together. You heard… rock.
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There are traces of the psychedelic ’60s and ’70s throughout, but more so is the imprint of the antithesis of that cultural movement; the music and aesthetic of the Factory of the late ’60s, the backrooms of Max’s Kansas City and even the filthy bathrooms of early CBGBs. They wrote riffs that, if recorded under different circumstances, would find a comfortable place on the first New York Dolls LP. It’s no wonder that my initial introduction to The Velvet Underground was in the linear notes of The Curse of Mankind, Forgotten Woods’ second album.
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They took the forest setting of early second wave black metal and lit it ablaze with a crass antisocial nature, which spoke to me more deeply than lyrics and concepts about Satan. As I was just really getting my footing with my own music at the time I felt disingenuous using Satanism as a lyrical concept. Forgotten Woods were one of the bands that allowed me to understand that it wasn’t a necessary ingredient in black metal, regardless of conventional wisdom, but it wasn’t just this attitude that influenced me. The song “Overmotets Pris” contains an acoustic flourish starting about a minute thirty in that I’ve unashamedly used in at least two of my own songs (the most egregious, if anyone gives a shit, is the middle of “Maelstrom” on Sono Lo Scherno). Even close to thirty years after hearing it for the first time this song still puts me into a different state.
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You can imagine my… er… joy… when it was re-recorded for Joyless’ Unlimited Hate record a few years later.
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Which takes us to Joyless, which at the time was the evolution of Forgotten Woods after they disbanded in 1996. Their first album, the aforementioned Unlimited Hate presented a further dive into rock, complete with an excellent cover of Motorhead’s “Don’t Need (Religion)” but perfectly announced with the album’s opener “Inherent Emptiness.”
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https://youtu.be/B6rSwC7h17o
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With some re-recorded/leftover Forgotten Woods tracks attached it was a true moment to a band in transition. Plus the original vinyl version’s cover is just fucking fantastic.
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Joyless continued into a more morose rock n’roll territory with a few limited releases but stayed mostly under the radar until emerging with 2000’s Wisdom and Arrogance, a completely metal-free dark pop/rock record, sounding like a more organic and far more depressed version of The Cardigans’ Gran Turismo.
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Joyless was Berland’s vision and ship to captain, but he did reconvene with Forgotten Woods for a different beast altogether, 2007’s Race of Cain.
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Race of Cain is a stripped down and frankly fucking malicious record. This is one of those albums you don’t feel good after listening to. Cold, calculating, and caustic, Race of Cain represents an even stronger push into antisocial tendencies and general nastiness. It’s a magnificent record and was a surprise when it was released, both because of it’s stylistic twist and just because the fucking thing existed at all. It sounded like it would usher in a new era of productivity for the band, with rumors that Neige (Alcest, etc) was attached to do the next record (tentatively titled PIG). Then the rumors stopped coming at a frantic pace until they ceased entirely.
I had the chance to have a drink with Neige when Alcest came through Richmond a few years ago and I talked his ear off about my love of Forgotten Woods and pelted him with questions about it. I was a tad intoxicated but the gist of the conversation was ““it wasn’t meant to be.”
The year 2011 would be the last sign of life out of Joyless, with the quiet release of Without Support, another sublime example of Berland’s creativity when it came to depressive and dark pop. It would be his last (that I’m aware of) expression from close to three decades operating in the bleaker side of music.
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Berland died on July 11th at the age of 45. It was said he had battled a long illness. I never had any real contact with him, or anyone else from either Forgotten Woods or Joyless. There was a time where I was connected to release the Joyless/Urfaust split, but I had a nervous breakdown and it never came to be, but there’s no denying the impact he had on me, both as an inspiration musically but also as a lover of dark music. I hope I’ve interested some of you enough to check out his music. While it’s not the largest discography there’s not a dud in there at all.
As a postscript, since it will inevitably come up (especially on Twitter and related wastes of time), Forgotten Woods skirted some controversy with Race of Cain due to the questionable sample in “Third Eye (New Creature)” and their business dealings with No Colours Records. Rune made two statements in interviews regarding NSBM that I wanted to add here for clarity. “NSBM? Sorry, it makes no sense to me. It’s like a stamp of mediocrity.” Around ten years later he added, in regards to severing ties with No Colours, “any label with openly-right wing bands on it should not clamp down on lyrics essentially proclaiming the exact opposite–regardless of the imagery used.” This certainly won’t appease those out there who’ve already made up their mind about the band, regardless of explanation or (misguided, at best) intentions (something I’m unfortunately all too acquainted with), but it needed to be stated.
I’ll see you again in two weeks where I reflect on turning 44 and an important summer record from 1995.
