Noise Pollution #25: Hail to Sweden Part 1

No, not this.

A few columns back I made a joke that there’s probably a Thanksgiving metal song I was forgetting. I’m sure you remember it, it was hilarious. Anyway it got the gears moving a bit and the first thing I could think of was Marduk’s “Autumnal Reaper,” one of their best songs from my favorite era of the band.

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My on-the-nose bullshit aside, whenever I think about Swedish black metal the first thing I picture is people immediately going to Watain, Dissection or Dark Funeral as their first thought, and I suppose that’s fair since they’ve had the most impact on a broad scale but, similar to the German “big 3” (Sodom, Destruction and Kreator for those of you playing at home) they kind of eclipse a lot of, in my opinion, better bands and records out there. So, similar to my column on Norwegian black metal a few back, I wanted to go through the bands I feel are underrated and have created some of the finest black metal records ever, regardless of geography.

Also I caught whatever the fuck illness is ripping around right now and have been sick for two weeks, which hinders any real ability to tell a story no one cares about regarding a record no one wants to read about. Laziness? Probably.

Back in 1995/96 when I was first really obsessing over black metal there were two US based labels in particular who I’d pay attention to: Necropolis Records and Fullmoon Productions. It seemed like both were just releasing nonstop hammers. It was just an exciting time all around and I couldn’t go a few days without some new discovery to obsess over. One of my first FMP discoveries would end up becoming one of my favorite black metal records of all time; Algaion’s Oimai Algeiou.

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Closer in style to the Greek scene of the early 90s Oimai Algeiou is an intense listen from start to finish, rife with tension throughout the melodies. It was also my introduction to Fredrik Söderlund’s drum programming, which we’ll get to in a bit. This is just an album with so much going on within it yet it manages to be loaded with memorable riffs and themes. This underrated gem was finally given the vinyl treatment through Shadow Records (who also did CD and cassette for it as well) and I cannot think of a more deserving document of Swedish black metal.

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The next year would see another Algaion recording in the form of Vox Clamentis, this time with real drums courtesy of Hyopcrisy’s Peter Tägtgren. This was somehow even more intense than the debut but still filled with memorable melancholy, sharpened to a more aggressive point than before. Out of their catalog I can’t really decide on which of these two records is my favorite.

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It’s been over ten years since the last Algaion record but guitarist/bassist Mathia Kamijo is releasing a new project called Dead Earth (also through Shadow Records) which is worth digging into. Hopefully there will be more Algaion in the future but they’ve left behind a near perfect discography thus far.

At the “Sacrifice of the Nazarene Child Fest” in 1999, my friend Bernie from Lust came all the way from Edmonton to San Antonio on a Greyhound, bearing gifts. One of them was Svartysn’s Tormentor EP, released through the short lived Canadian label Black Militia Productions. I was familiar with the band through interviews but had never really checked them out.

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Tormentor is, for me, the greatest black metal 7 inch that has ever been recorded. It’s thick, violent and black as pitch, with an oppressive yet haunting atmosphere. It’s everything that war/bestial black metal aspires to be. It is a perfect record that should easily be held in the upper echelons of Swedish black metal, except that most people have dogshit for taste.

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Svartsyn would prove to be masters of the 7 inch format over a decade later with Genesis of Death’s Illuminating Mysteries albeit this one is more in line with the rest of their output, whereas Tormentor is an outlier, at least in production and style. This is still a fucking excellent ep, as is their entire catalog.

I picked up their debut The True Legend in 2000 and was pretty surprised by the difference between it and the EP. The True Legend is a bit more atmospheric, almost subdued. It’s a ghostly record, a completely different side of the band but still a truly fantastic record. Svartsyn managed to also be one of the only bands to re-record an album and have it stand shoulder to shoulder with the original (Old Forest being the only other example I can think of, the majority of attempts to do this generally are as effective as a flaccid penis) with 2012’s re-recorded The True Legend. I’ve included examples of both because both records are worth hearing.

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Svartsyn are still active and continue to release quality Swedish black metal in the old tradition. There is not a record in their (extensive) catalog that isn’t worth checking out. When I first took over Blood Fire Death Records I was in talks with them about doing a split CD, I think with Triumphator and another band if I’m not misremembering, but it never came to fruition. A shame, really.

I mentioned Fredrik Söderlund earlier and he factors into the majority of Swedish black metal that I’ve stayed obsessed with over the last few decades. I’m not sure you could call Octinomos his “main” project but it’s what I’m going to focus on, at least today, otherwise we’d be here quite some time.

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Two versions of the debut exist, the first being a self titled version released on Söderlund’s Infortunium label, and a second through Fullmoon Productions with the title On the Demiurge that has a few different tracks. To get the whole picture I recommend both of them. This is a strange record of malicious yet somewhat melancholic black metal. You can see why he was a good fit initially for Algaion and the two projects go together very well.

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While the debut was one of my favorite records for quite some time after picking it up in 96 I never gave the two full lengths he did afterwards, Welcome to My Planet and Fuckhole Armageddon a chance, mostly because they were on Baphomet and I had a bad taste in my mouth with that label for many reasons. My loss.

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Both of these records, while not as (for lack of a better word) odd as the debut, are absolute killers. Söderlund knows how to create tension in music, to an almost fever pitch. It’s now been over twenty years since this project released anything but the three full lengths are all excellent and worth your time.

Not to sound like a broken record but Fullmoon Productions really were the leading US label in my eyes during the mid 90s and the final band that I’ll be going over today also got their start from that fertile Flordian label. Swordmaster’sWraths of Time EP is a razor sharp blast of riff heavy black metal with a unique guitar tone and earworms aplenty. Had they stayed in this style I’m certain they would be a household (in black metal, anyway) name. But, towards the end of the 90s, retro thrash swept through Sweden and Swordmaster weren’t immune.

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Postmortem Tales shed some of the blackness for a German inspired thrashing sound but, unlike a lot of bands that abandoned their original style at the time, they did it fucking masterfully.The record has a thicker, almost death metal-esque production to it and it’s just a fucking ripper.

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My last stop with the band was the Deathraider EP, which was even thrasher and dirtier than Postmortem Tales was. I never got into their final record, Moribund Transgoria, and have no interest in their formation as Deathstars which, as far as I know, is akin to The Kovenant, mixing dancy industrial with black metal and goth. Sounds dreadful.

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Somewhere I still have my Algaion and Swordmaster vinyl posters that FMP released and I still listen to every record I listed here regularly. Now, thirty years after the birth of the second wave of black metal, Sweden has a list of hundreds, if not thousands of bands-like everywhere else at this point. It’s easy to miss some of the gems when you’re shoveling through such deep and endless vats of liquid shit. Hopefully I’ve shed a little light on bands you may not have been familiar with. I’ll return to this well down the line, probably when I get Covid finally, but not for a bit.

See you in two.