Storms From The Northern Wastelands #1

Infernal Hails fellow Creatures of the Satan, The Lord of Entropy welcomes you to “Storms From The Northern Wastelands” your newest source for the very best “kvlt” and “nekro” as fuck Black Metal Satan has ever spawned. Everything from the truest Black Metal demos to those who use Black metal as an inspiration will be profiled here. Hear the history of the genre of music closest to Satan himself. Let the Lord Of Entropy himself be your guide to the most infernal genre of music, the purest example of the inherent darkness of man.

Keeping it kvlt with my first review, a demo from a fantastic Norwegian band called Dies Irae. No one knows who was a part of the band as they only released one completely unknown demo in 1994 then the band split, but what a demo it was. Their demo entitled “Circle of Leth” is probably the best synthesis of low-fi black metal and classical music. Yes classical music, not cheesy symphonic bursts like Dimmu Borgir but beautiful sections of true classical music. The intro track is entirely instrumental with no guitars and is recorded on a synthesizer, or just so low quality we can’t tell, but the atmosphere is thick. A very brooding and almost creepy atmosphere, one of the tracks that, at night lying in your bed, you see shadows in you see shadows in your room conform into distorted evil shapes out of some evil dream. Yet at this same time there is a sense of beauty, these vast soundscapes of classical music not heard in the most fantastic of dreams. The rest of the tracks flawlessly combine the low-fi black metal aesthetics of Burzum with vocals similar to Attila Csihar, but the production focuses on the classical elements. The flutes and synths are at the forefront of the production and dominate the sound. Almost as if the stirring melodies of the classical section is underplayed by the filthy sludge of black metal. The black metal sections, while not at the forefront of the production are still noticeably capable, very impressive for how little the band did together. The production is black metal raw, down on the far end of the spectrum as in Burzum raw. It takes away from some of the technical showings of the band but it brings the focus to the atmosphere, one thing bands take years to find but Dies Irae have perfected in one demo.

As a little treat I am including a download link to this demo, its no longer in print so I don’t feel too bad giving it out for free, but music of this caliber needs to be heard. Theres also a Myspace page dedicated to the band with samples of 4 of the 5 tracks on it so have a listen.

Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/diesiraenorway

Download Link:
http://www.divshare.com/download/4545118-cee


Let’s shift to the more experimental regions of black metal, namely the band Blacklodge from France. From the cover you can see they play a very cold, mechanical industrial black metal, not with just a sample here or there but the music is more or less an industrial background with the black metal riffs and vocals over top of it, even with some techno beats thrown in for good measure. They’ve released two albums “Login:SataN” and “Solarkult”. Solarkult is a fantastic release but I will tell you it is not for every black metal fan. Electronics abound and there really is no organic drumming on the album, a drum machine is used on the entire album. It gives the album a wholly mechanized and icy cold feel, even more so then Aborym. The production is unusual in the sense that it is quite clean. The guitars still have that distinct ripping, heavy sound but the production is clean enough to allow the backing electronics to be very distinct, you never miss out on any of the sounds of the album. The electronics have an extremely caustic feel to them, they are not bouncy techno backing but sound like you are standing in an industrial factory and somehow a discernible beat materializes from the chaos around you. Throw in a guitarist and vocalist on top of that and you have Blacklodge.

They have a myspace with 2 samples from their two albums, all great examples of their industrial black metal style.

Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/loginsatan

Next week I’ll have a history and tribute to Mayhem, the band that defined “kvlt” and “nekro” aesthetics for a whole generation of Black Metal groups.

Infernal Tidings,

Lord Of Entropy