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Music

Doomsday Metal

Nothing says good old gloomy forest black metal like Theodor Kittelsen. From beyond the grave the Norwegian is still responsible for the plague-ridden corpses, depressed owls and freezing forests on the covers of Burzum's Filosofem and Hvis...

Hugo Simberg. Photo courtesy of the Finnish National Gallery's Central Art Archives/fng.fi

Nothing says good old gloomy forest black metal like Theodor Kittelsen. From beyond the grave the Norwegian is still responsible for the plague-ridden corpses, depressed owls and freezing forests on the covers of Burzum’s Filosofem and Hvis Lyset Tar Oss as well as in various Satyricon booklets. And now the Finns have dug up a corpse brilliant enough to match him. Hugo Simberg is Finland’s cursed answer to Kittlesen. Just like a suicidal, Finnish version of John Bauer, Simberg is all about angels being carried off on stretchers and farmers playing chess with Death. Unfortunately, Simberg wasn’t a very productive man, and since he died in 1917 bands are now making collages out of his work. Raate, a band that just recently crawled out of Satan’s womb, is using Simberg’s work. They’ve been spewing darkness since 2004, and their album Sielu, Linna is out now on W.T.C. (World Terror Committee that is). It sounds a little bit like loneliness falling out of the tree of darkness and hitting every branch on the way down, but in slow motion. Even though this is just a small step towards the destruction of mankind, it’s a huge leap for the burzumian aesthetics. Maybe this can finally put an end to the Dark War between Finland and Norway. We need to get past the times when Impaled Nazarene (known both for their hateful black metal and performing naked) delivered death threats to Norwegians over the phone, and when Beherit said that they wouldn’t accept any orders from Norway. Nadrach, the only real member of Nidhoggr, committed suicide in ’98 but left behind the demo Ravens over the Road of Kings. It contains songs unparalleled when it comes to grim, desolate and repetitive darkness. Even though there has been talk about an American label releasing it as a 7” nothing has happened, and the demo still remains to be re-released. Obscurity is the law amongst most of the best Finnish bands, and another group of secretive soldiers is Vordr. The only thing we know for sure is that they release black metal that sounds like a rabid, Finnish nekro moose uncontrollably racing across the marshes with Ildjarn blasting in the headphones. Check out their new split with Ødelegger if you don’t believe us. Barathrum is one of the bands on the bill for this year’s Tuska (meaning “pain”) Festival. Weren’t there rumours about them being banned from the festival due to, er, claims of paedophilia? After seeing them in Stockholm, where they came across as a piss-faced Kaurusmäki movie (only drunker), and their main problem was trying to keep singer Demonos on stage (and later, to get him off stage when the rest of the band finally got fed up with him falling down), we’re inclined to believe what people are saying. More substantiated gossip claim that the beast known as Beherit might be coming back from the dead. Heathens looking for even more primitive shit should go for the glorious side project Goat Vulva. It’s some of the most dissonant, untaught music on this dark planet. We’ve been trying to get our emaciated hands on something recorded by the Norwegian band Fuck Beherit too, but according to well-informed Norwegian sources they never existed. If you can show us proof of the contrary we’ll give you a subscription to Vice. Taake and Gorgoroth are both doing their best to bring back the destruction and mayhem of the old times. Gorgoroth spent April making a video for “Carving a Giant,” and it’s going to be a re-enactment of the Polish gig that caused the band massive legal problems. Since the tapes from the live show were confiscated this will be the only chance to see fire, blood, some 100 sheep heads and nude crucifixion mixed with evil black metal. Høst of Taake is wreaking havoc on his own. We kind of saw where it was heading with the latest Taake T-shirt—with “Anti Islam” printed on the back—and in March this year Taake made a live assault on Essen, Germany, where Høst sang with a swastika drawn on his chest. The Germans were upset. Høst seems to be soldiering on though. Here’s the final sentence of the official statement where Høst apologises to “all of our collaborators who might get problems because of the Essen swastika scandal (except for the Untermensch owner of that club; you can go suck a Muslim)!” Which reminds us, it’s time to go get drenched in another ghastly outburst of the new Nekro CD. KAOS ULVÉN