Taake Is Dead

Photo by Brendan Austin, www.brendanaustin.com

We just got off the phone with our new friend Fenriz (that’s how he answers his phone. We’re texting friends right now to let them know), and he told us “Modern Black Metal is horror for me, hahaha!” And even though we agree that some parts of the scene hasn’t been showing vital signs for a while, and that other parts are going straight to hell, but not in a good way, there are at least a few harshly brilliant exceptions, and at the top of the stake is Taake. No wonder they’re truly sinister, Taake’s Hoest has all the right props. He lives in foggy, rainy Bergen, with his beautiful girlfriend Utflod, who is also playing the minimal piano interlude on Taake’s latest, and he loves Jörg Buttgereit and The Wicker Man. That must be the perfect setting for Taake's monumental, brutal, folkloristic (but don’t let that freak you out) and sorrowful Black Metal. Vice: What ten albums would you bring with you in case your house was engulfed in hellfire? Hoest: Darkthrone’s A Blaze in the Northern Sky, Under a Funeral Moon, Transilvanian Hunger, Emperor’s first mini LP, Adam and the Ants’ second album, a-ha’s second, Destruction, W.A.S.P. ah, I lost count. Your lyrics are great. Do you think there are a lot of people who appreciate them, seeing as they are in Norwegian and written in ancient runes? Hoest: No, I don’t think there are a lot of people reading them even. They have been translated to the Latin alphabet on the internet though. Utflod: I’ve actually heard that in Italy the interest for Taake is so big that they’ve started giving Norwegian classes in the universities, so that people will be able to understand the lyrics, isn’t that strange! Did Christianity slaughter our souls, leaving nothing but a bloody, shattered pile of gore? Hoest: Yes, maybe. Nothing in Christianity talks about the forest, the cold winter, our geographical position and our living conditions. It doesn't speak to us because it's not our language. What scares you? Hoest: I’m afraid of going insane. Do you think you’re going to? Hoest: I don’t know. I’m just afraid of losing control. Are you a Scorpio? Hoest: No! ANTI KRISTENSSON
Taake played their presumably last ever concert at the Hole in the Sky festival this autumn, but Hoest just told us it’s only the last one for this year, probably.