Heidenlarm/a metal and neoclassical music zine
April 1, 2003
Christian metal issue

 Introduction
 Features
 Interviews
 Music
 Editorial
 Radar

Introduction

In the grand spirit of great humor like "Operation Iraqi Freedom",
mandatory Federal income tax, 2 weeks being "a lot of" vacation per
year, and Judeo-Christianity itself, we'd like to introduce our
issue for the inception of April, in which we investigate the
humorous and the insane in the metal genre (and related environs).

Features

Back to Basics: The Bands that Started Death/Black Metal

In some twisted process known as musical ideological drift,
metalheads find themselves enamored of the new, and forgetting the
old and the ideas, beliefs and emotions that motivated the creation
of these genres in the first place. This collection of five albums
of great influence is designed to explore that original forward
thrust and both its reasons for existing then, and today.

1. Massacra - Final Holocaust

Once death metal was cemented as a style, it began to lose
direction, but Massacra stepped in during the year 1987 and began to
make metal that was fast and furious like its American counterparts,
but like classical music, had a great melodicity as well as more
intensely interrelated patterns and narrative song structure. As a
result, listening to this is like wandering through the defenses of
a fortress, to find at last a central room where combat occurs and a
definitive resolution evokes memories of all details of the approach
to its location. This album has more raw energy than almost any to
come later, and almost exclusively operates through longer phrases
whipped out at high speed by tremolo strum. Because of its
complexity relative to the music trendy at the time, it was given
less credence than other albums except by musicians of the next
generation, who made obvious the influences from Massacra in their
own works.

2. Necrovore - demos

Was there ever a title to this collection of four songs? Barely
captured on tape, barely rehearsed and only available to us now
through a tenuous chain of events, this work took what Sodom and
Possessed had created aesthetically and gave it a sense of melody
within structure, instead of melody as a complement to rhythm riffs.
It utilized the minor-key slightly dissonant riffing and drilling
rhythm which is now common to death metal bands everywhere, and was
the first band to unite the aggressive image with the cadences and
vocal surfacing which would become trademark in this band's greatest
devotee, Morbid Angel.

3. Sodom - In the Sign of Evil/Obsessed by Cruelty

Inspired by Venom and primitive hardcore/crustcore bands, these two
EPs were fast and nearly broken in their musicianship, stumbling
through chord changes and often ending abruptly, leaving unresolved
tensions propulsively hanging between songs. Chromatic riffs and a
reliance on basic structure, derived from DRI-style thrash, helped
give this band its uncompromising aesthetic, but a fascination with
dark-sounding music allowed it to also stay away from rock/punk
influences and create something in which the fragments of melody
that did exist had to deliberately remain without broad openings for
harmony. The grim aesthetic, relentless energy and enigmatic
obscurity of this album inspired many in future bands.

4. Bathory - The Return

On their previous album, Bathory kicked off the death and black
metal movement by uniting the rough cut composition of Venom with a
melodic speed riffing in the structuralist style classic to metal
bands, getting away from the rock/punk-like rhythm riffs of the
British band. Melodies hang in the air over thrashing, constant-
phrase drums, creating an ambience in which from blistering
distortion phrases descend, complementing one another until a puzzle
is created and forced to confront itself, revealing its resolution
in a calm and morbid direction. Between Sodom and Bathory the
rudiments of metal were established and given their first tangible
shape and correspondence between image and ideal.

5. Sepultura - Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation

While this band later rose to great prominence with righteous and
dogmatic music, their early works aimed for a Slayer-inspired
surging motion and cryptic structuring that implied a resilient evil
coming from beyond; like Bathory and Massacra, this music is made
from power chords strung into phrase with tremolo strum, revealing
between chromatic structural elements an inner melodic tendency
which develops the song and ultimately, concludes it. The vital
member of Sarcofago was also on these two EPs, which taken together
present one of the most lucid and passionate looks at early death
metal ever provided.

-~-

Why Absurd is Cool

Most of the people who encounter the music of Absurd shudder and
back away, feeling an uncleanliness and incompleteness to the music
that is both earshaking and threatening. Raw punk/black metal with
cryptic metaphorical lyrics, odd song structures and musical
devices, and ranting members who spent time in jail for killing a
Jewish youth? In itself it seems so unbalanced as a concept, so
unfinished and mid-confrontation, far from the safe world of canned
emotions that AOR gives us. And on the surface, there's no reason
not to write it off: primitive riffing, uneven timekeeping,
distortion and ultimately very basic melodies make this unlistenable
at once to many. Yet it has an enigmatic quality, a directness and
deliberate nature to even its most rudimentary structures, which
gives it a life outside of the sum of its parts, even a second life.

Unlike most bands in black metal who are, like the satire of too
many metalheads throughout the generations, too willing to lock the
door and take out the bong and watch TV with the volume off, Absurd
aren't an act - they believe what they create, and wage war on their
own terms as they have since the infamous "satanic murder" of Sandro
Beyer. They routinely top the lists the ADL and JDL and SPLC put out
which enumerate the most evil of the illicit politics bands. Their
music is outside of all humanism, as are their ideals. Together
these facets of their lives and perspectives give these artists a
wholly alienated worldview which is ratified by the failure of
meaningful ways of bridging the gap between thinking individual and
world police-commerce state.

Further, Absurd have not stopped evolving, yet have not stepped into
the realm of the commercial or the contrived, keeping their works
balanced between appearance and function, despite numerous arrests
and albums made almost entirely during parole periods. While drummer
and vocalist Hendrik Moebus languishes in jail
(www.hendrikmoebus.com), his word is marching on, like the youth of
today both immature in its appearance but wise beyond its years in
having the energy to want to change a decaying way of life.

Absurd/Pantheon split: The Absurd side of this is enigmatically
serious yet childlike and playful at the same time, making rigid and
uncompromising hardcore of a previous generation updated with the
razorlike playing and more toneful, metallish riff structures. These
seven songs pass too quickly, with what is basically off-the-shelf
punk recombination placed into creations of profound vision and
immediate reality. In this contrast, Absurd is like a professor who
somehow joined a tribe of warlike nomads, not long in applying
complex principles to a problem to derive a simple, and enduringly
focused, answer. Although as with all Absurd releases, intensity and
production vary between tracks, the journey on which one is taken
into a lucid but disturbedly anti-social and anti-Judeo-Christian
mindset is both comfortingly outside of society's bandwidth but is
also a horrifying reminder that our current world order is all too
real. Free Hendrik Moebus/www.freehendrik.com. Pantheon is American-
sounding NSBM in the oldest school of gently draped melody and
countermelody riding a rage of percussive chaos. It pulls together
quite well and is on the whole well executed, but somehow in the
attention department drifts off sometimes. If you want a better
version of Satyricon, this band phrase a more interesting melody and
have a more developed sense of setting.

Absurd - Werwolfthron: Majestic in its unity of themes but raw and
dirty in its sound, the music of Absurd brings together classical
themes of honor and loyalty with a streetfighter's mixture of black
metal and Oi! hardcore/punk. Disconcertingly enigmatic, the result
is addictively listenable music which blossoms from simple riffing
into melodies of a decisive nature around which song arrangements
build. The harsh rasping voice that carries each song resembles that
of a dictator with chlorine scars on his throat, but in moments of
clarity and light delivers tone within its abrasive monochromatic
rhythm. Where guitar playing on the Asgardsrei, the previous Absurd
album, used Rob Darken-influenced chord voicings and pacing, on this
the guitars are purely fast and furious in the style of violent Oi!
from years past. Drumming is simplified to the point where only the
essential motions emerge from chaotic origins, and all instruments
embrace the cash-and-carry notion from punk music that the first
take is often the best. The concept behind this album is an
explanation of Nazi beliefs in three segments, divided by folk
bagpipe playing, and its tackling of anti-Semitism, anti-
Christianity and anti-Capital is unified by a cuttingly aggressive
dissidence. While many might have trouble finding reasons to like
this, after a handful of listens its vision and artistic range
become predominant in the mind of the hearer.

Absurd - Facta Luquuntur: In boxy rhythms with marching cadences and
anthemic melodies, Absurd have made a fusion of black metal and the
oi hardcore punk, in doing so infusing a classicist sense of ancient
melody into violent resound, matching their themes of epic loss and
conflict. Clumsily strapped-together songs focus around bouncing oi
beats or black metal rowing chants in the style of Nordicist
projects such as Storm. Melodic conceptualization follows the upper-
echelon of black metal, who fashioned from chromatic parameters a
similar modal understanding of melody to Bach, who with his fugues
demonstrated overlays of melody so to produce a harmonic theme in
multiple variations. This works with the articulate and almost
purringly distorted vocals, howled with the best black metal throat
possible and alternatingly sung in unsteady but fervent tone. Epic
perspective is added through mixing powerfully centric melodies with
melodic and rhythmic breakup for added tension which is resolved
magnificently in the declarative themes for each song. It's not
punk, metal or Germanic folk music, but a fusion of all three with
more spirit than technical precision, but a vital energy that few
bands of any genre achieve.

Absurd - Asgardsrei: Making protest music designed to cut to the
core of the alienated human being by appealing to his inner child at
the same time summoning wardemons through a concept and image of
outright hostility and fascism, Absurd make "absurdist" music that
is mostly distorted and unsteady hardcore with convoluted but
minimalist song structures, using only the simplest and most
seemingly imprecise methodology in instrumentalism. Compositionally,
it merges this sense of aesthetic and rhythmic structure with a
sense of granular melody inducted into its stream of power chord
phrasing, in a style used from Oi to Impaled Nazarene. Drums are a
ticking machine churning at a throbbing pace with only the most
basic structural divisions of song interrupting, pacing vocals
alternating between a growled black metal howl and a youthful clean
vocal. Militant tempo and ragged guitars incite action and enhance
the already-krystallnacht-clear image of this band, as does the
guest microphone appearance by Der Führer on track three. Reviled
universally for aesthetic and ideological reasons, this music is a
confrontation between the externalist and the inner sense of
structure, as its abstraction and composition are excellent, but
production and rendering deliberately ruined for esoteric reasons.
In this sense the hateful jester of Absurd serves in the eternal
role of art as provocateur and speaker of the forbidden, while for
those who successfully parse its artistic codex the emotional basis
in concept behind it will open to display the flayed soul of social
rejection during the last days of humanity that Absurd capture with
élan.

-~-

Classical Music for Metalheads

While rock music was designed to provide a constant throbbing beat
and rhythmic emphasis of harmony, metal music has since Black
Sabbath used phrasing itself as a means of producing riffs, thus
creating a "metal sound" that is both melodic and intensely related
to harmony and rhythm. Because rock music, once achieving a key or
note, rarely ventures beyond repetition and has no changing dynamic
topography, it is entirely different from metal, which uses an
inherently narrative structure owing to the melodic structuralism
inherent in its style of power-chord riff progression, in which a
poetic conclusion to a series of motifs is offered in the form of a
master or concluding riff. Looking at this historically, the most
obvious influence for this type of composition is classical and
baroque music, in part as filtered through progressive rock and
jazz, both ancestors of metal.

For this issue, we offer a brief guide to some of the classical
albums most likely to attract metalheads in conversion to this
artform which, uniquely throughout history, has resisted conformity
with a Romantic and often Nationalist spirit, and offers greater
complexity and thus listening pleasure than any form of popular
music (1 classical album = 5 metal albums, 10-15 rock albums, 8
country albums and 7 jazz albums, in terms of amount of music
offered, alone). Read through the following descriptions and
consider your own response to this music; if you're ready for a
challenge and perhaps some learning, these are all widely available
for under $10.

1. Ludwig van Beethoven - Ninth Symphony

It's not as well-known as his fifth, which is thunderous and has
lots of fireworks but is also almost too well recognized to be heard
objectively, and provides a technical view of the relationship
between notes as well as the artistic challenge of making a coherent
statement stretch through a piece of music of this length. Like a
good novel, it cruises through scenes and experiences without pause,
enclosing the listener in every human emotion known before arriving
at a triumphantly naturalistic finale.

2. Robert Schumann - First Symphony

A densely Romantic symphony, this work makes no attempt to hide its
passions which come on like a popular piece, but then interweave in
a complexity of changing texture of pattern. Quite many beautiful
and absurdly musically profound phrases here in varying lengths,
forms and rhythms, but the music develops its strength from the
ability to return to themes through either extremely selective
repetition or use of obliquely similar phrases. Additionally, this
makes unexceptional but precisely tasteful use of the orchestra, and
is probably one of the better pieces to introduce metalheads (or
anyone else who likes Romantic and epic music) to classical.

3. Johannes Brahms - Fourth Symphony

Like a host of spectres, this music haunts with its carefully coiled
layers which serpentine uncoil in the mind of the listener as each
piece is unravelled over time. No punches are pulled here and one of
its dominant traits is a seeming literality that gives way to an
idealism, sweeping up associated metaphors and making from them a
clear point of view, which is then abstracted to a larger point of
view with heroic spirit, before the piece moves on, like a good
mystery novel, to the next level of its explication. While this is
serious in both outlook and development, it hides a truly
judgmentless passionate side that is at play with all aspects of
life.

4. Edvard Grieg - Peer Gynt

The art of melody and repeated, layered motifs with slight changes
used to introduce vaster thematic shifts, as a means of construction
and emblem of design philosophy, marks this piece as one gratifying
to many relative newcomers to classical music. While it has
distinctive melodies and depth of immersion in change throughout, it
does not bow to the need to create handily packaged ideas for
general consumption, and thus like a winding forest hides its secret
joys as inscrutably as its deepest sorrows, allowing sensation to
arise evanescent from the listening experience, after it is over.

5. Andrés Segovia - 1927-1939 vol II

To many of us, the flashy rock and blues and jazz guitarists of the
last century have seemed mundane in that, once you strip away their
technique and tangential accents, they are essentially random in
nature and require tedious background music to be able to make
harmonic sense of what they are playing. Not so with Segovia, who
adapts classical music both written for guitar and other instruments
to an incredibly versatile style, often keeping two rhythmic motions
afloat which commenting on them with a lead that is both lyrical and
unflinchingly alert in its percussive intonations, creating a
miniature ensemble at his fingertips. Consequently these pieces are
presented through uniform instrumentation and in exacting tonal
parity, with the forgotten secret of classical music both on and off
guitar, a dramatic improvisation which stays within motif but
juggles several contravailing strains of musical idea in a melange
which ultimately, affirms both structure and recombination. For
metalheads who have come to love the guitar, this album is a
breathtaking and eye-opening listen.

Note: you can get all of these in mp3 format at no charge here:
http://www.anus.com/metal/about/mp3/

Interviews

Luke LaVellian 
of NON SERVIAM

1. what for you makes a metal band great?

Luke LaVellian: "The Vibe". It's something that almost defies
description. It cannot be faked and can only be birthed by pure
Aryan creativity. For example, Darkthrone "has it" while nigger-
fronted Sepultura does not. Secondarily, the lyrics are quite
important to me. Racial and occult themes are musts.

2. do you think death/black metal music are closer to the music of
antiquity than the more rock-based musics like heavy metal or speed
metal or punk?

LL: Absolutely. Varg Vikernes once said that his music didn't derive
from negro "rock and roll" but was a new form to express the ancient
Aryan spirit. I fully agree. Ted Nugent is retreaded afro-noise.
Hellhammer/Celtic Frost owes nothing to the works of American
negroes.

3. is it pride or racism to write songs about one's own culture and
no others, or are racism and pride in culture inseparable in your
view?

LL: They are the same to me. Where pride for one's race is present,
hatred for what/who threatens it is never far behind. So-called
"racism" is as natural as it gets. How much pride would one honestly
have for his immediate family for instance, if it wouldn't really
matter too much if someone killed them? It is double-speak to
prattle on about love for one's culture not including a hatred for
what incessantly attacks and imperils it. It absolutely sickens me
when some in the "metal" community write "Bono/Sting" type material
decrying their ancestors treatment of stone-age Asians (injuns),
niggers etc. The inclusion of even one such "ode to whiggerism"
ruins the whole disc for me.

4. do you have any spiritual/religious beliefs?

LL: It would be most accurate to describe me as an agnostic with
strong Odinist leanings.

5. what is your opinion of pro-white activists who follow what many
consider to be a jewish religion, christianity?

LL: Any religion that rejects the jews and condemns race-mixing can
be tolerated by the resistance. While not sharing the views of the
Christian Identity folks, I respect them for their opposition to
Zionist mono-culture and their extreme hate towards jewsish people
and the state of Israel. Almost all the CI folks I've spoken to have
been fully accepting of me, so I return the favor.

6. do your friends and neighbors and coworkers know of your
political views?

LL: Close associates are fully aware of where I'm coming from, but I
need to work behind enemy lines so I play it close to the vest with
most people.

7. do you view politics as separate from culture and philosophy and
art, or are these necessarily conjoined systems of thought?

LL: Culture and philosophy are political as far as I am concerned.
It is all intertwined. Zionists are being political when they sells
us laundrey detergent, when they surround Britney Spears with nigger
and spic dancers who paw at her, or when their talking head butt-
goys read us the scripted news every night. The pop psychologist
"Dr.Phil" types are political. "Dr. Laura" is political. All promote
the gutter philosophy of judaism/freemasonry. ALL accepted art,
philosophy, music, movies, etc. are Zionist or at least "stamped
kosher" by the kike komissars. Our new Aryan media we are creating
will do the same thing in the opposite direction. Instead of looking
at things through a kosher prism, we will put the historically
authentic Aryan "spin" on it. For instance, my vision for NON
SERVIAM includes it being a print publication, NS Black metal band,
as well as it having a strong internet presence.

8. how did you come to have the beliefs that you do?

LL: I disliked being forced to have dealings with non-Aryans
basically from day one. When I was four I got in trouble in
preschool for telling a nigger kid to "get clean". I assumed his
skin was the color it was because he didn't bathe! I always hated
blackness and quickly learned to didlike hispanics to. Unlike the
propaganda that states that "racism is taught", I truly was born
predisposed to liking my own kind and rejecting those of non-kindred
peoples. As a teen, I began seriously thinking about the issues
affecting our race, and became a voracious reader. It wasn't so much
that I was "learning" new things as much as it felt that I was
"remembering" them. Racism is a spiritual thing that I feel is
shared by all pure and sensitive Aryans.

9. your essays are funny, insightful and obviously designed to
provoke. what is/are your goal(s) in writing these?

Thank you very much. From the beginning my thinking was to write the
kind of stuff I would enjoy reading. I wanted to say to other highy-
aware and pissed off Aryans that "Hey, you're not alone." I also
must admit that I enjoy how upset that kikes and mud-cruds become
when exposed to my honest thoughts concerning them. Another
important thing is that I hate seeing my people conned into
following no-win strategies put forward by bogus movement
personalities that are only out for a buck. Poseurs who are
preaching the same old CONservative dreck that has failed our people
for the last half-century, are often targets of my written wrath.
They deserve to be.

10. someone recently criticized the NSBM ("National Socialist Black
Metal") scene for being all talk and no action. how do you see the
situation?

LL: I think this is borne of ignorance of the two-tiered nature of
the resistance. The aboveground activist is there to inform/motivate
the underground. The NSBM bands are "doing something" by drawing
others into the kind of thinking necessary for steeling oneself for
what is coming. The aboveground groups and activists cannot be
involved in illegality.

11. the USA is about to go to war with iraq. do you see it "it's the
oil, stupid", "it's the religion, stupid" or another attribution for
this war?

LL: It is primarily about remaking the middle-east into a region far
safer for the bastard state of what I like to call "Isn'tReal". The
jews are masters at creating coalitions of corrupt gentiles to front
for them. For a small group of racial traitors, oil certainly is an
issue. But for every oil tycoon there are a million judeo-christian
lap-curs who worship their executioners, the trollish hebrew breed.

12. are you in favor of democracy, or against it?

LL:Completely against. It is a corrupt, duplicitous construct by its
very nature. Only a kike could praise such a system. There is no
need for "party politics" in an Aryan society predicated on the good
of the race.

13. do you play any instruments?

LL: No, unless my voice counts.

14. what are your opinions on the activities in which most americans
indulge, including but not limited to fast food, video games,
movies, television and group sex?

LL: If Amercians spent 1/10th the time reading substantive materials
as they do filling their various orifices and ingesting zionist
cultural pabulam, the world would be remade in short order. Most
Americans make me sick. Maybe that isn't "nice", but it is how I
feel.

15. are there any forms of literature which interest you?

LL: Yes. Nordic Mythology, occult books, horror, german philosophy,
books on sucessful war leaders/revolutionaries.

16. what do you think metal could do to make itself relevant to the
coming age?

LL: Black/Death Metal must remain pure. I feel it is a form that can
never be sucesfully "co-opted" by the enemy, so I am quite hopeful
for its future. It should stay truly "evil" and adversarial towards
the status quo that is quite literally murdering the Northern Aryan
peoples of the earth. The rage must never abate until there is
nothing left of our enemies for us to smash and defile.

17. what is your opinion of the metal community as an agent of
change?

LL: I think it is extraordinarily powerful already and will only
grow in influence. I am already starting to see some metal zines
accepting ads for openly racist bands. Things are being thought
about and discussed that only a few years ago were forbidden to most
"decent" White youth. What is "beyond the pale" today will one day
be as accepted as the sun rising in the morning.

18. do you think ideology has a necessary place in music? in art?

LL: Absolutely. Ideology is ever-present. There is no neutrality in
art. It is either good or bad in a racial sense.

19. it seems to me history is a series of cycles finding variable
answers to issues which never change. which cycles do you see
evident in the current time? how do you think these will
resolve/change?

LL:We are most definitely in a "deconstruction" phase, at present. A
battle of Ragnarok proportions is no doubt in America's future. ZOG
has sown the seeds and harvest time is at hand. It is what comes
afterward that concerns me.

20. was the NSDAP an "ultra-modern" regime, or a traditionalist one?

LL: I'd say it was both. It combined a quite progressive economic
approach while honoring the ways of the ancient Teutonic spirit. It
both tapped into what once had been and dealt with the then current
requirements of the German people. Hitler was truly a genius.

21. what do you think of osama bin laden?

LL: I respect him and share his loathing for the ZOG. I think all
peoples have the right to fight for self-determination and living
space exclusively for their own kind.

22. how did george bush get elected, and who are his primary
supporters?

a) 5-4 supreme court decision 
b) kikes and judeo-christian lunatics.

23. many american christians support israel because of a perceived
religious kinship, but many more seem to support israel so that the
"end times" can come (predicated on the successful return of jews to
the holy land and some other factors). in which ways do you
interpret this to be a culmination of the judeo-christian faiths?

LL: I think it "fits" their so-called holy books,at least by their
understanding of them. But I of course, don't accept their rubbish
about a thousand-year reign of a jewish "Jesus" in a new world order
based in Jurasalem. I think the "prophecies" (or at least their
interpetations of them) are self-serving jew dreck. Spritual flotsam
and jetsam. The whole judeolotrous faith to me is just a way to
rationalize cowardice and a complete contempt for one's own
children. A more cowardly flight from reason and duty would be hard
to imagine.

24. which philosophers do you enjoy, and where do you think history
has proven them to lack certain parts of foresight?

LL: Friedrich Nietzsche- not nearly hard enough on the jews and
lacked insight into the judeo-masonic agenda to mongrelize/murder
the Aryan race.

    Ragnar Redbeard: He really was pretty much right on. I'd be hard
    pressed to come up with anything he missed.

25. do you believe in the soul?

LL: As an agnostic with strong Odinist leanings, I am open to the
idea of a "soul".

26. please add here anything else i've failed to ask, or which would
be interesting.

LL: Well, I've enjoyed the interview. I thank you for the chance to
share some of my views with your readers. If any of them would like
to subscribe to my "NON SERVIAM" internet newletter, they may send a
blank email to : lukelavellian@occultmail.com write "subscribe" in
the subject line.

LUKE LAVELLIAN
http://users.mo-net.com/mlindste/g_bruer.html

-~-

MkM 
of ANTAEUS

Editor's note: this originally appeared in issue #3 of the zine
"voices wake us..." ("Voices Wake Us..." Zine. $1ppd.
voiceswakeuszine@hotmail.com) but it can be disseminated freely so
long as this notice remains intact.

("Voices Wake Us..." Zine. $1ppd. voiceswakeuszine@hotmail.com)

1. First off, what is your name and what part do you play in the
band (instrument or vocals, etc.)?

vokalist, disease holder of AntaeuS. Satanik stigmata & preacher of
the Void. 27 years old up to this day, non dead to most humans.
Frontman & main voice for AntaeuS, I do speak for Him.

2. Now to the real questions. Black Metal's legendary "first wave"
included so many legendary bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone, and
Immortal. Many conclude that the evolution of BM ceased after this
period, so what do you think Antaeus' relation is to the progression
of the art? Is it justifiable to be merely more extreme? Can
anything be added to the music at this point that has not been done
already?

Black Metal does mix both ideology & musick, on this level, I would
have to point out that most of nowadays bands have no linkz with the
real meaning of this Art.

Immortal never really took part of the bm kult, though their sound
is very similar, their concept would be more based on northern
landscapes, while bands like dark throne & mayhem had a more
nihilitic death feels to the lyrikz & the aura was a bit more
depressive in most cases.

We are payin hommage to those bands of the second wave, for their
dedication in the early days & the message they did spread. We do
evolve in the same vein, we hold the same message & our speech is
based on hatred, denial of life & anything that would be related to
"holyness" any religions wise, anything "human" related would be a
target.

Black metal = SataN in its most strikt vision, we here speak of
death, total death & the praise of the vortex that would swallow
all. Though the utopia of such an ending is known of us, we do work
in this way, spreading our disease & disgust of life and the concept
related to it.

Sound wise, we are more extreme than the suscited bands, we couldn't
perform the same of art, for multiple reasons : we do breed violence
more than depression (as individuals) & we do perform what we are &
breath. The band is composed of 5 individuals more or less evolving
on the Hate path. Me & Set being at the forefront of this, & since
we are the main composer (him for the music & I being the sole
responsible for any lyrikz & propaganda), we are the trademark of
AntaeuS.

Also our approach is more destruktive than the "90s" gloomy approach
of darkness, while they were opening gates of despair, we are
opening gates of torment & pain.

Both are as effective, I truely find my inspiration in both, but
violence is our key, our vektor.

Feel his pulse through us.

We are one stone of the edifice.

Black Metal is like a kathedral of Hate, it is not a question of
evolution, the "evil"ution within takes place within the rankz of
devotee evolving & praising the kult.

3. You have expressed dissatisfaction with the Cut Your Flesh and
Worship Satan album as being too rushed in the studio. To me, I can
say I do not think it harms the record and adds to the urgency of
the album. However, you have a new album coming out and will this be
different and in what way a "representation" of the band that we
have not already seen?

Somehow you are right, now that the album is older to my ears (two
years or so) I get to listen to it in different perspectives, not
rekalling all the shitty detailz about its conception & its
spreading.

CYFAWS was a gathering of mostly old trackz, like demos & reh
tracks, all gathered on the same full lenght. Only one track never
appeared anywhere before the cd release (though I am not even too
sure about that now, I should check the live tape on chanteloup
creations...) also the cd had three different rekording on it, which
was a bit messy & made it sound more like a recollection than
anything else.

Now, I think that baphomet did allow the band to put all together
the most efficient earlier track of the band (inner war, devotee,
nihil khaos...) but a rerecording of the whole album would have been
best, now that would be the main complain about this lp.

Also this album did cost us a lot of money, but I do not fool
myself, it is the same way for many bands around here, still having
labels to cash on your work without being fair to the band is
something I will never tolerate. That made me freak out, the band
never got a fuckin cent out of the sale of the band, considering it
did reach around 3000 copies (which is amazing to us, we never
expected this much) one could easily guess that we got massively
fucked on this one.

DE PRINCIPII EVANGELIKUM the newest release presents a more compact
release, being composed on a two years basis, the whole has a more
"united" strukture & lyrikz wise, that did allow me to have
something fully solid. This time the lyrikz are included, I had the
time to type all in time so people will finally get to understand
what lies behind antaeus, though it will remain obscure to most or
simply fucked up.

DPE is less easy to get into, it took me a few month to get into
some trackz myself, having one hell of a hard time to lay vokalz on
those & get the whole strukture in the reh' room

The band does reh' around 6/7 hours per week in the reh' room & more
when we get nearer to live exp or studio rekording. We get ridd off
a lot of material, our work is very serious & we are making sure to
have the most efficient offering to the black metal kult.

I think that one thing that would lack on DPE would be the intro
sektion that are truely important to me, this time the drummer & I
did lack time to meet & do something of my taste, that is my main
"negative critic" to the new album. Next release shall see a return
to those sonic landscapes & all the frustration that did hide behind
those.

4. Many BM bands are one-person projects (Burzum, Bathory, Taake,
Krieg, Ildjarn, eventually Emperor, and at times Darkthrone). What
is the band construct of Antaeus? How does the song-writing process
work and who does most of the "legwork" for the band, ie: setting up
gigs and record-related business. Any comments on past members or
development of the band over time?

You would mention there strongminded individuals that had one hard
time finding the right members to perform their art with, or simply
couldn't deal with others, due to ego conflikts.

I was just a session member in the early days, being too busy with
my zine & my distribution (& my former band)

When AntaeuS turned into a virus in me, I felt like it had to evolve
further than the limitations that the main man back then had for it.
I think that all took shape when I got hold of all the strukture of
AntaeuS, getting set as main guitarist was the best move ever, since
we have known each other for years & we had the same musikal taste
(for the early 90s sound, nowadays we tend to listen to different
aktz yet our basis are the same).

Drum wise, we decided to get ridd off the drum machine & never
changed since.

Bass & rythm guitar wise, we might have had more than 20 different
members within the band, but in 98 we did finally find the right
one, being also involved in Eternal Majesty with whom we did a split
demo back then. I did know them since they were working a lot with
SPIKEKULT (since their first demo, "dark empire").

Since then, the line up is perfekt & all of us are united & work on
the musikal struktures.

For all the rest, interviewz, ideals, propaganda, kontaktz, ALL is
done by me & me only. Mostly due to the fact that I am the only one
speakin & writtin in english.

That does take a lot of my time, due to this I did stop all others
implications (my zine, other bands & even spikekult for some
months/years).

We do not seek gigs really, since conditions are always fuckin
ridiculous or awful, I try to avoid to the max getting to play live,
though we had two or three great shows since 94; mostly over the two
past years.

Getting gas money & some beers seems to be the VERY best we could
get in europe, even if we perform in front of 300 people... the cost
to rent a place is so high that none could ever pay the band.

5. A couple reviews I've read of CYFaWS, while positive, have
accused the band of not bringing anything new to the table.
Stylistically, I would say that Antaeus is a) faster (I'd say only
Krieg is as fast), b) more "grind", c) less atmospheric, d) more
brutal and divided into penetrating structures of noise than in an
"epic" sense of many bands. Agree? What is the aesthetic you are
going for here, other than just "fast." Because it is definitely a
unique and not just a retro sound.

I do agree with those reviewz, still we never did claim to bring
anything to new, so I sometimes wonder why we are accused of that,
just like we were lyin about it.

True, we are faster, though I would use "more brutal" instead, since
speed for itself doesn't mean much to us, tons of swedish bands are
playin hyper fast, but both the drumz & riffs are without any
effects on the listener.

Brutality & Hate are the main faktors in AntaeuS sound, we do hold
this pulse & seek to create such aura within any rekording of ours.

Our epic approach might be linked to the tension we do put in the
rekordin process.

The grind aspect cannot be denied as well, musik wise, some bands
are truely unique to me, but the message, most of the time, would be
simply ridiculous or be the opposite of my ideas.

Older grind bands had more of a dark or sick approach compared to
today's fun/gore/political bands.

6. Hate is a large concept of the band. Does this reach over into
politics at all? Many BM are clearly fascist, a politics based on
hate, while others are nihilistic (and in that sense, partially
anarchistic). Views of politics in yourself and in the scene?

Hate is anywhere, but most politics would serve some instead of
others, while we support the death of ALL; all those fascist bands
are always a source of interrogation in my kamp. All those linked to
black metal & openly using both the sigils of SataNism & those of
Nazism are creating a nonsense to me.

the nihilistic part is often dealing with one hope for a brighter
future, built on the ashes of nowadays society & values.

I do not have any hope of this kind, the only hope I have is
tattooed on my chest.

Let's go back on the nonsense, I don't care about NS bands as long
as they are not linked with black metal. Politics would limit the
initial meaning of black metal.

NSBM seems more serious to the young than the "inverted cross",
since it would represent something more "socially involved", having
to deal with values that would be more "linked" to todays world &
having more impact due to the importance of sigils (ie : the use of
swastika or SS sigils are full of meaning & related to happening
that took place less than a century ago). Politics are giving black
metal a more "humanistic" approach, which I don't really understand.
I would understand sadistik exekution using SS symbols or funeral
mist for their vision of death in general, but as far as "human
values" are involved, I simply don't get it.

Any individuals mixin bm with ns should realize that there is
already a scene for that, anything metal related is more or less
viewed as "outcast" due to the code of life (destruktive, alcohol,
aggression)...

anyway when I think of those teens doing "sieg heil" here & there
with their beers & long hair, they would be among the first to enter
the gas kamp that does make me laugh

Death is the main goal anyway.

7. In what sense is Antaeus a "do it yourself" band that controls
the aspects of recording, promotion, management, and production
itself? You are clearly dedicated to the underground, but many
people are not familiar with the metal underground as much as the
more-established and cohesive American punk underground. How does
the underground work and how much is Antaeus a separate entity from
outside control and influence of labels, promoters, etc?

A would be my band then, since I would be responsible for most of
those aspects.

Being honest, I am not too aware of the punk scene, though got to
meet up with some labels from around here pressing punk vinylz &
their scene seemed much more "supportive" & less "inner war" in
between labels & so on. I might have a wrong of it though.

I would be totally dedicated to one aspect of the ug scene, which I
could describe as the only real scene, with true sick freakz & not
wannabes & morons of any kind that would pollute the bm kult.

those idiots are numerous & for the past years, I would have spent
way too much time on those inbreed fags instead on workin on my code
of life & supporting what had to be supported with the scene (bands
& labels wise). Now we are viewed as traitors to most, since we did
sign to Osmose.

Osmose allows us a studio rekording budget & having the whole
distribution in their hand, I could never deal with that myself, my
daily job takes around 50 hours per week now (compared to 70 h per
week for last year) which makes it nearly impossible to cope with
the mail & any correspondance in general. Even reh' with the band
got closed to impossible for me. All is getting better now, but as
far as I am concerned, if A didn't sign to Osmose, all would have
stopped. I couldn't go on paying 300 usd per month for the band, not
having enough to cope for my own living cost.

Now we do loose less cash, but we still loose. So when I get to read
that we did become fucking rockstars or sell out, I might ask to
whom did we sell out???

A band selling 5000 copies (which even ain't our case) could never
live out of it, I am sure that you are aware of that, but many
readers out there that did write us do think that we do earn enough
money with the band to live with....

It was ok to reply to those questions the first years, but after a
while, it killed me that most people wouldn't get how it workz...

But hell, we are talking about fuckin labels detailz & how bands are
getting fucked most of the time

Right now with Osmose, all is doing ok, we just did spend around 400
usd for this one, (lay out & mastering) since we did excess a bit
the budget allowed for the studio rekording.

8. How is the French "scene?" Are there many bands, zines, or venues
to play in? Are there a lot of posers?

Scene in france is not my fave subjekt, I did support many bands
from around here in the past, being proud of my "local scene", but
all those bands did fuckin backstabb us for no reasons or so.
"allies of today are the backstabbers of tomorrow", thus I don't
mention too much about bands from around here.

There is a fair deal of akts though, most of them are amateurish to
the core & spending more time in front of camera or doing shirtz
than working on the musikal parts.

All of them are envious little morons who are offended when they
realize it is not that "easy" to have a cd out. They all think that
demos are useless & that the underground is just a chat room on the
net.

For the older ones, we had either conflikts with them or totally
different views.

Apart from a few dozen individual in the whole france, we don't get
along too much with individuals from around here.

I had my fair deal of war around here.

In the newer band ; dark opus & aosoth are among my faves

DEATHSPELL OMEGA must be the ultimate black metal band the
traditionnal way. END ALL LIFE is without any doubt the best vinyl
bm label, they must have by now the CYFAWS on lp out, & that is one
Honour for us to be on that label.

Zines? well 666 is the best in the extreme bm/dm way, eternal fire
was killer too but defunct (or simply no newz from them since long),
stregoica was kult in its dayz, now they are doing ordealis rekords
which is very promising (killer work from their part),
deadfuckinchurch is a good zine but he said that his final issue
will be the next...

Some distro are great too, like paleur mortelle & warchangel.

AntaeuS will have a split 10" with AOSOTH on Paleur Mortelle
(akhaeus@aol.com) in the comin month btw.

Gigs wise, the audience is way better than any us gigs that I got to
visit (& I had my fair deal of us deals over the three or four stayz
I did over there), we usually get from 150 to 400 nowadays, but
places are not so numerous & each venues does cost around 2000 to
3000 usd to rent for a night, with such prices, no bands would get
any payment, asking for gas payment is already a dream for bands.

Due to that, in 2001, antaeus only performed live Once.

We did perform a bit more over the past months, with bands like
nargaroth, taake, enthroned, eternal majesty...

The last hellish gig we did do was in Paris with taake & enthroned,
our best set ever since 2001;

In nov 002 we will be among the opening bands for the DEICIDE
european tour, we shall desecrate new countries & I do expekt that
tour I must say.

9. Most BM has diverged into "symphonic," commercial crap. I'm sure
you have some ventings on bands like this (Dimmu Borgir, Anorexia
Nervosa, Ancient), or on "retro" bands like Dark Funeral. To many,
Black Metal must remain underground and elite, and yet within it are
elements that are more palatable to the masses- a band like Immortal
proving that BM can be commodified over time. Thoughts on this
phenomenon in Black Metal?

Like anywhere, when you get an artistic style that would be
perceived as elitist & underground, one will have the wish to
"extand" it on a different level, for various reasons.

Some considers that the message should not be limited to one handful
of individuals

some seems to think that they would sell more rekords having an
"evil" image Some just find it "cool" to use such imagery Others are
living the black metal kult, on a daily basis.

Music wise, I am closed minded when it comes to black metal, not
opening myself too much to new genres, though I did try to pay
attention to all those bands poppin up & crossing goth, indus & so
on with black metal.

I must admit that diabolicum & mysticum were the only one that did
match my expektations when it comes to the aura created.

On the other level, I also pay attention to the "performers", for
example : Anorexia Nervosa is often quoted as fag band, mostly due
to the COF sounding of the musick. But on a personal level, the
frontman is really a sicko & is among those few individuals I
consider. Yet he would be a bit too much "rock n roll" sometimes eh
too much drugz & autodestruction for me (which does provide a smile,
that does you an idea on how fucked the man can be) aktually I think
that when you get to meet him, he would be more in his place
belongin to sadistik exekution than anorexia (musick wise) Ancient &
dimmu borgir never made it to me, not even one track from their
early days (the ep of ancient was ok though).

You did qualify some elements of black metal as "palatable" for the
masses, yet we have to redefine masses then, since those masses
would be the "extreme metal scene" which is not that wide, only a
few thousands people I would say.

Not something that could be play on the air of any local radio show
& musical tv shows or whatever. We are not dealing with "pop" music.
But I do agree, black metal did sadly evolve to a wider audience &
that doesn't mean that the real audience did grow bigger, just that
it did expand to people that simply don't get a clue of what real
black metal is about.

Having some individuals to compare napalm death to dark throne
amazes me... the only link between those bands is mostly in the
instruments used & some beats. (& some would kill me for the "rythm"
comparaison)

Anyway, on our level, like other bands, we remain an underground
band, you will most likely always find "cyfaws" & "dpe" on cd
format, but we will go on doing limited tapes & vinylz. Only for
those few sick ones that are also the pulse of the band.

It does mean a lot to us to be supported by like minded individuals,
band members or zine editors or just listeners.

I do not get much letters in that vein, but with those few with whom
we share visions, getting to read some comments on AntaeuS work is
always rewarding.

Our satanik audio violence would be a weapon & only some individuals
know how to handle it & how to view it properly.

10. Carcass or Bolt Thrower? Pick one.

Fuck... Bolt Thrower

at least they didn't change & "cenotaph" is an instant classic for
me, such as the "in the battle there is no law" lp. carcass had
amazing trackz but fuckin wimped out too much for my taste.

11. When can we expect the new album (on Osmose, right?) and will
there ever be an American tour??

the new rekordin shall be out on sept 23rd in europe, so obviously a
bit later in the usa, osmose doesn't have a distributor over there I
think, so most releases are available mostly through ug mailorders &
so on. I doubt one will find it as easily as CYFAWS over there. I
seriously doubt on the american tour thing, though I wish we could
go over there & perform with bands like black witchery, thornspawn,
krieg, demoncy, gbk & so on. Since we are doing a european tour for
"DPE" in november, as opening band for Deicide, I am not nearly sure
that no tour will happen until the next release (the third album
that is).

Having us on a european tour would mean getting the band on a bigger
"bill", having an headlining band that could make it possible. As of
now, I have no big expectation about a us tour, since it seems
nearly impossible, we are not "selling" enough to be pushed that
way.

The Deicide tour is already something really expensive.

In the future, who knowz? but I wouldn't be surprised if the band
never gets to perform over there.

Bands like marduk, satyricon & others took forever to go to the
other continent & most of the time, itz like a money vortex more
than anything else.

Time shall tell, we still have to perform over here first, that is
our territory & we haven't visited more than three countries as of
now (which would be like performin in three different states for a
us bands).

12. To you, what is most important in sustaining black Metal into
the coming years, as it is increasingly an "endangered" form of
music?

I see it that way : Evil will never dies, it might change shape, as
long as some form of Art will be dedicated to its "grandeur", I see
no problem with it

Black Metal has somehow a more raw approach to it, a darker
incarnation meant to appeal to more extreme masses, thus a minority
of individuals are truely meant to understand fully the concept
behind this genre.

Black metal is nowadays marketed as a musical genre only, with
gimmicks to help the sales. Many bands did take the opportunity to
rise using those "eye catching" ideas related to black metal.

13. Your top 5 BM records?

DarkThrone "a blaze in the northern sky"
Funeral Mist "devilry"
Katharsis "666" + "red eye of wrath" demo
Blasphemy "fallen angel of doom"
Beherit "D. down the moon" (& oath of the black blood)

those are the ultimate

gettin near to that, I'd add sadistik exekution (all releases),
profanatica, demoncy, krieg... I'd easily give 20 names that would
represent the whole list of bands I really support.... Giving 30
names would be impossible though. not enough bands have individuals
matchin the right ideology one should have within the bm scene.

14. Thanks for the interview! Good luck on your upcoming record and
in the inevitable Satanic victory over the forces of light. Have a
nice day

Forces of Light are forces of lies as well, they are their own
failure & we shall be the witness & the temptation for them.

Take a look in the abyss & the abyss will stare back at you

For we hold the ultimate void, we shall go on, we are Omega.

ANTAEUS cyfaws.free.fr

VOICES WAKE US voiceswakeuszine@hotmail.com

-~-

Seth Putnam
of ANAL CUNT

1. is society evolving or devolving? is there a difference in your
view?

i don't really pay attention to what goes on in the world very much.
i'm not that interested. i've had times when i had some interest
here and there, but not in a long time. i think the worst thing
going on is forced multiculturalism and wiggers. if you compare t.v.
and popular things now to even as short as 20 years ago, everything
is completely different.

2. it seems that recent generations celebrate frustration, futility
and fatalism over such ancient values as "changing one's situation
in life" or "enacting change through mass death." of which
perspective would you be more inclined to speak favorably?

it depends what mood i'm in.

3. one great philosopher once suggested that outside of the fear of
death, the only real agenda on most people's minds was finding a way
around their self-confidence issues. do you think this is true, and,
if so, what did you or do you do to strengthen your self-confidence?

i don't think that's the only real agenda, i'm not sure what is
though. one think that's easy to strengthen your self confidence
that works for me is drinking alcohol. some people might think
that's lame, but it works for me.

4. your music seems to be demonstrative in that there is not focus
on finding musical devices as much as making blasting, battering,
basic songs that hammer home the sardonic nature of the title used
as chorus line. what is your attitude toward music, and what makes
one band great and another shit, in your view?

i hate music and can't live without it at the same time. it's not a
very easy answer. i basically like every kind of music, but a very
small amounts of each genre. as to whether bands are good or not,i
take bands on a band by band basis. it all depends on what mood i'm
in. also, after listening to a band, say like black sabbath, for
many many years, i'll like them, but if a new band sounds just like
them, or maybe even better, i probably won't like them because they
are too much of a ripoff, or i heard them too later on. i think some
bands get "grandfathered" in if you've listened to them forever.
i've loved negative approach for about 20 years now, but if a new
band sounded like them, i might not like them. over time also, what
was considered extreme 20 years ago is nothing compared to what's
out now. one newer band i like, that i wouldn't have liked 20 years
ago is buckcherry. everything they do is a complete ripoff of
something else, but they are ripping off bands no one else does
anymore, and they're really good,if not better at it. basically,
there is no "cut and dry" approach to what i like and dislike. a lot
of bands i originally hated end up being some of my favorite
bands(village people,culture club,morbid angel,etc). i tend to not
like too much after 1985 though.

5. of the metal to which you listen now, which bands do you think
have surpassed what possessed and sepultura did in 1985, - and/or -
is there a way to surpass the past, or has music remained unchanged
and only the perceptions of the crowd changed?

i am very unfamiliar with most metal stuff after 1985(also, i never
liked sepultura). to much boring shit started coming out around
then, and i got disinterested. there might be some great bands after
1985, but i wouldn't know. i also don't trust anyones opinion on
music. i thought some of the early morbid angel stuff (thy kingdom
come demo)was hilarious when it came out, but i ended up liking it
after hearing it enough. i'm sure there are tons of heavier bands
since 1985, but i don't care that much. the only comparison i can
give would be some older person saying everything after the beatles
is horrible. some people seem to have an end time period to what
they listen to, and maybe only a couple newer bands might escape
into being liked. i kind of lose interest after 1985, with a few
exceptions.

6. how often do you think of your own mortality, and what is a
typical meditation regarding it?

i have anxiety problems every now and then, and think about death
for no reason at all. it stems from when i used to do cocaine
constantly. i got a prescription for buspar (spelling?) and it went
away pretty much. lots of times though, i hope i'll die, like when
i'm on a plane, or when certain situations happen. i really don't
want to, but there's a subconcious part of me that always wants the
worst things to happen to me.

7. do you have a wife and family? if so, why? <-- meaning: you seem
like a more alienated guy than that

i was married for 3 years, now i'm divorced. luckily, i have no
children. me and her were HEAVILY into drugs, and we were both out
of our minds. that's why we probably got married. i don't think i'd
ever do that again.

8. what's the most overrated metal band currently getting heavy
rotation in the underground?

i have no idea what's going on in the underground. of the top of my
head, i'd say dillinger escape plan,pig destroyer/agoraphobic
nosebleed (i haven't really heard these bands, but i can't imagine
them being as great as reviews i've seen),neurosis,nile,and any band
that NEVER gets a bad review.

9. do you think the internet has "democratized" music too much,
making it so that there's a flood of bands but a dearth of
variation?

i don't know much about the internet. i mostly just use it for
email. i never look for stuff to "download". i go to a couple of
message boards now and then and keep up with the dumb things going
on.

10. what do you think of postmodernism as a philosophy and as a
basis for art or music?

i think you were wearing a beret while you typed that question.

11. one aspect of recent faddish academic theory suggests that as
various ideals from the past are worn down or "disproven," humans
will gravitate toward an "end of history" in which democratic and
liberal values have come to dominate. others claim this end of
history is an end of the decisionmaking process in humanity. what do
you think on this issue?

i'm not stupid or anything, but i hate when people talk in this way.
i know some writers try to sound "smart" and like a "good writer",
but i hate the way most of these questions are being asked. my
favorite writers are people who talk the way they would normally
talk and not try to sound like they stare at a thesaurus all day. if
you normally talk like this, you remind me of chin-scratching  know-
it-alls who sit in a coffee shop and discuss boring,pompous shit.

12. certain academics have made themselves famous by suggesting that
anyone who is harshly critical of something secretly longs to be
part of it, including "homophobes" (those who hate fags) and
"racists" (those who don't think every race/individual is equal). i
would reply to these academics that the same applies to people
obsessed by extreme action who can't undertake it themselves. what
are your thoughts regarding this issue?

that whole thing about "homophobes" secretly wanting to be gay is
bullshit, and just as prejudiced a remark. i hate people and i try
to be not involved with society as much as possible. just about
everything anyone says makes me angry. the world has gotten so much
gayer in the last few years. i try my best to have no idea what's
going on in the world.

13. in the 1980s, it seemed metal (except Slayer) had a total hippie
mentality regarding its ideology. has this changed and, if so, why?

what was so "hippyish" about early sodom,bathory,mantas/death, blood
death,etc.? like i said earlier, i really have no idea about what's
going on in the "underground" for the last few years.

14. if you were the beltway sniper, who would you shoot next? why do
you think this guy is doing this stuff; are range fees that
expensive?

if i knew i could get away with it, i'd kill tons of people too. i
just don't want to lose my "freedom" by going to jail.

15. f.w. nietzsche unleashed a world of horrifying introspection for
humanity when he peeled back the visible layer of conscious
interaction and suggested that, despite our social justifications,
all human interactions boil down to a transfer of power. how do you
think our current society has adjusted to this revelation?

i don't know anything about f.w. nietzsche.

16. when you compose a song, do you "sing" (lack of better word) a
riff along to the sentence of the main theme in the lyrics, or are
these riffs pre-created and later mated to a conceptual background?

i don't have a uniformed way to create "songs".

17. what changes do you think will occur in underground music now
that it has become mainstreamed by bands like slipknot, sepultura,
slayer, etc?

who gives a shit. things about the underground have always been gay.
caring about stuff like that is useless. everything becomes overrun
by morons and gets popular eventually.

18. why is it that suddenly every joe fanboy out there has a
"webzine" with "everything in the world you need to know about
underground extreme music" until his or her fascination with the
genre is up after two years, and the website fades? how much useful
information do you think is lost in the process?

actually, i have NEVER looked at a webzine. i didn't even look at
yours. anyways, there will always be people into extreme things,
especially when they are younger. 99.99999999% grow out of it. for
example, it's a miracle if i see anyone at an "underground" show
that i'd see in the early 80's. whether you like it or not,
underground music is a fad for most people. the ones who stick with
it are the ones that i will usually talk to(if i am friends with
them). getting upset about people  not "being into it" anymore is
useless, because i know most of these people will be lawyers in a
couple of years. i don't know anything about you're background, you
might be an executive in a few years and talk about the "crazy"
stuff you were into when you were younger. i think anyone who is
still wasting their time with this type of music after age 30 will
most likely be into it forever (i'm 34,born may,1968).

19. how would you implement a "peace process" in the middle east?

blow it up.

20. if al-qaeda and china invaded tomorrow, what would you do?

you'd have to be more specific.

21. what do you think of shemales (ex: ladyboylovers.com) and how
they're changing the traditional dimensions of "gayness"? will this
affect your lyrics?

i've never seen that website. i really don't care about things. i
don't sit around all day and care,or think about things. i'm sure i
don't like them, i don't like much of anything to begin with.

22. are you a hedonist?

i forgot the definition of that.

23. is anal cunt ever going to do a "just to prove we can" straight-
up death/grind album?

if we wanted to prove we can be just as boring and unoriginal as
everyone else, maybe.

24. which american president had the longest penis?

your boyfriend.

25. do you believe in astrology? if so, is the world deterministic
(all conclusions are predetermined by initial input data)?

no.

26. what supermodels would you most like to impregnate so you can
beat them to an abortive state?

i don't really know about many supermodels. maybe claudia schiffer.

27. is martha stewart still hot, after sixty years and what looks
like an upcoming conviction?

i don't know shit about her either. i seriously barely know or care
what's going on in the world.

28. what's your opinion of relapse records? is it true they won't
sign a band unless its members have at least one maternal jewish
ancestor?

i haven't really heard much that they've put out. everything i can
think of sucks, except the repulsion "horrified" cd. they are a
great label to get ripped off by, and get fucked around by. most
people i know on that label hate relapse. they put out an a.c.
release, and there's not any jew in my or tim's background (me and
him are the ones who played on the relapse release). well, i'm just
assuming that about tim, i hate him though.

Seth Putnam
www.sethputnam.com

Music

Xasthur - Nocturnal Poisoning

This release uses the sweeping pick technique that Varg Vikernes
perfected to make five-note melodies rise and fall in sequence with
strobing rhythm, washing over the listener like a wave of
conflicting emotion. Its strength is its addictive rhythm and the
poignantly chaotic and self-referential way that additional guitar
notes, vocals and sparse keyboard instruments interact, but its
weakness is that Xasthur has found within this technique too
powerful of a beast, and ends up serving its master. Songs cycle
through sadness and despair with a light frivolity and some of the
structure quirkiness that made Darkthrone so clearly a standout, yet
as a whole this album could increase its effectiveness through more
dynamic change in mood. As one of the few black metal bands still
extant to offer something other than driving blast and howl, Xasthur
is contra-trend in its adoption of a less outwardly "extreme" stance
but independently of its time, stands as highly evocative mood music
which hovers over the same topic and immerses the listener in its
seeming permanence.

Tribute: The Next Thousand Years Are Ours - A Tribute to Darkthrone

Obviously the work of fans who are inspired to great lengths of
creativity and diligence by this foundational band of Norwegian
blackmetal, this 2CD set contains first a disc of covers and second
a volume of data and custom writings by black metal scribe Hatred.
More on that in a moment. The first disk is interesting listening
for a volume of covers, and we can only praise the forces that
produced it for cutting out the confused and useless in favor of a
diverse but focused representation of Darkthrone's world. A necro
cover from Megiddo, an electro one from Mutorkseht, as well as
faithful but inventive renditions from TheSyre, DemonRealm and
Myrddraal, are the highlights of this half of the recording. The
amazing part of it is the CD-ROM portion, which can be navigated
like a very no-pretensions web site, and contains a notable
biography of the band, as well as a musical analysis of Darkthrone's
second album which is reasonably articulate and useful in that it
matches music to concepts explained in the essays, citing tablature
liberally. MP3s of demos and live music are included, as are a ton
of pictures, interviews and artifacts of the time. Editorial
comments by Hatred are often hilarious, and hidden surprises lurk.
If you ask this reviewer, the second disc of this set (which
contains MP3s of the first) should be repressed as a companion disc
to the "best of" compilation that Peaceville is currently promoting.
While the first disc is somewhat lukewarm, the second disc
epitomizes the type of intelligent study fans can apply to bands
that have inspired them.

Bloodbath - Breeding Death

An amalgamation of classic Swedish death metal styles and American
death metal cadences populate this album, producing something of
easy listening value that's highly catchy and totally non-memorable.
Imagine the riffing style of Dismember with a bluesier, Goethenberg
feel and the bucket pounding throb of Grave or Entombed underneath
it, with cadences in a mixture between Hypocrisy and Massacre
forming the rhythmic basis for song arrangement and anthemic chorus.
It's good but - who cares?

Megiddo - The Final War

This release is enigmatic in the clarity of its approach but in the
end appears to me to be filling in the recombinant parts of a genre
already exhausted. These songs are based on the
Sodom/Blasphemy/Sarcofago ideal, which is what "war metal" hoped to
adopt, but these are more flexible and distinctively composed than
the material on most war metal albums. Also, the sense of rhythm
here - that fist-pumping, foot-trudging, Christ-penetrating rhythm
that bands like Slayer and Possessed exploited in their simple
cadences - is superior to most metal bands. Influences from
Gorgoroth and Darkthrone are predominant, but this band seems to
favor a more abrupt and often less melodic approach. Their next
album should have more interest for those of the black intention,
because while this is a powerful first effort with good energy and
violence, it will find itself driven to increasingly concise
expression that is consequently vivid in its scarcity and thus
impact.

Blutsabbath - Necrodaemon Terrorsathan

Similarities between this band and later Behemoth will be pointed
out immediately, from the black/death hybridization to the use of
gutter rhythmic techniques opposite guitar flash to nurture along
the sparse compositional centrality of each song. The resulting
music, despite its carnival atmosphere and pointlessly overflogged
metal aesthetic, is an enigmatic listen - the foot wants to tap out
the beat and the mind remember the melody in the same reflex
reaction - but it's like sugary food, in that overexposure ruins the
effect. For a less technical but more spirited and rhythmically
varied approach, consult older works from this band.

Nightmare Visions - Suffering from echoes

Mixing the styles of older Paradise Lost with speed metal from the
Metallica/Kreator style, this music undulates between melodic and
rhythmic work under thick, bassy vocals with heavy sentiment
matching the martial attitudes of the more aggressive riffing. Very
carefully two melodic riffs are combined in a sequence of
death/speed riffing, often with a recursive harmony in lead playing
or interlude of less dynamic material. This band have conquered
atmosphere in many ways by avoiding consistency, and are competent
musicians of some promise, so for those who like gothic or doom
metal, this is an undiscovered delight.

Strapping Young Lad - City

Avantgarde in its desire to mix cyberpunk with basic edged rhythmic
riffing (think: Macabre) and unique for having a technical concept
of how to make this work harmonically, Strapping Young Lad promise a
lot but only partially deliver, in part to falling into the sway of
image over music. Reminiscent of Fear Factory's first LP in its
bullet-precise percussion and varied juxtaposition of melodic
choruses with metallic bashing verses, this album will be most
familiar to those who listen to alternative rock for its use of
gently diminished melodies and drop cadences under layered clean
vocals and distorted rock riffs. Its use of metal arrangements and
theory in mixing together riff salads is admirable, but fails to
achieve any musical profundity. Although the music industry has done
a wonderful job of hyping the skills and learning these musicians
have, and they are well applied here, this album comes across as
industrial rock dressed up as metal (think: a less heavy version of
Filter), and it has no soul. Pass the Darkthrone; this CD's going
back to the used bin.

Countess - The Shining Swords of Hate

Imagine Manes on a Hellhammer kick and you have this band: spacy
psychedelia over trudging riffs with periodic whisper vocals
groaning out some counterpoint accompaniment. Its associative lead
riffing is reminiscent of ancient, and its plodding kickbeats almost
a Burzum allusion, but like most recent black metal, this band heads
toward an atmosphere and camps out there. Unlike the flood of
generic Burzum/Blasphemy/Beherit clone bands from the USA, however,
this band utilizes a manipulation of melody and dynamic intensity of
combined sounds to regulate emotion and as such, textures its own
atmosphere to create an engaging if detached listen.

Wynjara - Wynjara

Formed of a hybrid between Meshuggah-style extreme percussive death
and technical, rock-oriented death metal in the style of later Death
or Disincarnate, this band carefully hides its melody within
pounding madness in which it also encodes diligent open jam guitar
playing of an experienced and musically credible nature. Riffs
aren't afraid to use raw expectation or vibratto effect to the full
potential of their simple but universal impact, and vocals are low
and guttural, like a version of Amorphis with more violence. Songs
alternate between shredding and pummeling, then drop into a
comfortable groove marked by a riff tinged with the slightest hard
rock affectations and copious amounts of muffled strumming and
percussive right hand technique. What will appeal to most are the
solos and rhythm leads embedded in these songs, which rise
serpentine and distinctive above the harder-edged music, utilizing a
range of styles from blues to psychedelic to twist themselves into
form. This is a band to watch, as they're pound for pound as good as
any of the American heavyweights and more tasteful.

Nigrescent - Palace of the Dark Light

Another promising band from the newer scene comes from Nigrescent,
who are more of the school of fast melodic blazes made from a
handful of notes and an insistent, relentless percussion track. It
does so with more imagination than most practicing the style at this
time, although the style - as a hybrid between early black metal and
grindcore framed in the aesthetics of current black metal - is less
distinctive than the longer melodies of early Norwegian bands, but
also avoids some of the foolish excesses. For example, this band is
reminiscent of Abruptum crossed with a violent hardcore band, using
slowly-building simple melodies to drop into standoffish choruses,
with violently recursive beats cadenced around regular patterns
repeated at different frets. Not unsimilar to Zyklon-B or Kult ov
Azazel, this band likes to hook the listener in with a gliding
melody, and then slash it to shreds with an incessant blast rounded
out with a coda of patterns repeated in inverse, and then closed.
Like most bands, Nigrescent has to work carefully to balance its
strength - writing simple riffs around infectious cadences - with
its methods of reinjecting energy into an already high-intensity
cycle. While this album masters its style, the band will have to
mutate to achieve greater variation in mood across the length of
each song, or it will be swallowed up by bands who are tactically
similar, in a time when most black metal has normalized its style
toward something emphasizing short riffs, quick songs and densely
concise, minimal artistic outlooks. Use of introductory material is
a rarity in its tastefulness, and of worthy note are the rasping
self-swallowing vocals, which sound like screams barely escaping
hell.

AAAAARGH! bloody two-handed chainaxe blow - elliptic white square

In an attempt to merge avantgardeism with metal of a generic
underground type, this band have created something with concealed
artistic value under its skin of careless aesthetics and
demonstrative songwriting; each piece, and the album as a whole, is
a codex of ideas revealed by their incarnation, re-symbolization,
and resolution mostly in the arrangements of each song. As such they
are less poetic than political: a politics of hermeneutics is
thrashed out with every pause in which a certain expectation is
thwarted, or a structural match in the continuity of a phrase in
rhythm recomputed after several intervening motifs. There is
inspiration in the stylistic change this inspires, in that if metal
were to adhere to its classical inspiration and use motif-based
thematic structures (in which classical musicians demonstrate an
absolute authority of improvisation that isn't simply random
riffing) it would have some potential to leave the quagmire of
repetitive aesthetics driving a constant dynamic intensity cycle, as
in the method by which mainstream music is created. Here that
constancy is escaped on the whole, but reinvoked in the small, as
these riffs are essentially similar to what death metal bands
cranked out in the 1990s, but their placement in rhythm and interval
distance is unique. The surprise of this release is in finding that
some of its patterns, when their dogmatism is excepted, are quite
beautiful in the complementary nature of objects therein and the
overall sense of balance and thus, meta-mood of stability, which is
achieved. Vocals are satyrical burping low-end visceral madness like
those of Demilich, and the album fades out into an obscure mix of
found noises and sampled music. This band is one to watch,
especially as playing skills progress and these players are able to
translate the importance of aesthetic into their own ideologies.

Wejdas - Wejdas

Somewhere between the minimal ambient rhythmic panoramic sounds of
Endura and the edge of metal-tinged folk industrial, this band
produces a digitally-synchronized assembly of sounds built around a
general rhythmic shape, unifies it by a concept mostly transparent
to the listener yet felt in the completeness of songs, held together
like noise music by an improvisational mixture of distorted sound,
strings, keyboard- and synthesizer-generated waves, as well as the
confluence of effects in processing guitar textures. Although this
isn't an exact science, and this three-song EP ranges across the
spectrum without doing more than demonstrating proof of concept,
there could be a future for this band if they take their clearly
facility with music and use it to convey causally related concepts,
as there are already too many bands that leap into an atmosphere,
swim in it for a brief spell, and then depart. One of the recent
adventurous signings on Red Stream.

Mourn - Mourn

One of the reasons many experienced metallers eschew the doom metal
genre is that it champions self-pity and, with it, mediocre music
that knows how to whine. In many ways, it is proto-alternative-rock:
whining, self-pity and self-loathing, with a creepy neo-religious
message stitched over the top. Mourn is no exception; as a rock
band, these guys would be mediocre Dave Matthews clones, but as a
doom band, they're celebrated in a small inbred circle of people who
hate the world and themselves. Droning riffs, a mostly on-key
breathy female voice, and deliberately "deep" topics with lyrics
that make Tori Amos look artful are somehow unsatisfying, and the
slightly edgy but mostly recursive and far too smugly self-
reinforcing song structures are less than inspiring. In a death
metal band, these guys might represent above-average musicality but
would be destroyed for their lack of taste, judgment and artistic
integrity.

Spirit Caravan - Dreamwheel

St. Vitus was great, for what it was: heavy and dark, with a sense
of industrial dread lurking behind the recycled Sabbath riffs.
Spirit Caravan gives up and goes in the opposite direction of the
primal split in metal, eschewing the Black Sabbath heaviness for a
Led Zeppelin quasi-hippie vibe. The crowds love it. All the self-
pitying kids who couldn't find a way to socialize in black metal can
get stoned, drunk and gorged on moronic movies to this album in
their bedrooms and no one will object, because it's the ultimate
music for tools. It emphasizes egalitarian morals as both George W.
Bush and the Vatican do, but in an all-accepting form that
presupposes life is so negative we need to artificially lower our
standards, get intoxicated and whine about our lives to make it
"fun." Bouncy rhythms and recombinant aimless soloing that screams
"too much cheap pot" combine under a moaning vocal that if anything
suggests that life is a great effort not worth doing well.
Mediocrity underscores a variety of aspects to the musicianship,
mainly the utter lack of creativity for which is substituted a range
of cute but insubstantive musical licks 'n' tricks. A seasoned
observer says: the audience will foam over this just enough to get
the band a record contract, and then the vapid and feeble-minded
will move on to the next novelty. When will metal realize that
joining the hippie horde is another way to be assimilated? Move
along, there's nothing to hear here.

Eisenvater - Eisenvater

The guy from Porno Coma once said this band was the heaviest thing
he'd ever experienced. If heavy to you is the slow chromatic
progression between the first five frets of the two bottom strings
of the guitar, then get a guitar and make your own pointless noise
instead of getting caught up in this. Lame, half-hardcore riffs with
a flattened deadening to all melodic potential, melodramatic song
stagings and an insistence upon elaborate but self-resurgent song
structures essentially screams out frustrated, directionless
negativity but achieves nothing of artistic significance. Vocals are
growly and low like Sting trying to be evil for one track, but even
he - king of self-indulgent flogging - would nod off during these
plodding, ponderous and fatalistic dirges.

Belial - 3

A formerly evil and rudimentary band learns to play its instruments
well and, lacking artistic direction, lapses into a variation on
what's known and does it well - the only problem being that, since
it lacks direction, it achieves no voice and no communication except
a self-conscious suggestion that maybe heavy metal should be more
like neo-Asiatic alternative rock. This is musically as capable as
any of the alternative rock bands out there and, in instrumental
application, more creative, but how well does this apply to a metal
audience? Elements of old school heavy metal are integrated
underneath the skin. Carefully using the sweeping dissonant melody
techniques found in Burzum and other extremist black metal, this
band wrap mournful rock music with artfully half-step-off-key vocals
around some aggression and angst, but it's a hybrid that is so
confused it sounds in effect like Linkin Park: alternate between the
"hard style" and the sing song melodic style, and somewhere in the
throttling your audience will appreciate both. This audience does,
but recognizes the fundamental flaw of this approach and the waffle
it creates in the music itself, and thus suggests you content
yourself with the first two Belial releases instead.

Belial - Never Again

While this album is not the aggressively primitive and crawlingly
subversive evil of the earlier Belial releases, it is an alienated
hybrid of black metal, doom metal and heavy metal that uses
distorted vocals and fast tempos with a more conventional staging to
create something in which individual songs have personality and live
outside of their genre identity. Often hard-rock rhythms and
harmonies pervade, but there is also an unnervingly alien organ that
intrudes periodically, and some flourishes from the angriest of
hardcore bands. There is an attempt here to merge a roughness in
life with a beauty found in absurdity, the bizarre and the necessity
of the absolutely "normal" to give those context. Just as a drumbeat
produces an undulation between silence and peak noise that makes the
silence seem like a percussive hit in itself, the normal intrudes on
this album as a peripheral framing and point of return in semi-
cyclic travels, backgrounding a fundamentally disturbed rage and
desire for secession from reality.

Arckanum - Fran Marder

This release, highly praised by many in both mainstream black metal
and the underground, was touted as a return to the forest spirit
which inspired many original Nordic bands such as Darkthrone,
Enslaved and Sort Vokter, but it isn't that. In fact, this seems to
be watered-down sentimental music that achieves little in the way of
direction, despite being proficient at the mechanics of both
musicianship and artisanship in black metal. It reminds me of
Satyricon - the kid who stood on the edge of the playground and
huffed himself up to size with rage: I will someday capture this
same thing for myself! and learned all that he needed to do so,
except the same spirit - and thus it is doomed to perpetual
outsidership. Oh, the music: it's gently melodic, repetitive "epic"
song structures, breathy rasps of vocals and lots of lawn sprinkler
drumming. I think it's "open-minded" or something.

Cradle of Filth - Dusk and her Embrace

Oddly reminiscent of CNN wartime coverage, this album makes a grand
presentation of what is essentially the same old warmed over hard
rock/metal, and in doing so destroys all of those things which it
embraces in its aesthetic. There's a great aping of Romanticism in
dark metal bands and attention spent to introducing and the staging
of introduction of changes in appearance, but is there anything
behind it? Good foot-tapping versions of Iron Maiden-esque metal
song ideas, given a frosting of black metal vocals and whipping
drums, makes for a trivial listen and has nowhere to go with its
"angst" but self-pity, in which it wallows. These musicians are
talented and sharp - they know the biggest market is the horde of
people with short attention spans and therefore pander to them; for
that I don't blame them. However, I want nothing to do with this
dishonest band or their whorish, moronic crap music.

Vermin - Millennium Ride

Like later Entombed, but even bouncier and with more hard rock
cliche, this Swedish death metal/rock hybrid are technically
competent but annoying and artistically vapid. Too much Rob Zombie
for you.

Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times

Temptingly close to the original thrust of passion which made black
metal from Scandinavia so popular, Satyricon is everything the
original had except the last 5% of "getting it" that entails address
of the spirit of the darkness invoked by these bands. Gently
harmonizing black metal uses melodic riffing to build a mood and
then levels it, going back to its central supposition and basic riff
constructions; however, the longer the melodic riffs get, the
clearer it is that they have no centering in concept, although
they're clearly central in tone. One has to see Satyr as a tragic
figure, being as musically, socially and intellectually competent as
his peers, but lacking something that Fenriz and Ihsahn did not,
possibly the same void that impelled him to be the one to start the
record label that would carry on black metal - including the music
of Darkthrone - after its breath of life had died. While there is
nothing to disqualify this release, it is the recommendation of this
reviewer that the sensible listener avoid it and focus on the great
releases instead of this also-ran.

Satyricon - Nemesis Divina

In a stroke of great luck and management genius, Satyricon bring
together the guitar talents of Nocturno Culto (Darkthrone) with a
style similar to that of later Enslaved, in which death metal
riffing is varied between chords and single notes at a time,
producing an acerbic melody crashing into pummeling buffet of
aggressive power chording. Riff forests rotate around a handful of
themes per song that are swept up into their own maelstrom and
through gated flow control dropped into a final lock-on to a summary
motif. There is a carnival atmosphere, owing to both the circular
songwriting patterning and use of keyboards to accentuate dominant
beats and central tones. While not profound, this release is
enjoyable, and in its aesthetic showed what could - with the help of
someone as powerful as Nocturno Culto on guitars - be produced from
the otherwise confused fecalization in musical form that is
Satyricon.

Darkthrone - Hate Them

Perhaps "Hate It" would be more accurate. While this is better than
the last two Darkthrone albums, it's still not appreciably good in
the context of Darkthrone. Go buy a second copy of anything up
through "Total Death" and forget it; their hearts aren't in this,
and they should have - as Fenriz noted - hung it up long ago and
rested on their laurels as one of the most brilliant blackmetal
bands of the past.

Umbra - Ater

Sophomoric ambient collages. Avoid.

Black Moon Rising - demos 2002

Yet another case of a heavy metal band with potential stranded
within something bearing vestiges of black metal format, Black Moon
Rising is a blues-based and high-energy hybrid of styles searching
for a clear statement of what it is in search of so that it may
complete its evolution. Vocals are howling excess, and riffs
somewhere between Judas Priest, Venom and Howlin' Wolf, with the
emphases in all the right places and the rhythm dead on each time.
Guitar jamming unfolds from within and vocal tracks as sung often
having the same sense of primitive and "technically" off-key
construction that Glenn Danzig's early work did, but with a sense of
placement in song that gives them a lilting profundity in context.
Often these songs are entirely cut from the blues background, but
they also can drop into black metal as well; most of it sounds
improvisational but it's not poorly done, and has a sense of humor.
Although personnel changes, impromptu recordings and random
production make it difficult to judge, this band appears to be
morphing into something like what St. Vitus could have been had they
had more instrumental ambition.

Perpetual - Ad Perpetuam Rei Memoriam

A Cradle of Filth wannabe, this band are in fact better than their
namesake, but still as random in switch between riffs in a desire to
support a topheavy image, with vocals chasing the cadence at a
slight lag fitted to the random syllables of lyrics instead of the
song rhythm, producing an annoying album sounding like a chihuahua
yapping over a lawnmower in the background.

Monumentum - Musaeum Hermeticum

Dragging slow and self-pitying doom metal with moaning vocals, this
is an overly Gothic take on a fatalistic style that is better than
most in the style, but still a basically boring musical experience
that can find no answers and so masturbates itself with
pointlessness. Why not just buy blank CD cases instead?

Shub-Niggurath - The Kinglike Celebration

Not a black metal band as much as a black metal-themed band that
borrows from three generations of metal riffing, these metal
warriors specialize in war metal styled drums underneath an
incredibly variable and often quite articulate network of riffing.
Often lead playing inlays melody on shredding rhythm, or an abrupt
change in direction through fast fingerwork becomes a new mode of
communication. Vocals are whisper-hoarse and ripple through the
madness by staying slightly offbeat and catching up at the end of
each phrase. While nothing is so well done here to be a standout,
this band is relatively advanced for the state of metal today.

Old Funeral - The Older Ones

While this is not as good as either Immortal or Burzum, it is solid
death metal in the early 1990s style somewhere between Florida bands
and something like Sinister, with a greater emphasis on melodic
structure and arrangement narration than pure rhythmic forward
thrust. Some would describe it as a "really heavy version of
Cadaver" and they would not be far off. Hearing early Vikernes
guitar tracks shows a highly intelligent artist adapting a style to
fit his needs while not exceeding the boundaries needed for
maintenance of coherence with the genre. Thus, this album is for
fans of Immortal or Burzum who also like older European death metal.

die blutleuchte - rus

Listening to this album is like having a conversation with an ex-
lover while someone in another room scrolls throught television
channels with the set facing away from you, so you get an echoing
soundtrack disconnected from any finite thoughts. Given that effect,
this music is best described as industrial collage art, made from
homebrew music of several styles, old recordings, folk songs and
electronic sequencer exploration. Like Kreuzweg Ost, this style has
an effect in the background of the mind, as it introduces pieces of
history and found noises in evocative patterns, but often is either
so subtle or vague that its effect is best measuring as conditioning
to notice things, and not direct confrontation. Unlike the
previously mentioned band, however, this release does not strive for
consistency and in that is its power: the landscape of sound
changes, as do the types of aural metaphor and citations from
elsewhere used, giving one the impression of a drive in the
countryside that happens to rush backward through history.
Conceptually, this album focuses on the Rus people and the history
of Russia, including the horrors of its past and its ambiguous and
somewhat painful situation today.

Supplication - Un-Aesthetic Front

Graceful in its use of structural contrast between riffs to give
musical weight to different shapes which inspire varied rhythms,
allowing songs to gently undulate between impact and pause as they
circular approximate the unifying concept which links disparate
motifs to a basic rhythm and the foreboding shadow of the riffs that
ultimate stitch together a narrative from a chaotic and obscure
experience. Vocals are what a hardcore band would achieve if pushed
beyond the limits of speed and endurance, a hoarse howl carrying a
weight of expression in its texture; guitarwork, drums and bass are
not rocket science, but are given an economy of expression that most
bands with much more experience could utilize to great effect. A
connection between lyrics and riff shape and progression is forged
in the imagination which can find the metaphor between life
experience, in recollection, and the motions, pauses and textures of
riff. For those who relish the honesty and enigmatic intrigue of
early 1990s death metal, this captures all of the promise without
the confusing scattering of heavy metal elements that marked many
early bands.

Exciter - The Dark Command

What a previous generation had instead of Angelcorpse, Exciter is
both the best of 1970s metal and the emerging speed metal which
replaced it, done in the proto-death style of Sodom or Slayer with
excessive fast strumming and galloping drums. Vocalist Jacques
Belanger is a high-pitched precise singer in the best tradition of
Bruce Dickenson or Rob Halford, holding notes in trills and
extending his phrases by upshifting his pitch mid-tone. These
guitarists are excellent in that a) they understand the power of a
simple riff in building mood and b) their semi-progressive, semi-
chaotic lead playing is unique and vaguely disturbing in its upset
of structure, in the same way that Angel Witch or Voivod were. Where
this fails, of course, is in the excesses of previous decades
amplified by extremity, including a tendency toward repetition and
banging, directionless musical movements. However, on the whole this
is a classic of the transitional style that should stand next to
Sacrifice, Onslaught, Rigor Mortis, Kreator and other genre-spanners
in the completist metal collection.

Rampage - Misogyny, Thy Name is Woman

The problem with being a human being in a metal community is that
soon you know people, and they ask you to review their bands, and
you have to be honest anyway. Rampage isn't bad, but like many
things of a middling nature, it also does nothing that stands out
from its target period of history, which is 1980s blues/metal. This
music sounds like it is fun to jam on, and cites liberally from
Venom and Motorhead and other classics of that era, but what is its
point in the current time? These musicians are talented in that they
can play their instruments adequately and invent interesting turns
of phrase that are apt for the action during each part of a song,
but they seem completely misplaced in metal, 1990s and onward. Maybe
a rock or blues band would be more appropriate, and also, more
lucrative?

Sammath - Verwoesting Devastation

After an impressive, Satyricon-fueled yet impassioned debut, this
band have converted to a hybrid of black, death and speed metal
which hopes to outlast the genres currently practiced as underground
metal. The result in style is like a hybrid of Sinister, later
Behemoth and newer Emperor, emphasizing fast and precise riffs that
boundary their development in motif clusters with abrupt pauses and
deviant mutations. What is taken from speed metal is the constant
throb of rhythm and the ability to hang on the strumming of a chord
for extended periods of time, and from death metal comes a certain
agility in riff tangent and reformation, while the black metal
influence is a subtle melodic positioning underlying every riff that
is brought to bear at a decisive moment in a revelatory phrase which
unites and then divides the concepts presented so far. The result is
a certain clarity of obscure emotional confusion in multiple
directions arising from a fundamentally unresolved conflict of
directions, which, when prompted by the developing narration of the
song in riff and vocals, disintegrates in a flowering of complexity
to a simple but non-evident conclusion, like a mystery novel
occurring over the course of several centuries. Sometimes parts of
this indulge extensively in harmonizing melody like the second
Cenotaph album or early Rotting Christ, but this band intuitively
know how to avoid overstressing it to the point of sickly sweet
indulgence. While many of us who were impressed by the initial
Sammath offering may find this change in style abrupt, a few listens
reveals the wisdom of what is being done here: forging of an
aesthetic that unites past metal styles into a newly balanced
language. Inside of this style, passionate compositions of a more
even-handed nature than the first abound, going beyond the sometimes
boxy songwriting of the first with a larger ambition and scope of
vision. For a band in this style, this is one of the acts that will
endure past the next stylistic generation of metal.

Windir - Arntor

A cross between black metal and the kind of faintly reassuring,
vaguely "old world sounding" keyboard music they play in New Age
bookstores, this album is musically well-executed but nearly
artistically pointless. It achieves its unique style by melding
keyboards occasionally into black metal that, like Borknagar, wraps
itself into a circular melodic motion and keeps the flow going over
blasting racing drums. Melodies have that unbelievable compactness
and almost smug resolution to all their parts that unites national
anthems with soft drink commercials, and thus seem ridiculous in
contrast to the completely rhythmically clueless vocals that barf
out behind them. You can almost hear the California wind chimes on
many of these tracks. Some might find similarities to the bar songs
which unravel and spiral into stomp rhythms in "Irish" bars across
America. It's halfway tempting to hear more, because the basics of
musicality are so well accomplished, but outside the hollow poignant
melodic threading, there is a fundamental lack of direction in
concept that is matched by randomly overemphatic music. There is
nothing wrong per se with what is done here, just nothing so right
that it should be pursued.

Believer - Sanity Obscure

Every faddish or obvious method for interrupting the flow of music
has been here employed, from supposedly significant pauses to sample
breaks introducing "conceptual" ideas like random electronic noises
for the technological age - get it?, but the music itself is fine-
fingered speed metal riffing over which Voivod-inspired vocals puke.
The only problem with this band is that everything is absolutely
obvious in its gestures, and the recycled riffs seem assembled at
random to waste time before the next grand pronouncement is made
through changes in riff and rhythm, usually leading halfway to
someone before veering oblique into something random. Riffs show
some potential, including some glorious melodic stitches, but then
stumble down a generalized path and patch it together with "reach
around" style lengthy phrasing that is technically melodic but out
of touch with the mood it seems to be tryin to establish, resulting
in more of the same randomness painted over with technique to look
coherent. This fundamental "not getting it" produces tedious,
obvious music, and is consistent with this band's theme of Christian
dogma broadcast into metal to convert us poor ignorant fools to
their clannish supernaturalist religion. While these guys know how
to play their instruments, they're ignorant of songwriting and art
as a whole, and thus seem to this reviewer as one more good reason
to SUPPORT THE CHRISTIAN HOLOCAUST (www.blackplague.org/holocaust/).

Corvus Corax - The Atavistic Triad

This band attempts to unite doom metal with the later styles of
black metal which converged on folk music, and despite an impressive
attempt, stays landlocked within the constraints of these styles.
The over-emphasis on "emotion" in doom metal produces drawn-out
drones and plodding passages which by definition can go nowhere,
bypassing a heroic view of art for a self-pitying one; the
integration of keyboard and other "non-traditional for metal"
instruments is a good idea, but when the core of distorted guitars
cannot be abandoned, instrumental tracks are stacked on top of one
another, producing a carnival atmosphere. Much of import and high
ideal is attempted here, but little of it comes out in the mix;
advice to this band: ditch more of the metal and work harder with
the atmosphere you desire to produce.

Rehtaf Ruo - Boiled in Goat's Blood

One of the more unique USBM bands, Rehtaf Ruo create what might be
best described as presentation black metal: purely avantgarde in
aesthetic, and straddling the line that Yamatu and Havohej both walk
between genius and retardation, this is a heavily backgrounded
three-note melodic guitar pattern over which a voice rasps and
dramatizes in inflection and tone some form of lyrical narrative.
Drums are mechanical in sound but gratifying for their minimal usage
and a tendency to often shy away from constant repetition of
pattern; this allows these miniature dramas to move ahead smoothly.
Introductions and breaks in pacing, introduced to correspond to the
ritual nature of the subject material, break up the different songs,
which are better represented perhaps as scenes from a vision of dark
occultism, and by emphasizing the uneven establish an unshakeable
consistency to the work as a whole. The melodies seem aimless, but
return to core patterns, and song structures are designed like
platforms, in which the process of setting up supports, repeated,
gives way to a linear revelation and then recursion to introductory
material or, commonly, abrupt end. While this band has with a single
leap differentiated itself from the horde of boring USBM, its
material is often too point blank in nature, and avoids the form of
internal development that could make this seem less visual and more
visceral, but this is useful future space of expansion. In many
ways, this style combines the best of Blasphemy and Yamatu in one
band, and the content, while developing, shows promise in its adept
molding of premise to form.

Auf Krema - demo 2002

Coming from the frozen wilds of Canada, this band resembles a hybrid
between the newer black metal with wisps of melody converging over
pulsing beats, and a version of Hellhammer that suddenly became sped
up radically and dominated its inner sloppiness with a powerful
sense of precise rhythm common to metal bands in the 1990s. Drums
are electronic and in the best tradition of Bathory and Ildjarn
mostly unchanging, while riffs swiftly alternate between forms and
traditions, including those of later heavy metal and recent black
metal. This band has only begun its quest for musical expression and
with this much potential on its side, remains one of the few one-man
efforts worth watching.

Demoncy - Faustian Dawn/Within the Sylvan Realms of Frost

For an insight into this profoundly directive North American band,
two earlier works are re-released with demo tape and rehearsal
material, showing how the cloaking aesthetic of this band has
changed and in turn, what lawless spirits motivated the inception of
Demoncy. For the most part, "Faustian Dawn" is similar to "Joined in
Darkness," with some songs and riffs transferred wholly to that
album, but where "Joined in Darkness" aimed for certaintly and
finality, this recording tries, in a style bands from Morbid Angel
to Darkthrone have used successfully, to create a continuing melodic
descent which suspends the listener above belief while moving barely
perceptibly toward phrases which unite melody and rhythm. On "Within
the Sylvan Realm of Frost," the band takes a turn more toward
something like Graveland, in which layers of melody harmonize in
repetitive, concentric loops to achieve an atmosphere which
gradually melds protean into a series of seemingly disjointed
narratives that unite in a poetry of conflict, holding that mood
until conclusion. As a result it is more ambient and in many ways
more direct than the first disc, but retains the power of this
austere and dynamic band. Darkthrone citations are heard, as well as
allusions to many of the founding Norsecore bands, but underneath
the aesthetic this band has its own style. At personal expense, a
founding member has put out this 2CD set and is using it in part to
fund further Demoncy, which gives discerning buyers a reason - above
and beyond the quality of music here itself - to purchase this work
and drive forward the wheels of musical motion.

D'hiver mort - Palindrome

While the basic genre of this work is what was once called
industrial dance music, it incorporates many elements of recent
industrial works, including the distorted-guitars-cum-noise-and-
samples of Ministry, except given a touch of black metal. In a loose
ambient/industrial soundscape, a series of scenarios are set by
changing rhythm and the sounds used as the stylus of its creation,
forming a shell of beats which are the shell upon which the rest of
the music is built. Keyboards, found noises and vocals are layered
over the raw rhythm in different intensities, often aiming for the
pure nihilistic throb of techno beat with feedback noise or vocals
or guitar, emphasizing a primary rhythmic signature for continuity
as voices of keyboards and guitars change song within it.
Songwriting is aware of the rudiments of melody and harmony and uses
them to proficiency by not ignoring them except selectively, and by
applying tonal aspects of the music unevenly to give the effect of
passing through tunnels and valleys that is often achieved by
industrial music. Male vocals tend to growl while a high-pitched
female voice contorts itself to sound both young and world-weary.
Guitar textures range from the fast death/black melodic riffing to
bouncing strobes of palm-muted potency derived from speed metal and
previous genres. While this reviewer is no expert on the genre, the
musical framework here is well-executed and its aesthetic is fitting
and evocative.

Editorial

Courage and Understanding

The fourth issue of our magazine embarks into difficult territory as
usual. Eschewing popularity (and not just claiming to do it as
others do), we've avoided the social "metal scene" as well as the
traditional means of luring the foolish into promoting us. We have
taken this attitude in order to separate the *art* of metal from the
commerce, socialization and image around it. We do not care what
your (artificial) society considers most important; art in itself
transcends the pretense which allows manipulation of people on a
centralized level and thus empowers society itself - or those who
own it.

Because society is based on manipulation, the ideals that are
"universally" socially upheld are limited to those values which
support this method of manipulation. In a broader historical view,
the division of human beings from nature into cities predates both
Judaism and Christianity, which were formed from fragments of
existing religions to create the ultimate illusion necessary for
manipulating people to do things not immediately connected to their
lives: universalism itself, as represented by egalitarianism and
eventually, democracy. It's like your leaders telling you, "Every
life is equally important to us, and it's this promise that you're
working for," while taking profit home from the excess produced by
universal employment. These leaders make it clear that belief in
these attitudes leads to success, and thus instantly produce a horde
of people who enforce these attitudes on others. Even in metal.

Thus by resisting these beliefs, Heidenlarm zine strikes out at the
issues that corrupt both metal and human life itself: shallowness,
absolutist religions, and a void of culture. All three originate in
the demands of commerce being placed above the demands of nature,
and of humans both as groups (cultures) and individuals, and are
fatal to metal. We are aware what happens when Metallica switches
from making heavy music to making music to please a broad audience;
they descend from artistic clarity which the artist must interpret
to making music designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator,
with artistic communication coming a distant second. As art, a
vehicle for culture, is a repository of learning and conflicting
ideas like all other forms of human communication, this short-
circuits art as a whole for the profit of the most unstable and
money-needing individuals within. Commerce and the attendant
socialization, including "scenes" and the hipster/poseur driven
popularity contests they foster, are enemies of art - and as enemies
of art, are enemies of the most intense music, replacing it with the
bland (but inoffensive).

Heidenlarm zine, active since 1998 and a participant in the metal
scene, would like to suggest the following values for anyone who
wants more of the metal that is powerful, and less of the wishy-
washy pointless commercial (or "tr00 underground kvlt") metal:

o  Get over fatalism. Fatalism is the belief that the world is
beyond your ability to effect change, and thus you might as well
quit thinking about the future and make yourself comfortable so you
can wait for death. This is pathetic.

o  Reject egalitarianism in yourself. Not only are no people equal,
but no bands are equal. Some are better than others, and these
should be praised regardless of how socially unacceptable it is.
People who are insecure about their levels of talent and dedication
will try to convince you to like or promote or tolerate bands that
their friends put out, for the sole reason that their friends put
them out. Don't fall for this scam.

o  Realize that elitism requires a counterpart in meritocracy. If
you can't promote bands according to merit, there is no elitism -
only clique-ism. That is the ultimate extension of the hipster,
scenester and poseur socialization, and turns useful musical
communities into broken machines spewing out cookie-cutter formulas.

o  Don't be "tolerant" or "open-minded." Both of these terms are
catch phrases for egalitarianism, meaning that you assume that the
opinions of others are all equally viable and should be accepted
together with the intelligent ones. This attitude means you can
never fully make a decision, and are a servant of others. It's also
super-trendy. Avoid both of these belief systems.

o  Conformity hides in different ways. No one thought, during the
early days, that black metal would so quickly sell itself out. But
it did, and now the conformity is less to a given style than to the
attitude that black metal and death metal are "just musical styles"
and that there is no belief associated with them. Bullshit - you
don't decided to go against the grain and refute some of society's
basic assumptions by making aggressive, distorted, radio-unfriendly
music that espouses bloodlust, without some kind of thinking behind
it. All of the best bands have highly developed ideologies, and all
of the clonish or novelty bands have none. Coincidence? Not at all.

o  Recognize that more isn't better. Which would you prefer, a scene
with 50 bands or 500? It's impossible to answer this question until
you know what the bands are and what degree of quality they have
obtained. 50 unimaginative, conformist bands are as bad as 500 bands
of the same outlook, but 50 creative and independent and
artistically literate bands are better than 50,000 clonish,
indistinguishable bands.

o  Realize that the ideology of egalitarianism is as fanatical and
"intolerant" as any other. Under the egalitarian system, those who
dare rise above are cut down, because they might "look down on
others" and not see them as equals. This prevents the best from
being promoted, and means that people who are incompetent are
"equally" promoted, thus making society - or an atistic genre - a
frustrating and self-hating thing.

o  People aspire to two fundamental directions, growth or stasis. If
they are self-confident and healthy, they aspire to new things or
getting better at existing things in new ways; if they are fearful
and unstable, they want no change. In metal, people who are either
purist and nothing else, or those who want to make metal more like
the already accepted genres of rock, blues, jazz, hip-hop, etc. are
the unstable ones. They edge out real artists by accusing them of
either "closed-mindedness" or "intolerance," and suggest what they
are doing - recycling into metal the same tired ideas that people
come to metal to escape - is "innovative." These people are just
scenesters.

o  Money is not the *sole* motivation of everyone. When Metallica
made their first three albums, and Slayer made their early albums,
or Morbid Angel did, their goals included making money and getting
famous. But their goals weren't limited to such things; they were
complex goals which led to these bands wanting to both make great
art and make money. It was only when they got wealthy, bored,
washed-out from drug abuse and sick of their fans that they threw in
the towel and decided to make music *primarily* to make money, with
all other motivations a distant second.

o  The city stinks. If you're not from the city, city people are
passively aggressive toward you through a variety of techniques:
pointing out attitudes that people in the city consider superior, or
talking about the great things that occur in the city, or discussing
all issues from a city viewpoint and writing off other viewpoints as
unenlightened - after all, they didn't come from the city. Like the
drug industry, the city is its own parasite and continuation; it
exists to facilitate commerce, and the justifications people use to
make their lives serving the machine seem more interesting are
hollow pretense. This applies equally to "high brow" cosmopolitan
culture as it does to low-end cosmopolitanism like hip-hop and emo
rock.

o  Everything is politics. Religious people, like people imbued with
polar political belief systems, act out the dogma of their
religions. Academics are dogmatic about their theories, and members
of political parties relate all learning to the basic beliefs of
that movement. The only way to transcend this is to make your
politics the belief in something larger than your own self-interest,
at which point you can see how transparent the disguises of self-
interest in religion, politics and social behavior are.

Between the contributors to this article are almost six decades of
metal experience (overlapping), thus although this was written down
quickly, it took many years and multiple people to perceive. Maybe
this experience will be useful to you. Whether it is or not, it is
the foundation of belief behind this zine: elitism/meritocracy is
the only way to get better art, and art is opposed to the trivial,
novelty-based culture of the city and the scenesters who support it.
In our view, we have found a way to strengthen metal and reverse its
decline, and we encourage others to find this learning also.

Radar

Since 1997, there's been an explosion of Internet sites, webzines,
etc. ANUS.com pre-dates the commercial web and was served via FTP in
1992, and distributed via BBS in 1988. We are not of the same ilk as
the Internet-only crowd, and the acts of our members (including zine
writing, radio, show promotion and physical aid to bands) far exceed
the internet. We do not wish to be identified with the crowd of
geocities.com sites which pretend to be "journalism."

-~-

To contact Heidenlarm zine or the
Dark Legions Archive:

A.N.U.S.
PO Box 1004
Alief, TX 77411-1004

prozak@anus.com
www.anus.com/metal

-~-

Our new editorial policy is that we only deal with people who don't
behave like "brats" or "burnouts." Brats are the people who think
every teenager should have a black metal band, be Satanic, shock his
or her peers and be "different," but that they all have a right to
be equal and any ranking of bands above the social level - the
"scene" - is anathema to what they believe, which seems to be basic
American liberalism with Satanic pretense on top of it. Naturally,
these people are mocked anywhere OUTSIDE of the black metal worlds
they create on internet forums, chats, CD-R labels, xeroxed zines
sent to 6.66 friends, etc. "Burnouts" are people who've been in
metal forever and, despite massive cocaine/alcohol addiction,
failure in life, etc. can't seem to find any goals outside of the
genre, so they create "joke bands" or "avantgarde projects" and
pretend they're important. These people are united by their
inability to accept that elitism and its complement, meritocracy,
are part of black metal. If your band is average, it shouldn't be
celebrated, no matter how much your friends on the Relapse.com,
fmp666.com and Metal Maniacs bulletin boards tell you it's "grim",
"brutal" or "open-minded." Contact us only if you can behave like an
autonomous individual / all other mail ignored.

-~-

The two demos from Finnish avant-grind death metal band Demilich,
who rocked the metal world with harmonically-advanced and
conceptually unique material and motivated many of the more
interesting prog-death bands in the last decade, are available in
mp3 form here:
http://demilich.mindnet.net/

Demilich: The Echo -demo II'92 
Demilich: The Four Instructive Tales of Decomposition -demo I'91
Demilich - Rehearsals 1991-09-12

For a review:
http://www.anus.com/metal/demilich.html

-~-

Dedicated to Saddam Hussein and all other leaders who understand the
necessity of brutal tactics in a brutal world spent in dedicated
jihad against Judeo-Christianity, and the force that produced it,
industry. Before trade and commerce separated humans from nature
into cities, there was no need for universal morality and
egalitarianism, but once it become economically sensible to do such
things because the need for "politics," or mass motion in the same
direction, benefitted commerce directly, these religions were cooked
up and hoodwinked us all. We can't tell if it's an April Fool's joke
or not, but apparently, the people who actually *believe* this shit
are in charge.

-~-

This is our last issue with Spinoza Ray Prozak as editor. SRP, who
spent six years as a DJ and then five more writing in the metal
community, has moved on but his spirit remains. We remind you that
where mediocrity prevails in journalism and thinking, it soon will
in music also; fight hard for higher standards and more focus on the
music and the ideas behind it, as he did during his days with us.

-~-

The eternal links list:

Say no to insane religions
www.fuckchrist.com

Metal as politial movement
www.hessian.org

Read biographies of metal bands
www.metal-reference.com

Label and zine that understands metal
www.cursedproductions.com

-~-

About Us

Heidenlarm is a metal e-zine:

-  No wasted paper.
-  No pretenses.
-  No need for the tangible.
-  No advertising.
-  No landfill production.

For more information, visit our web site at:
http://www.anus.com/metal/zine/

(c) 2003 Heidenlarm ezine/Dark Legions Archive