Heidenlärm Metal Zine

Introduction
Features
Interviews
Music
Editorial
Radar

This issue has been late for a number of reasons, first and foremost a dissatisfaction with metal. The general caliber of new releases is such that after three, I'm heading for some other form of music that actually possesses a distinctive nature, a raging spirit and some meaning or change in state conveyed. Any idiot can create a handful of riffs that produces a monochromatic "atmosphere" of "brutality" or "grimness," just like any idiot can slap black metal vocals on a rock band and call it avantgarde, and all of these idiots - encouraged by the lack of standards in the genre - appear to be roosting in black metal.

Nonetheless, there are some excellent bands in this issue and a new section for feature reports which will highlight those who choose to do something different instead of cloning the two main threads in the genre. Like the American political system, black metal has developed its left (rock bands dressed up as metal) and its right (repetitive and clonish extremity). It should be interesting to see if the will of "the people" - those who buy black metal, write about it, and promote it - are able to choose a new path, or if the musical style is doomed to become like every other style in popular music, caught between polar opposites defined in relation to the mainstream music it emulates.

Kraftwerk Endless

On all fours in the park, chasing for a bone when I see through the trees a flash of color. Or sequenced flashes, moving quickly near the road. I stumble, fall and roll down a small incline, rising from a cloud of dust to see the same sequence disappear into the trees around a chicane. I turn around and climb the hill, running across the diagonal between bends of the road, an open field around me with its musky sweet smell, and I come to the edge of the concrete tape when past me in sequence four men in uniforms of bright cycling clothing glide on their two-wheeled bikes, in rhythmic pedaling and fixed benevolent expressions reminiscent of the machine that is modern society were it put to a sane use instead. As the bright solid colorations sweep up the road, an impossibly low frequency seizes the background of the day, and from far above the mountains a trickling of notes of begin emphasizing the rhythm soon emerging from the folding whisper of trees in the wind, the pulse of a heartbeat bisected and inverted, unwrapping itself in undulating recursion as the song develops...

Whether you've been on the Autobahn for a long time, or are a recent bystander to an experience of your own with the music of Kraftwerk, you recognize standing on something which, despite imperfections, generates a strong emotional identification in many people who seem to glide through mainstream music without hitting pitfalls, finding the points where ideas come together with reason and shape themselves into taking on a life of their own, mind-viruses complex enough to give as well as receive. With good reason: Kraftwerk were the first major innovation in popular music after rock, and corrected many of the cliche-problems of rock with a classically- derived form of music requiring such complexity in conception (but not necessarily execution) that its only cliches would be in the aesthetics itself, as technology advanced beyond the point of its creation. They not only created new genres and ways of seeing music, including among punkers and metalheads, but also generated some memorable and era-independent impressive tunes and, as perhaps their most important accomplishment, injected a spirit missing from rock.

Based in Celtic folk and American popular music, rock was a free- form genre that used some basic rhythmic and harmonic crutches to insure it was understandable by the entire audience and musicians whose primary activities did not involve crafting sound, and thus became wildly popular. Like the blues, and the hymns which helped inspire it, rock had a tendency to extend the egalitarian empathy of art to an extreme of celebrating suffering in the form of laments and ballads turned into upbeat songs on topics of loss, incompleteness, disorganization, addiction, sadness and isolation. As a result, this is a confessional genre, one in which one celebrates failure in order to form empathy with the negative. Consequently, rock music is among the most cathartic of experiences in the popular cultural realm, but as a result lacks a sense of the assertive properties of Romantic art, which re-construes the world in a context in which suffering is only one component of a larger, more regenerative process. These heroic values, as seen from Greek tragedies through classical music, are what gave artists a counterbalance to sadness and a positivity underlying any number of topics or themes.

Unlike most electronic music today, Kraftwerk does not exude a constant-on flow of happy with gigantic breakdowns for people to cool down before the next dance begins, but wraps its emotions together in a double helix where the generation of complements is seen, and from this language makes songs which have no dominant, simple, projected symbol. They contain elements of heroic thought and a Romanticist passion toward life, with a Bauhaus fascination with simple functionality and mechanical representation. Albums function together as concepts, but their individual members have unique characters owing to their melodies which exist in motifs like classical music, putting together the results of a series of small calculations into a fragment of experience, which combined in a way revealing their origins become a narrative of emotions creating a poetics of existence. Judgment of what emotion symbolizes the time is cast aside, as is the tendency of laments to wallow in their self-pity; a voice speaks out past all of the parts of life for which there is no balm or clear human reason, and addresses that which is great arising from the chaos of life, celebrating the art of human living.

In another way of phrasing this, most popular music can create an emotion: happiness with a touch of doubt, sadness witha touch of anger, rage with a touch of pity, love and power and the exuberant "yes" of sex - all of the things which are common to all humans, and also, our simian ancestors. With three or five notes rock bands reach a series of intervals in rhythmic organization which suggest the emotion summarizing, from a certain view, the experience in question, usually with the crowd-pleasing "touch of" something slightly contrary, to give an illusion of emotional option within the feeling created. Musics outside the rock tradition which have heroic goals, using the same techniques, combine groups of these emotional establishments to create a voice articulating something as a whole. Kraftwerk is like this - it is a story and a symphony distilled into a long song for popular music, hyper-simplified for the immediacy of the audience but not pandering to the lowest common denominator - and the result is a pallette on which amazing musical experience is crafted.

Having been active for almost three decades, the band has experienced a hiatus from 1986 to the present time but continues to release snippets of their vision, in a few EP tracks, remixes and commercial soundtracks. Their work from the past remains timeless and, unlike most bands from the current era, their recent efforts are as solidly reasoned and assembled as any of their classics. Widely acknowledged as the impetus behind industrial and electronic music, Kraftwerk is also recognized by the creator of hip-hop as a fundamental influence (he borrowed a riff for use in the rhythm track of his music, but did not incorporate the melodic structural concepts for which Kraftwerk is famed). In this, in comparison to techno and hip-hop and "modern" rock, Kraftwerk to many represents one of the last offerings of an order fast disappearing in a world of sound bytes and high-speed video snippets. The reviews below will provide a chronological investigation of the works of this immensely influential band.

Kraftwerk - Radioactivity (Capitol, 1975)

A resurrection of Renaissance thinking in popular music, these neo- classical compositions rendered in digital precision with alertness and agility demonstrate growth and chillingly exact conclusion in the midst of electronic music. Strips of notes are bent and shifted into complementary threads of harmony which suggest a range of moods. Human voices and electronic instruments merge in a flow of pleasant sound that is unique in melody and structure, distinctive above all other acts in this genre. And while mostly an invocation of the inspiration of an individual within a distant world, these songs often bring us some future foretold. When they sing, "Radioactivity... it's in the air for you and me" is the melody we are supposed to hear grimly humorous and hauntingly sad?

Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express (Capitol, 1977)

In making the "universal pop song" as once their vision suggested, the quartet of digital programmers known as Kraftwerk unveiled a new vision of music: spacily melodic, classically-derived, with hypnotic digital rhythm and vocal arrangements from rock styles. Ultra- precise keyboard riffs alternate over a consistent beat, and merge as themes expand. Shadowing a future for both electronic music and abstracted forms of underground sound, Kraftwerk escaped the need to hide behind mainstream conventions of "rock" dominance. As intricate and varied as it is consistently inventive, this album impresses with an ability to layer melodies of ancient pride in a universally sensible voice.

Kraftwerk - The Man-Machine (Capitol, 1978)

Another vision of Kraftwerk in concept emerges as men behaving like robots make precise organic music using digital machines, convincing the listener of the disciplined yet spirited humanity within complex and exact patterning. Classical inspirations are reflected in the structure of melody which, wrapped around popular arrangements in a pop more than rock style, uses Renaissance musical ideals to arrange progression of tone and mood through design. Unlike most of the music it inspired, Kraftwerk resolved its conflicts in architectures abstractly reflecting troubling themes of alienated postmodern life. In embracing basic themes of individual inspiration in the classical framewerk this album hails to a future in the values of past eras, in which the sensitive minds of honor and virtue that created this album would find appreciation and comradeship.

Kraftwerk - Computer World (Elektra, 1981)

The most popular Kraftwerk album for its pop refinement and sense of lush harmonies and shameless transition of mood; the electronic age encloses in hookish pop music the knowledge of classical Europe. Brilliantly conceived in melody and concept, these songs of electronic instrumentations bring additional levels of structure and meaning to popular music. Vocals are soft and encourage song development with sparse placement. Complex and vivid music presents a challenging listen that if understood reveals a vision of will to life outside of mainstream conformity to emotional plasticism.

Why We Love Burzum

During the early days of black metal, it generated mostly resentment from death metallers who saw it as an attempt to make simplistic crap metal become trendy. However, after bands like Beherit, Darkthrone and finally, Burzum emerged, this view was thwarted as some of the most passionate, articulate and emotionally complex music of the time was produced by otherwise unassuming black metal bands. Each of them started out quietly, with albums not that far divorced from the standards of their time; arguably, Darkthrone and Immortal were more influenced by Bathory, and Burzum and Beherit were more schooled in the Hellhammer/Celtic Frost style of micro- Wagnerian metal.

Nevertheless, these bands thrust forward with an energy that was unprecedented, breathing new life into a dead genre. Their most impressive contribution however might be in their distilling of the emotion of the time, which from their perspective is watching the final stages of a society, anaesthesized by a egalitarian self- congratulatory morality and fed by a parasitic technology, collapsing into itself, like a techno-Roman empire poisoned by its own excess and thus, guilt and need to pity others to feel self- esteem. What would oppose this would be something in a Zen state of soulless intense and whole feeling; where egalitarians aim for universalism, or a simple truth which can appeal to everyone, the holistic nature of black metal appeals to find a truth in everything felt most precisely in a moment by the individual. This worldview will be eternally unpopular in human populations, which are by nature composed of 98% followers and 2% geniuses, madman, leaders, artists and criminals. Black metal screamed out that nature still rules this earth, and doesn't fit into emotionally handy categories invented by humans to make themselves feel better about death.

Where most metal bands continually degenerate into thrashing madness and grow further from the point of coherence, lapsing into their own damaged egos and flogging out repetitive music in order to gain social power, Burzum aimed for an artistic and emotional high point, distilling all of the negative feeling of the current time and taking it two stages further, both diagnosing its failings and promoting its negative complement, an ideal which as a movement would obliterate it. For Burzum, this is Romanticism as felt in Western art for many centuries now, with a dose of Knut Hamsun- inspired naturalism, both movements which have, like Romanticism in classical music, partially overlapped with Nationalism (including neo-National Socialism, as Wagner expressed) and other forms of Greco-Roman-inspired and naturalism - meaning not believing in supernatural worlds or moral divisions of good and evil - thus making it both one of the most elusive and most controversial of artistic belief systems.

Regardless of your "personal" stance on the politics behind these bands, their music, which merged in each case from black metal to electronic, represents a reminiscence of ancient values and rejection of the ideals of this plastic, technocratic, democratic time. It is proof of its beliefs in action in that artistically, it has dropped away from the clingy justifications, moral absolutes and belief in fatalistic, couch-sitting convenience and found a source of positivity that praises both dark and light in a view of reality in which continuity of natural systems is more important than individual human concepts of 'self.' As a result the music overwhelms the listener, deconstructing them and then catching them up in the forward motion of melody and structure.

This music will never be popular, or at least as popular as heavy metal dressed up like black metal, but it will remain significant in a genre that only a few years later crashed and burned into predictable music, with its brightest stars departed and its newest generations more interested in reliving, instead of creating, greatness. It is perhaps this reason that Burzum endures for years in the collections of those who find it, where most metal bands have a shelf life measured in months, before their recombinant rhythms and fragmentary phrasal gestures become no longer current in a world of trends which pass like television commercials, quickly with a lingering slightly poignant, humorous or frightening message hoping to grasp consciousness for just a moment, so that profit can occur. Burzum is not about profit, or social status: it is pure art, and remains as fresh today as it was when minted in the early 1990s.

Burzum - Burzum/Aske

The first album from Burzum is the most "black metal" of his works, including allusions to Bathory and Hellhammer in its dirgy, abrupt passages with searing, horrifyingly distorted vocals.

Burzum - Det Som Engang Var

Further evolved from the context of its generation this music makes suddenly incarnate a voice of the nihilistic, anarchistic and emotional philosophy of black metal, a spiritual holocaust that leaves only sadness and resentful anger.

Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss

The emotional mood of the musical aesthetics distinguishes this album; the artist sets a stage and plays out the story that must echo in his own head, that of the slow decay of a dark character into sadness anger and death.

Burzum - Filosofem

Fast guitar smears a distorted flow of notes into chords and melodies, hypnotizing with sound in the simplest components of a song that builds a mood from the ambiguity of the melodic recombinance that emerges.

Burzum - Daudi Baldrs

A basic album of neoclassical inspiration and modern digital arrangement, this recording uses minimal keyboards to spell out highly creative and natural melodies in archaic song styles.

Burzum - Hlidskjalf

Resembling some of the recent work in the field of ambient and electronica, this album de-emphasizes the constant beat of postmodern music and instead creates lush symphonies of unique patterning and varied dynamic, creating an intensity and concentration in the listener.

(For more information, see http://www.burzum.com/)

Xaphan
of KULT OV AZAZEL

If you are an insightful reader, "American black metal" doesn't conjure up much of an impression. Either it's thrashing rehash which is basically death metal with some raspy vocals and period melody, or it's the tedious "ultra-necro-fvcking-cult-grim" stuff that resembles the output of a shorted speaker in an ice cream (CAUTION: CHILDREN) truck. Kult ov Azazel is something that to me sounded at first like ripping grindcore with periodic melodic supports in the black metal style, and have continued to develop this extreme black/grind sound into something both uniquely American and distinct in its approach to this fusion.

1. what in rock-n-roll inspired underground black metal, or was it something outside of rock-n-roll?

Both. Metal evolved from rock-n-roll and it is just common sense that genre of black metal evolved from metal. The outside influence came in the form of anger to christian doctrine. It spawned from the combination of extreme antichristian ideologies and the vilest form of music that could be deviated from past metal endeavors. Without the two I don't think black metal would really exist, at least not what we know as black metal at this point in time.

2. were you as a band initially metal players who branched out to black metal, or was black metal your "first love" genre?

I can't say it was my first love as black metal did not really exist back when I first being listening to music consciously back in 1977. Just as I was growing up I never found anything that was likeable about what was mainstream music like stuff my parents listened to, other kids liked or what was heard on the radio. I was much more fascinated with the stuff that was what people back then considered obscure. I started out listening to Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, AC/DC and stuff to that extent. Then later Iron Maiden, WASP, Motley Crue and from there I discovered Venom, Exodus, Possessed, Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and the list goes on. As far as being a musician goes, I began playing metal back in 1984 with the inspiration of Venom's "Welcome to Hell". So I would say that at that moment in time, even more so after they released "Black Metal", that I had found a style of music that I related to. Branching out I don't know if it is the right term, I think discovering would be more fitting.

3. in the progression from death metal to black metal, what experimental elements of the death metal genre became finalized into new techniques and stylistic ideals in black metal?

Definitely the blast beat. That's the one major carry over from the death metal genre to the black metal genre that I can think of. I would also say that the lyrics back in the beginnings of death metal had the same tone, very antichristian and focused on death, destruction and darkness. But other than that I don't think the two really compare to each other. Maybe more so today since many bands like to mix the two but in my opinion I think black metal is mentally and emotionally more appealing than death metal.

4. it seems to me society doesn't want to accept ("underground") metal except when there's a need for some "outsider" to ratify some aspect of mainstream society, or a need to have an "other" toward which to point. is this true in your experience?

Well I think the underground and society are a bad mix to begin with. Society is more concerned with pop-culture, what's current and "hip". You have this problem with the scenesters in the underground but they eventually go away because they find something else to fill the void of their meaningless lives. So I say good let society shun the underground. Once underground metal is embraced by society it will only bring more trendhoppers and shitter bands with it, as if there's not enough already.

5. what is the difference between crustcore/grindcore and black metal, in your view, since the musical elements outside of concept, image and arrangement appear very similar?

Yeah the arrangement and musical approach can be very similar in all three styles. Other than that and that all tend to have a DYI approach to things I wouldn't say that there are really any other similarities.

6. from the mp3 sample on your site, the new material kult ov azazel is producing is more streamlined and seemingly, contemplative in emotional development, where previous material focused more on "ripping," at least from what struck this reviewer. how would you categorize the changes in your new material from your old, and what inspired these changes?

Too make a long story short we have been through many drummers since we formed this band. With each release there has been a new drummer and depending on who is drumming for us is how the songs come out. Yes the last album and even the split we did with Krieg was much more of a ripping style, mostly blast oriented black metal. Yet with the first mCD release we did not have a drummer that was capable of drumming like that so it was more of a minimal approach to the song writing. So yes the new stuff is going a bit different since we have a new and permanent drummer added to the band. We have also added a second guitarist which has also brought a different slant to the writing process. This album is a total collaboration between us as a full band as opposed to past releases where it was only Xul or I. Plus I have begun doing more vocals on this album and contributed a majority of the lyrics so quite a lot has changed. I am the most satisfied with this new album than I have been with anything that we have done in the past.

7. do you enjoy touring? if so, where's an ideal place to tour?

We have not toured as a band. Only have done a few dates here and there outside of Florida. But I have toured with another band and I would say I really liked Germany and Belgium. The Netherlands was great too. And yes I did enjoy that tour because I was able to get the fuck out of America for a month. It was a great experience and something I would like to maybe one day do with Kult ov Azazel.

8. is your next album going to be self-produced, since so much of the black metal underground has been hit hard by this recession?

It will be, yes.

9. what sorts of behaviors are appropriate for elders in the USBM scene, as you as a band are?

Being drunk, rude and crude.

10. do you think black metal will mutate into another style, or, like other metal styles, will it become a known/retro experience that is accepted but frozen in development?

Of course it will mutate, and has already been doing so for a few years. But to me this is not black metal. Once it strays from the roots of what black metal ideology and musical style is about it to me is no longer black metal. Black metal is fucking vile, ugly and most importantly satanic. For these reasons it will never be widely accepted because of the religious fear that it invokes.

11. what things do you see in an audience at a KOA gig that inspires strong emotion or realization in you?

Nothing. The people that have to come to see us in a live setting do nothing to inspire me. What inspires me is when the music starts. The music invokes the strong emotion in me. I enter my own world and don't usually even know that there are people standing in front of us.

12. were there every any heroes in black metal?

No. Heroes are for comic books or Hollywood movies.

13. xaphan, you seem to be familiar with your instrument more than most in the underground community - what stimulated you to start playing guitar, and what types of exercises did you use to practice?

Like I said earlier, it was mainly Venom that inspired me to really pick up the guitar. I was given a guitar and amp at the age of 8 but I never had the motivation to play it. But once I heard that Venom record it was all over. So I was around 13/14 years old when I seriously began teaching myself guitar. I learned to play by ear and to this day can't really read or write music on paper. Everything I have learned over the years I have taught myself either by watching others or from trial and error. For exercise I just do a lot of open string picking to keep up on my right hand picking speed. As for left hand exercises I mainly just go over scales or focus on individual fingering positioning. I also make up patterns that I find useful in progressing the speed both in my left and right hands. There's really not much to my practice ethics.

14. in your view, has black metal technique expanded over the last five years, or regressed by adopting pieces of other genres?

It has done both. In the early days it was expanding but since about late 90's it began regressing by adopting other musical forms. That's why you see many bands now taking it back to the roots. I say hail to these bands!

15. what music, metal or otherwise, do you listen to at this point in time that hold some mystery, joy or artistic experience for you?

Currently all I have been listening to is the song mixes of our new album. Very fucking tedious. But other than that one of my favorite bands for some time now has been Inquisition, so I listen to them everyday. I have also been listening to a lot of Gorgoroth recently and Hellhammer. I also like to listen to ritual/chamber music, along with some classical and soundtrack scores. But for the most part I spend the majority of my time listening to black metal if listening to music at all.

16. both kult ov azazel and the mainstream band "audioslave" seem to be positioned as intensely ideological music; what do you see as the differences between KOA and audioslave, and how are these manifest in the final output?

I don't know much about this band you mention other than they are mainstream rock or something. So right there I'd say that is a big difference. Also what we are doing is not made to appeal to people of herd mentality. We are creating an output of our inner selves. Music that we would want to hear, plain and simple. We don't care if our albums sell or not. Bands such as audioslave are creating music for the purpose of selling records and putting money into their bank accounts. Kult ov Azazel is doing it to further the war on monotheistic tyranny.

17. it seems like the last three years have brought a much larger metal audience to the web; in your opinion, what effect has this had on the metal that is purchased and promoted socially in the metal community?

I honestly can't answer this question. I guess there's a larger metal audience on the web, more so than say 5 years ago but that is inevitable with the invention of new technology. I have no clue what people are actually purchasing because I use the web as a tool of communication and not a social outlet. With the advance of technology come idiots that learn how to use it so I stopped using the internet for anything other than contacts.

18. when this reviewer saw KOA at a metalfest some time back, your performance as a group was tightly synchronized and professional in appearance; how would you describe your practice schedule, and what are your goals/disciplines in performing live?

Our practice schedule used to be more regular than it is now. In the past all the session drummers we have used have been from the same city as us so we were doing like anywhere from 3 to 5 times a week when it came to practicing. Now with our new drummer, it is much harder since he lives in Buffalo NY not to mention he also techs for a few bands that always seem to be out on the road. So now we get together about every 3 months. Usually Goss will come down for a month's time when he's not working and at that point we practice every night for that entire month he is in town. It's a bit of a weird situation but works out well for all of us. Our goal when playing live is to lay waste to the audience. To slaughter them with audible carnage. As for disciplines, we really don't have any.

19. which weapon would you prefer in combat, the AK-47 or the M16A3, and why?

AK-47. AK-47's are extremely rugged and reliable guns. Simple to operate and need less cleaning under battle conditions.

20. do you think the era of history defines the music within it, or that music is created independent of history by artistic minds focused on concepts of their own disconnected vision?

Yes history has an effect on music. But at the same time I think the music itself, in the composition of the actual notes is more created by the artistic mind. It's usually the lyrics or the message that the song is trying to convey that is a reflection of history. At least this is how it is for me, I suppose others would disagree.

21. what is your opinion on the world bank and the UN as forces of global change through economics?

I don't know anything about this. I don't follow economics at all. Last time I even thought about economics was when I was taking it back in high school and even then I flunked it. But my opinion is that government is the next worse thing invented next to religion.

22. would you ever play in an old-school heavy metal band as a side project?

At this point in time, no. I don't have free time to do such a thing. Down the road, maybe, depends what the factors involved are. There are not many people I find tolerable, that is obvious by how many drummers we have gone through, so if I could stand to be around them it would be a possibility.

23. many have thought, for years now, that black metal would merge with either industrial, ambient or noise music. do you think this is still possible, or that these influences have been absorbed by the metal machineas a whole?

It's already happened. I don't care for any of the three styles mixed with black metal. If I want to hear a noise band I'll listen to a noise band. No reason people should continue to bastardize and make a mockery of black metal by trying to add other genre styles to it. But that's my opinion, I like black metal to be black metal not some hybrid inversion of it.

24. someone once described metal music as "industrial rock." do you see truth in this phrase?

Who the hell was this someone? I hope if it is someone you know you smacked the shit out them for this comment! That has to be listed as a "stupidest quote ever" on a list somewhere. No I do not see any truth or relation for that matter. Industrial rock is exactly that. Idiots have to learn that just because it has distorted guitars that it does not make it metal. I still can't get over that description. It's so moronic it makes me laugh.

25. suddenly there's 10,000 metal e-zines, web sites, zines, tiny labels and bands. how has this helped or hurt the quest on which you have embarked?

It hasn't really helped or hurt us so it really hasn't been an obstacle on what we set out to do and that is to create music that mocks the existence of religious faith. I think it hurts the ones doing the zines and the other things more than it would the bands.

26. are you positive or negative about a potential coming apocalypse?

I see it coming soon. At least at some point in my life. Not in the biblical version of it but in a massive world war that will eventually destroy all human life. It's virtually impossible to avoid. Rege Mortalis Letum!

27. cities seem to have personality, and vast differences exist even between cities that are similar in structure, economics, culture. what city in north america most closely mirrors your own persona?

This is a hard fucking question to answer. I haven't been too many places in America to make a correct comparison.

28. if you wanted to make a black metal band that was "futuristic," how would you do it -and- does such a thing exist?

This is nothing I would ever want to do. I hate speaking in hypotheticals but I suppose the way I'd go about doing it would be to join "the new" Mayhem. Trying to make black metal anything other is a really bad joke or a sure sign of trying to make a buck.

29. please fill in this space with upcoming events, or answers for which the corresponding question as unasked.

We'll be releasing a slew of recordings in the coming year. We've just finished up on second full length titled "Oculus Infernum" which will be released on CD in the early months of 2003. In January we'll be releasing the demo mCD "Order of the Fly" and a live recording on LP with a split 7" with Satan's Blood to follow soon after. And last but not least, thanks to Prozak for the support and for not asking the same lame questions that are so frequently asked these days.

KULT OV AZAZEL www.kultovazazel.com

Francois Mongrain of MARTYR

Many people gush over later Death but really, it's pretty predictable heavy metal done up "Death Metal and Yet, Prog-Rock" style; for a band that takes the best of jazz-and-prog-rock influences and puts them into rhythmically adept yet vicious death metal, try Québec's Martyr. They don't aim for anything new, but do everything in a new way, in the process contributing some of the fastest, most intricate and harmonically aware metal lead playing ever heard on this earth.

1. how much do you think death/black metal were influenced by prog rock in the 1970s?

I'm not sure... I think some bands were influenced by classical music,some other from rock, blues, jazz, and some other by contemporary andprogressive music. It depends of the influences of each musicians, what they like, whatthey listended.

2. was prog rock a movement that came about by chance, or was there a reason for rock bands going technical so close to the birth of rock music?

I think it's the need to explore and create more satisfying stuff.

3. there are two basic ways of looking at music. in the first, there is a mechanicism to the arrangement of certain tones (such as "a diminished melodic pattern modulating to a flattened second"); in the second, a narration occurs where a story is told or a poetic function completed. in your view of compositions, which is more important?

I think the first one is a tool to help the second one. Personnally, great arrangements alone are pointless if they deliver no message. The message through music is the most important thing. If there's any,better stop doing music.

4. do you think most prog rock uses narrative structures, which reveal a poetry or story, or cyclic structures?

Definitely. They brings us in other worlds, it is like a fantasy movie,a dream, etc.

5. what bands inspired the direction that martyr took?

Some band gave some inspiration, but did not inspired the direction. Wetry to do it our own way. We like some bands as

6. what for you is the significance of the name, "martyr"?

Martyr is a way of thinking, is a state of mind, a way of life. It's the acceptance of suffering for the beliefs of some ideals, the cause of abetter world that can hardly be reached because the world as we know itis too sick.

7. like a certain other canadian band of great brilliance, you focus on technology in your concept and lyrical writing. is this something brought on by its imminence in all of our lives, or for symbolic reason?

Maybe it's because of the technology's omnipresence in our society, butwhen I write lyrics, I try to use symbols to say other things. Thetechnologic symbols in the song Retry? Abort? Ignore? are to representthe human brain when reaching its endurance limit, when it's about todisconnect, like a burn out or other illness.

8. if you could tour with other bands in metal, who would you pick if you were looking for bands similar to martyr?

Maybe Spyral Architect, Meshuggah, Voivod, The Dillinger Escape Plan...maybe there would be some more.

9. what is the most difficult part about composing songs as you do?

The most difficult part is to make the music flow as it was written inone shot. We try to avoid the riff-riff collage that too many bands aredoing. We try to compose as naturally as possible.

10. while martyr has a high tech sound and conceptual approach, often your music seems closer to progressive heavy metal in the 1970s style, with more of the merger between avantgarde and progressive that has occurred in the more novelty-based recent decades. is this true, and how do you see yourselves as differentiating on an artistic level from the other bands in this time?

Our progressive inpiration is not really a concious thing... we writewhat we have in mind, that's it.

11. how do you compose songs as a band?

Main riffs, melodies, etc are written individually. When we rehearse, wemake a lot of arrangement, we find more ideas. The composer of a songhas ideas for the other instruments, but everybody bring their ideas.

12. do you think people collaborate more effectively with a leader or as a ground-up leaderless project?

A "leader" is good to give directions for a project, but if this leaderimposes too much his ideas, it's not good at all and ruins the membersrelationship.

13. what other bands from qu=E9bec do you enjoy?

Cryptopsy, Obliveon (rip), Neuraxis, Gorguts, Voivod, there are so many!

14. which do you think is most important to metal, harmony, melody or arrangement?

Hehehe.... it depends of the situation. Most important is : Did Isucceded in the delivery of my message?

15. what do you feel is the role of lead guitar in a well-written song?

Soloing is a peak in a song, as a drum fill is another kind of peak. Idon't see any instrument that would be more important that another.

17. as individual members, what are your philosphies regarding the degree of importance death should be accorded in our lives?

Death is unavoidable. So we must live with it. I read samuraiphilosophy. Death was a concept so present for them that they lived withthis reality day and night. They could die or kill an ennemy at everymoment. In the modern life, in most civilized countries, we don't havethis reality except for cancer, accidents, etc. But the more you areconscient of your inevitable death, the more you'll be aware of everymoment of your life, and it may make it happier.

18. what thing scares human civilization most at this time?

Our fear of war, oppression, etc, are caused by our lack of control overthese situations. We are really powerless as individuals.

19. do you think it is possible, as many thinkers allege, that humans exist in a world of language "containers" and philosophical justification, and thus do not often come into contact with the "real" existence, which is undefinable and hard to communicate socially as regards any significance within it?

People are afraid to talk about their existence, their death, theirorigin, etc. So, society hide itself in the more trivial things as videogames, buying clothes, watching movies and joking all the time. Theseare all good, but not when they serves as masks and crutches. (I'm notsure if I answered right your question!)

20. who were the most important thinkers in history for you?

I'm not an history guy, but I like a lot Miyamoto Musashi, the mostfamous samurai in japan feodal history. His obsession with death isamazing and scaring at the same time. At these times, death was a dailypreoccupation as eating, sleeping and buying food.

21. what do you think defines metal as music, as a genre, and as a subculture?

When you put some notes together, rhythm and vocals, it is called music.The way each person do it makes the style, and if some people likesit, you have the subculture. Sound silly but I don't know how to explain it better. ;-)

22. which is the role of religion during our current age, and how much do you think it influences politics and goverment?

Religion is powerless in front of politics. it's a good thing and a badthing in the same time. Religion have bad concepts but good ideals inthe same time. Politics have no moral ethics. I don't care for politics.I know nothing about this and I'm proud to say this. It stinks. >:-)

23. death metal has intense variety, between morpheus descends and demilich and asphyx and martyr; what holds these bands together in the same genres?

I don't konw these bands ! LOL Can you send me a copy? Should beinteresting!

24. when death metal gets technical, does it necessarily get closer or further from other mainstream genres, or does it stand on its own in a different depth?

I'm not sure about this. Technique is only a tool to transmit a message.I hate technical music that tries only to impress.

25. what allows music to be separated into "genres," when all of it uses roughly the same theoretical basis (excepting the different theory required for use of different scales, etc)?

The sound? the song structures? The vocal style? The look andattitude???? Maybe a little of each one.

26. as the market for metal slows down, and the mainstream comes closer with heavy stuff that's still very commercial like slipknot or korn, do you think metal will mutate into a new style?

No. Mainstream bands are good because their fans will sooner or later beinterested in more heavy stuff. We all began to listen to less heavierstuff. They are like a bridge that leads to the real metal.

27. if you could hope for metal to change as a whole in any way, including its basic form, what would you desire of it?

I'd like that there would be less bands, especially less bad bands.Anyone can take a guitar, make up some shitty riffs and create a band.Go practice before! ;-) I'd like that the lyrics would be more intelligent. That it would not beany shit and crap in the artwork of cds. These things are really notgood for the reputation of metal.

28. if a holy war (crusade vs jihad) breaks out in the middle east, how do you think it will affect the way most people view metal, and the way most metalheads view religious people?

I don't know. There's no crusade, it's just propaganda from themiddle-east. I'm sure of one thing : Most religions are not bad things. The bad thingis what people do with religion : quest for power, glory, tyranny,fanaticism.

29. one big problem in thought today is "individualism"; it seems everybody wants to make novelty of their own lives, and not many people want to band together and agree on things to allow change to occur; what do you think is the next major ideology "for most people" beyond "individualism"?

Union make force. Everyone wants their piece of cake. It leads tonothing. It's the problem of most modern societies. In Japan, individualism doesn't exist. It's unthinkable. No doubt about why theyare one of the most organized countries.

30. are you a materialist, or do you believe there is a life beyond this one, or any supernatural space/beings/life at all?

I believe in life after death. I don't judge others about this, as it'sa personnal belief. I can't tell how I see this afterlive, as I neverseen it yet! :-) So I don't want to imagine anything, for not beingdisapointed! :)

31. when you compose as a band, do you think in terms of scale patterns, or are your melodies more granular?

Harmonies are very important. That's the most important thing totransmit emotions. So I think in chords first (then breaks the chord tomake melodies). Scales and patterns are just tools.

33. what do you do as individual band members to relax, when not working on music?

I read a lot, I do computers, and I practice martial arts a lot (6 daysa week!)

34. do you use standard tuning?

Yep. On a 6 strings bass : b-e-a-d-g-c Guitars : they use stardard tuning on Hopeless Hopes. On Warp Zone, they = use standard tuning and drop D tuning. On the New songs, they try D tuning with drop C.

35. if i forgot anything, please insert it in here.=20

I apreciate the interview, very elaborated and interesting questions! Hope to play in your area soon!

Francois Mongrain

MARTYR www.welcome.to/martyr

Tlaloc of MICTLANTECUHTLI

As with many others who were shocked by the appearance of nationalist sentiment in metal during the 1990s, I came to understand it for what it was and stop myself from rejecting bands just because of their political views. This is a different face on nationalism, one that is expressed both in music and in the words surrounding it. LA's Mictlantecuhtli may be out of reach of most metalheads intellectually, but this isn't stopping them from getting the word out and making some fervently alienated music of traditional values at the same time.

1. how important to you is concept in unifying content and aesthetic in music?

It is very important in the respect that we have to connect and be comfortable with what we are playing. We write music because we like to and do it for ourselves. It is our creation and is representative of us in every which way. We take much pride in our music and we immerse ourselves in every part of it. We see no point in making music that is to the specific tastes of certain people because in that case, it may as well be someone else writing the music. That music would not reflect any part of us.

2. what formal or informal education do members of the band possess?

The majority of the band is enrolled in different universities or colleges. However, as a group, we keep educating ourselves. The individual members know the importance of being knowledgeable and consequently we read up and do our research on various topics that we may find intriguing.

3. do you consider it "racism" to be proud of one's tribe? and on that note: what do you think of the organization "la raza"?

It is not racist to be proud of one's tribe in any way. However, some individuals take their pride to extreme levels when they begin to belittle, disrespect, and mock others for not being part of their group. Being proud of your tribe is one thing. To disparage others because they aren't like you is a completely different thing. The organization of "la raza" is difficult to judge. It also swings two ways. It can be great because it gives certain people the sense of unity and support that they may need in order for them to succeed. It can also cause conflict between the idea of unity and individuality. In order to maintain the "raza" feeling, you may loose some of your individuality.

4. the holy priests crushed every culture which they encountered on their journey out of the middle east, including the cultures of europe. why do you think it was necessary for them to destroy existing cultures in order to make their religion have a place in those societies?

Well, it is very simple. As was done with the Aztecs, cultures were destroyed for the sake of maintaining their religion. The basic concept is to eliminate the "competition." If you have many different views, it is more difficult to get your view across to the masses. By decimating other existing cultures and potential threats, they cleared the way for their religion in other regions.

5. if i said i have zero tolerance for christianity or judaism and would like to eliminate them, do you think this is unfair of me to do so? if so, what position would you give these religions in an ideal society?

This is a very difficult question. Since we do not follow or care for these religions we might say off with them, but it can be seen as unfair to even think of eliminating them. We can live enjoyable lives without Christianity, but some people are just clueless about life in general. We see no problem with Christianity or any other religion as a form of counseling for people, but the institutions themselves are horrible. It is what could be considered a good idea gone bad. It is when people receive help from religion and close their mind to any other possibilities that ignorant feuds are created. Life is not like math where there is only one answer. You can find many ways of doing the same thing correctly to your liking. In and ideal society, religious institutions should be prohibited.

6. what do you think is the relationship between judeo-christian morality and the spread of technology to the third world, including the tendency of technocratic governments to export raw materials from the third world to the first in order to manufacture value-added products and services?

If we understand your question correctly, we feel as if the people of the first world always leave behind the people of the third world. The third world provides the first with crucial elements for their needs. After giving to the first, the third world still has to pay the price. It makes Christian morality sound a bit silly. Where is the morality in benefiting off the third world without returning the favor?

7. does your belief system include any "shamanistic" practices?

Yes. It all varies from person to person, but it does include various sorts of rituals. We actually consider our live performances as rituals. When we play we are deeply involved in our ritual. We also burn sage and copal (tree sap) in our performances. Our shows are our ceremonies in which we pay our respect to nature and the energies of nature and our ancestors. The sage and copal would be our offering to the energies and is also a form of cleansing.

8. the traditional story of the fall of the aztecs is that a certain christianized spaniard gathered up the tribes who served the aztecs as slaves and organized them to use their greater numbers to crush the stronger aztec empire. do you think, as did f.w. nietzsche, that christianity is a religion of "revenge" by the weaker but more numerous upon the stronger but fewer?

This seems to be the case. There are far more Christians than those that are not. Christians, for the most part, are mindless followers that are conditioned not to think for themselves. This makes them weak because they are not free of mind. In revenge, Christians alienate and belittle all those not on their side. This makes for the exact comparison that you made. We don't have to look that far to see this. It is all around us and it is the thing that no one ever wants to acknowledge because it will throw their whole being into disequilibrium. 9. why have you chosen to dwell in the united states instead of in mexico? (there is no direction to this question, mainly curious... i ask myself something similar often and readily admit i have no answer)

Well, some of us were born and raised here in the US and some of us came over from Mexico at a young age. We all are basically here because our parents felt they could provide a better living environment financially for us here.

10. if you could change on thing about metal culture, what would it be?

There should be a little more sense of humor in the metal scene. This does not mean for everyone to dress up like clowns and have absolutely no seriousness to them like some "metal" bands of today do. At times you can feel some people being uptight about things because they feel that it's the "black metal way." However, how would the masses view black metal if all other things were a bit more "extreme"? If this were the case, Michael Jackson would be just as blasphemous as Dark Funeral. If those people get their feelings hurt by a mere joke then they probably should not be listening to metal in the first place.

11. do you believe that art necessarily conveys an ideological message?

In most cases art conveys and ideological message. The things a musician writes and the paintings an artist paints have a direct connection with themselves. The majority of artists do what they do for a reason and have some sort of idea behind it. However, you have some artists that make plain garbage. It seems as if the more and artist tailors his art for certain people, the less of a message there is in it. All ideology is lost in such cases and all artistic properties as well.

12. what do you see as the distinctions in belief system between black metal and death metal?

They are the same in the sense that they both have the "true way" of doing things.

13. would you describe your music as having more of a melodic basis, or being more rhythmic/structuralist?

We would say our music has a bit of everything. At times there is a heavy melodic basis and other times it is intensely rhythmic. There really is no set pattern to it. We simply write something we would enjoy if we listened to it.

14. how much longer do you think humanity will survive?

Hopefully long enough for us to enjoy, but we hardly think of such things. We are content living day by day and worrying solely of what we have direct control over.

15. when you get up on stage, how do your personalities change from your day to day appearance and moods?

When we are on stage we are Mictlantecuhtli. We are not the guys that make up the line-up for Mictlantecuhtli. We see our performances as battles and even rituals to a certain extent. All of our energy goes into every show without regards to the size of the crowd or their reaction. Every show is equally important. A performance is the time when we create the realm of Mictlantecuhtli that everyone present at the show can experience.

16. what bands inspired you as artists, and what inspired your sound and technique? were these the same bands?

A great number of artists have inspired us. There are far too many to list here. We have been inspired by artists from Dark Funeral to Trio Los Panchos. Somewhere between those lies a horde of bands from Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, to the usual metal inspirations (i.e. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, etc.). Our sound has been in the molding process. We simply wanted to create something aggressive that builds an atmosphere complimentary of our musical tastes.

17. when not making music, what do the members of mictlantecuhtli do to stay immersed in and fascinated with life?

We all just do things we enjoy as well as ensure the necessities of life, which include music. What can we tell you? We play soccer. Life is never dull. Sometimes we just have trouble seeing that.

18. "Mictlantecuhtli is the manifestation of the creator in death. It is the essence of mortality. Mictlantecuhtli is the equilibrium in life. To put it plainly, Mictlantecuhtli is death."

what do you see as the relationship between death and life, and how do you think this affects "western" (judeo-christian) concepts of causality and the origin of "god"?

Death and Life form a circle. In a circle there is no real beginning or end. Life and death is a form of duality. You can't have one without the other. If there is no death there is no life and vice versa. If you look at things this way, the idea of "god" looses credibility. This logical relationship completely devalues the Christian "god."

19. do you see your beliefs as being mystical, and transcendent, or as finding significance in this world and thus having no need to transcend it?

We must find significance in this world because there really is none unless we make it. Everyone must find their own significance, but keep in mind the possibility of transcending. The significance we find will be to the world we know. However, we do not know all there is to the world, much less the universe. There may be entire realms left undiscovered.

20. if there's anything i missed, please contribute here.

this should be an interesting interview. hope you don't mind some of the nosier questions. thanks again and greets

MICTLANTECUHTLI www.mictlantecuhtli-tribe.com

John Connelly Theory - Back to Basics

Charismatic frontman John Connelly graces this album with his judgment and unusually textured voice, giving both hope and a limiting factor of disorganization to this work. At its root, it is a mixture of progressive stylings and groove-oriented rhythmic metal (in a style Connelly foresaw by almost ten years) that gets somewhere in multiple directions, but like most "back to the music" projects, loses any sense of concept to unify these songs, thus ends up being a grab-bag listen that has no form in the listener's mind. The songwriting quality on here in many ways surpasses anything done during the Nuclear Assault years except that, without unifying factors of form and significance, songs seem like outtakes from a series of jams in which the topic was "Let's Find a New Sound." Recombined factors of jazz, prog rock and r&b bounce along through many of these as do wonderfully liberated metal riffs which do not hesistate to take on harmonic space as well as a thunderous uptake of power chords, but nothing comes together, thus making this almost-great album the shelf warmer it is now despite the encouraging aspects of this listening experience.

Cerebrocide - Delusion

When most of the American death metal bands quit, there was noone to produce the sound of buffalo stampeding the open plane at dusk while Europeans geared up for an assault. This German band attack with insistent melodic riffing within a plethora of rhythmic and chromatic sortees which subdue via balance of repetition versus evolution in the ordering of riffs to give each song a distinctive contour. Guttural vocals and muffled guitar precision at high speed contrasting battleaxe drums sometimes stealing the show with longer melodic progressions, the meat of this release is its riff layering and rhythmic sense. More satisfying than most bands from the Land O' Buttery Death Metal itelf, this is recommended for anyone who is still wondering where the "heavy" bands went.

Budgie - Deliver Us From Evil

Where Rush would have been had they been poppier and more romanticist instead of just sentimental, this walks the line between bouncy radio hard rock and an insightful metal album. The heavy metal and rock cliches, including production touches like abruptly intrusive keyboards, make this much for most but as always the melodic sense of Burke Shelley bails out even some of the most repetitive, rockish tunes with a musical profundity that slips inbetween the expected pieces. The back catalogue of this band shows how much space within rock/metal they hollowed out for an emotional and sturdy form of songwriting not usually anticipated by the genre. As this album dates itself through instrumentation and topic, it's probably best reserved for Budgie fanatics, but it is an undiscovered height of the heavy metal years.

Voivod - three song promo 2002

Classic band, with lineup strengthened by agile musician and underground enthusiast Jason Newsted, coming out with a new sound to wow the world. It seems their eyes are too much on the prize. As a fan of all things Voivod, this reviewer notes an appreciation for the attempt to fuse prog and radio-metal as fellow Canadians Rush once approached, demonstrated by Voivod on "Angel Rat" and other things forgotten by the branded metal community but not unknown to the masses of isolated listeners. Here they've focused the commercial rock part, making hard rock in metal skin along the lines of Pantera or (gulp!) newer Metallica, but the essence of Voivod's quirky, insightfully weird energy is distilled into something much more mundane. However, being handled by competent and determined people, this is top-quality for that genre, of which this reviewer is not a fan. Thus, a prediction: this band will succeed. Many people will buy it. Because this is heartless compared to their earlier work, nostalgia and boredom will do them in. They will feel without spirit and either end it or become a pop-country band like Metallica.

Krieg - Kill Yourself or Someone you love

Excellent live EP from a short but blazing set this band did in Germany. The mayhem and threshing noise of Krieg's music is here presented in one of its most instrumentally competent forms, which means the fast chaotic drumming is coordinated with the roaring guitar and bass as these songs work through their handful of solid, romanticist yet vicious and hateful riffs. The voice of Imperial rises like a scream of the dying into a brick wall, reflecting entirely into the audience with the scattered random damage of shrapnel. Grim six-stringer Wrath works in a few interesting feedback figures and adds texture to songs with a precise sense of rhythm in the midst of overwhelming distortion and frenetic shredding. A cover of Von's "Satanic Blood" is more energetic than the original and achieves great success with its deep-throated, demonically intense vocals, and the recording ends with an obscene reminder of the hatred this band holds for all humanity.

Quietus - Destroyer of Worlds

Three songs of demonstration material from a one-man band, this music has great potential but suffers from confusion of form, and second of focus. First, what it is: a mixture of metal riffs including some rudimentary black metal, with rhythmic arrangements like punk bands, stacking opposites against one another for a non- contiguous feel. The riffs are adept and expressive; for what this guy can play, he really maximizes effect. Songs are of lengthy structural change in a narrative style that could be described as a cross between Cradle of Filth, Immortal and Black Flag. Riffs trudge onward and snap into melodic transitions or death metal texture breakdowns (some of which are technically impressive in their own right). Vocals are mostly a guttural howl in a hybrid of black/death, but a good deal of King Diamond-influenced high vocals and a mournful muffled voice reminiscent of "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" shape this work in other directions. While many of the songs seem to stumble over parts of themselves, all the elements are here. Some worthy advice to this guy is to slow down and be more confident, and let fewer of the great elements crammed in every song, as a central point of focus, define the song. The lengthier explorations are great but often diminish the strengths of the parts by overwhelming the listener and not making clear the "point" of each transition. As a whole, however, this is a promising start and a testament of will in itself.

Bahimiron - Funeral Black

Constructing songs within the accepted framework of melodic but violent, basic black metal, Bahimiron create with the frenetic energy of an intense death metal hybrid, but carefully using dissonant harmony and melodic fragments to underscore interlocked structures in layers of revelation which serve as themes. Drums are of the threshing running-speed variety with carefully calibrated metals slicing a half-pace to the wildly vicious snare/bass pummeling. Tempos vary between morbid and grinding sequences over which a drum plods to blasting intensity, keeping a sense of ambience between timekeeping and the changing lead phrasing of guitar injecting new rhythms and foreshadowing change. Vocals are a throaty hoarse and rasping counterpart to the chordal phrases, bubbling syllables from the abyss of human consciousness striking back with feral alacrity in music that chants 'destroy' at the same time it celebrates an exuberance of atavistic life. While there are no stylistic surprises here, this release like Krieg or Demoncy constructs inspiring music of more complexity than the average band in the now well-known style of black metal, and in doing so forms unique expressions of violence that qualify it as beyond the horde of soulless imitators. There is beauty here, and pugilism, and together these forces make a continual drive toward regression and depravity that rediscovers much of what is sensual and passionate in black metal. While these three songs comprise a demo, they are more evolved than most albums at this time and are omens of an intriguing future for this aggressive and sentient band.

Cro-Mags - Before the Quarrel

This album celebrates everything that is quintessentially excellent about hardcore without many of the tangents later espoused by the genre that interfered with the appreciation of a rigidly direct, stripped-down artform. Square riffing of a few power chords and dragging rhythms colliding with an upsurge of fast strumming of higher notes, these combinations are radically inventive within the same spectrality of events. Although seemingly little happens in the progression of this band, an abundance of energy and truthfully basic songs contorted into expressively mechanistic and specialized song structures, balancing on the edge of randomness and a trudging regularity. The sarcastic high-pitched voice of a skinhead vocalist stitches a roaring invective across sonorously basic guitar. While this release keeps up its energy and avoids the pitfalls of punk dressed up as something else, it like most punk music has a basic truism: its strength in simplicity is also its downfall, as without the complexity of artifice often art becomes too much of a speech and too little of a song.

Godless Truth - selfRealization

Attempting to expand deathgrind with the introduction of metalcore and emo elements, this band make a graduated blasting stream of sound in roughly the style of Suffocation but without the manic protean tendencies, making this a nearly linear round of anti- artistic technique that ultimately fails to do anything except make hookish melodies and catchy rhythms. This it does reasonably well, but for how long would you want to listen to just that?

Belphegor - The Last Supper

In the European tradition of heavy, fundamental Gothic death metal (Atrocity, Asphyx, Suffer) with periodic revelations of inspired beauty, Belphegor here render occult music of a fast yet guttural assault which layers melodic passages between chromatic ones. It is not particularly high-tech in any sense, but it focuses on tastefully matching very similar "passage" riffs with melodic and rhythm motif centers on which the attention of the audience is laid to rest. The resulting straightforwardness is appreciated in these simple, gratifying songs.

Mystic Circle - Infernal Satanic Verses

How much more of a sellout can you have? Take your average heavy metal band and give them some Dissection and Dimmu Borgir CDs and say, "Go to it boys!" and they'll come up with something banal like this. Arching melodic riffs in unimportant ordering with harsh, delayed black metal howls stretched over the chorus as keyboards and lead guitars intertwine in a passage which at its conclusion has changed nothing, entertaining the listener with another forty seconds of random but pretty musicalishness. It's not that it is badly rendered, but that there is no theory or overarching concept or content to tie it together, only aesthetic assembled from well- schooled music. Keyboards are similarly schooled but out of place in having no guage of intensity and placement in the song, thus they constantly thresh in the background in equally recombinant, barely relevant patterns. Female vocals are present but absolutely out of focus; a waste of time. This band sounds exactly like 500,000 others.

Prototype - Trinity

This American band merges Meshuggah-style nihilistic speed metal with Def Leppard melodic rock composition, producing an album with ominous amounts of space and pretty choruses sounding like distractions in the broad space and abrupt, basic bark of the guitar tumbling another E chord. The vocalist is good but seems to be holding himself back except on "emotional" emphasis, which makes him issue out less powerfully than he could. Lead guitar, drums and rhythm strings are all competent and even "good" at times, but the whole package is a droll rehash of the past with no spirit in it.

Dawn of Dreams - darklight awakening

Meshing melodic black metal in the Marduk/Dark Funeral style with aggressive death metal, this band have come out with something that is appealing but incomplete, sort of like the first Sentenced album. The rhythmic drive competes with desire for melodic riffing, which causes a strange transfer of power to undulate throughout these songs, passing between abrasive and soft. The vocalist is powerful and rich in tone; instrumentation is great, and songwriting is slickly pulled off for a band young enough to use some of their more adventurous but inspecific devices. It's wholly listenable, but tinged a bit too much with the cinematic and crowd-pleasing.

Infamy - The Blood Shall Flow

This band write battering brutal pounding death metal that unifies itself with fragments of melody, meaning four and five note strokes of power chords which are not of a chromatic harmony, but otherwise hashes hard from the rule book of antique and crusty grinding metal. Vocals are excellent, sort of like an understated Attila doing gutteral death. The overused bouncing cadence of much of this work hurts it by lulling its audience into comatose states, and its faster parts seem slow by today's goregrind-blast-enhanced perspectives. Added bonus "Count the Dead" demo expounds upon the values of old-school death with the anthemic recursion of Deicide or Suffocation, and is quite good/better than the album.

Keep of Kalessin - Through Times of War/Agnen

These guys are good musicians, but their music is horrible. They play well, compose rigidly within the range of improvised standard structure, and have executed each of the elements of an amazing black metal band well except for the vital spark, the essence, the one unifying ideal... for there's nothing to hold this together. Its emotions come at random and resolve themselves cleanly, a 1:1 trade. Adventure occurs in confrontations after which things are put back in order. It's like sorting music into wooden boxes and shuffling them, then sorting them again. Not bad but intolerable to listen to.

Himinbjorg - Haunted Shores

As always, the instrumental and musical qualities of what these guys execute exceeds most bands near them, but the style is somehow always just an inch to the right or left from where it needs to be in the sweet spot to come together smoothly and project a world. This is more heavy metal, with the epic/narrative/prog influences backgrounded and black metal gone except for vocals and use of certain strumming techniques. My wish for this one is that these guys would get a Halford-style vocalist and be a progressive heavy metal band, because they're amazing musicians in search of an expressive style.

Dim Mak - Intercepting Fist

Like emo punk somehow twisted through a soundtrack and then a militant metal band, this outfits makes as much noise and raw intensity elements (fast chaotic percussion, screaming guitars, chortling guttural vocals) as any of the most prominent metalcore or nu-metal bands, but is somehow caught between real art and making kiddie music. The artistry is clear here but too many things had to be red-underlined several times to make sure everyone got the joke, so what one ends up with is a militant and naggingly repetitive album along the lines of Killing Joke in their later years with unrelenting use of throbbing metalcore guitar technique. There are some attention-getting three-note melodies which bend songs into new contortions of arrangement with the stress they place on the harmonic framework of the song as a whole. Yet another album to fit into the malady of our times: good execution, but no clue about life or artistic presentation.

Headhunter - And the Sky Turns to Black...

This band compound ultra-grinding low-end death metal with sparse keyboards and achieve a nearly workable format, if each of their songs was not so heavily dependent on bouncing, cadenced mosh-pit music. Imagine a better version of Six Feet Under that turned into Samael at the end of every verse, and you've got the rough picture. Not bad, not good.

Diabolical - Synergy

Although this is from a commercial version of the NWOSMDM (New Wave of Swedish Melodic Death Metal, starting roughly whenever Unanimated released "Ancient God of Evil") it combines precision underground technique with vaguely proggish variants on standard heavy metal anthemic structures. Guitar flash propels these songs, which rely on fast glimmering rifflets combined in motifs in the way later Carcass and At the Gates would drift. Heavy metal is the basis of this, but it fuses with modern forms of metal in its tendency to use melodic structures in a grab-bag of diverse riffs and bridges, creating an unravelling panorama of sound. Everything's well done but the whole neither attempts nor conquers any ground of innovation or unique expression.

Lord Wind - Rites of the Valkyries

The force behind Lord Wind here tunes the machine to tackle the problem that stopped the black metal ambient movement until Varg Vikernes took a brave stab with Hlidskjalf: how to layer instruments to achieve a believable and not intrusively soundtrack-y form in which to place one's minor-key droning melodies. In this incarnation, the soundscapes of Lord Wind lose the majestic sense of interconnection from the first album as some of the melodic shapes during the first four tracks are extremely familiar from older Graveland releases, in addition to being in some parts hastily arranged. However, these are experiments most likely and nothing more, and in their instrumentation and arrangement show a great deal of increased skill, gleaming with the raw passion from these creators channeled into its casing of intricate thematic interplay. What is demonstrated however is the new palette of techniques these creators have at their disposal to turn the emotions of a melody into a sprawling sound construction. Where the first album was keyboard ambient, clearly, this work begins to resemble that of a small orchestra in the attentions paid to different intonation and texture on each instrument and the details of interlocking several layers of changing theme. While this release is disorienting owing to its somewhat scattershot approach, in it the fertile youth of a new style is explored. Unlike conventional ambient material, this aims for not as much historical accuracy as cultural sensibility, making songs that stitch together medieval, pagan and current European ideals into a sheaf of musical possibility. As such it is more neoclassical than a soundtrack, far removed from black metal but coherent with European pop and the cultural heritage of this nation. There is more greatness coming from this band which will take the spirit and concentrated mindset of the first album and put it into songs with this precise and artistic touch, and from that there shall be masterwork which may become popular with those longing for a more interesting time.

Weltmacht - The Call to Battle

Like dark hallways stained with the grime of ages past the music of Weltmacht changes slowly within the same form of reference until periodically, where texture and dynamic meet songs open in a colossus of resonance to melody and riff shape listener inferred from previous suggestions in song. In raw underground black metal form, a trudging or mid-paced whipping chaos engine of drumming corresponds to the collage of power chord voicings and riff-by-lead- phrasing that balances any harmonic attractors used to anchor the music. A drone builds intensity that is later torn down by aggressive change. As a whole, this CD exceeds most releases in this style and carries a pre-1996 level of inspiration. Its failing would be at points its unwillingness to go further in developing its melodies, as bands like Burzum or I Shalt Become used to do, as the ability to connect to artistic inspiration of the requisite darkness is here in Akhenaten (of another band) and Imperial (of Krieg). Pop sensibilities define the approach of the bulk of this work but are integrated in the convention of the genre for grand statements addressing both value and meaninglessness in the same breath. For a document of its ideals in action, this album offers a sonorous yet morbid example of master artists in this genre pushing black metal further into its own extreme.

Death of Millions - demo 2002

Emerging from the ambivalence over death metal versus black metal styling currently paralyzing the underground the central Texas act Death of Millions return with blazingly fast metal of an updated version of the first school of death metal to emerge from North America. Comparisons to Suffocation and Cryptopsy are inevitable, but one might suggest that with a dose of something whole-hearted and basic yet cryptic like Malevolent Creation or Monstrosity. Agile in song structure as well as fast thunderously chromatic riffing in the style that distinguished Florida metal, these compositions use direct ideas rearranged to form circuitous narrative atmospheres of cascading sound. Instrumentalism wanders in the motley heritage of metal but like most American bands remains within heavy metal for its primary inspiration, especially in guitar solos that for the most part adhere to standard forms. While this is a far progression from the 1996 release "Frozen" from this band, it is continuous to the form there established and before it, the heritage of rock-based technical death metal. Percussive force in unrelenting blast and rolling continuous fills anchors this work, and drummer The Carcass gets credit for often propelling these songs beyond the immediate momentum of their parts. Shrieking vocals with gutteral slides and chortling, visceral snarls are the work of the greatest undiscovered voice in death metal at this time and shape the texture of this work like currents in a stream. This band are focused aesthetically and musically on ideals from the first generation of death metal, and in that hybrid between heavy metal and the architectural rhythm music to come, advance a style that is lingering in the bloodline of death metal. If Death of Millions want to progress further what is required is a study of essential content in artistic or mystical realms outside of the linearity of form. For the time being this demo showcases their instrumental skills and ability to handle the complexity of underground deathgrind with energy and flair.

Deteriorot - In Ancient Beliefs

This album kicks a whole lot of ass, but slides just under the bar it will need to surpass to join the ranks of the classics. And it needs to do that, as its appeal is in part derived from its upholding the impression of a historical metal style, namely that of New York Death Metal. In fact, one could analyze this style simply as 3/5 first-album Incantation, 1/5 Immolation and 1/5 Dismember, with each of those bands appropriately stuck in the early 1990s, whose sound this album works hard to emulate. Riffs are mid-paced for the most part and highly articulate, despite their often paranoid approach to leaving an initial set of tonal coordinates. Cadences are comfortingly jarring but boundingly energetic, rising and dropping like tides. Song motif layering is accurate and often quite inventive. It is almost everything one could want, except for a nearly undefinable final method of assembly. Things are almost too symmetrical at times, or too conveniently grooved/cadenced, and the style is irksome in that it follows the older ways, but does so with some of the standards of a genre in its later years, namely those of being content to vary patterns and from them make several views of the same song idea, in separate works. This is the final 5% that keeps this album from being "Onward to Golgotha" or "Omen of Masochism," but it is a narrow margin and should be remembered in the context that this is still better than 95% of all metal bands. With luck, this band will keep pushing their style to new extremes and in so personalize their musical language, deriving from that lexicon a worldview and thus, artistic direction.

Rotting Christ - Thy Mighty Contract

Slender rivulets of melody encased in blurring rhythms shape songs toward racing conclusions and epic conjunction of themes. Black metal in a sickened highly evolved version of the heavy metal grandeur of the beginnings of the genre, the simple songs of Rotting Christ fold melodic potential into their mixture until tension snaps and transition to unveiled breakdown occurs. Similar to countrymen Varathron, this band use doom-paced harmonization less frequently and uphold a near-constant level of assertive dynamic intensity which like techno enwraps the listening in pulsing waves of harmonizing sound. A classic of the genre that is mostly buried by musical irrelevance to the evolution of its general sound.

Enslaved - Frost

A flowing mixture of chromatic and dissonant riffing cloaked in Voivodian tone, the metal portions of this album are precise and dramatic rhythmic narrative caught in quick, violent riffs poised on an offbeat pause. Short keyboard transitions and songs building from the melodic to the absurdly disharmonized, together with a virulent balance to rhythmic hook, form the outline on which musical change is draped. While these songs sometimes veer too much toward losing their melody, earlier works from this band related strips of harmonizing sound to shape an overall sense of changing landscape, yet that approach has here given way to a more explosive attack with a grand setting of discernible emotion and mostly percussive technique. The result is clearer to most metal fans, but despite its newly enlarged scope, a divergence from what made this band excellent, despite many innovations in riff formulae and aesthetic.

Impurity - Unearthly Affinity

This music aims at being demonic, which in this case means a balance between a crude nature of its musicality and the strangeness of the song structure it enacts through the changing texture and direction of mostly chromatic, gently harmonizing riffs. Most of the effect is the slamming together of low-slung power chords in meaty, gratingly destructive patterns of alternatingly muted and rippling speed- picked riffs. Vocals are unearthly low and gurgle a chant to match the pace of each riff as it passes, like a location on a semi- circular tour of a city, only to reappear later when the longest part of the song (recombinant verses) has passed. The strength of this band is its simplicity, but the tendency to go too far into sing-song head-throbbing death metal constrains it often with requirements of pulsing battery when these musicians show more promising aptitude in the creation of imaginative and vivid riff patterns. As this band grows more experienced, it is possible the primitive and the bizarre shall be joined in a continous abstract outlook, as crafted in throat-grabbing, skull-pounding, christ- sodomizing death metal. http://www.demonicdeath.com/

Aborym - Fire Walk With Me

This album is some form of internationalist pop interpretation of black metal, as it seems to capture the structure and generalized spirit but not form any complete view of its ideals: this is a cosmopolitan version of the genre and, while it is well-executed, it is meaningless to the overall motion of black metal. Combining industrial and electro elements, Aborym make a highly listenable and musical take on something halfway between Darkthrone and Ministry, ranting on the beat while cheaply distorted guitars clash with riffs that mostly ride the dominant drum rhythm. It's definitely ear- friendly listening, with each song competently assembled, melodies basic but appropriate, and production near-excellent; however, it's an assimilationist take on black metal and irrelevant to those who enjoy that genre.

"If I were religious, I'd pray for all who believe in God." - Metal Machiavelli

As William S. Burroughs used to tell it, a writer has a "word hoard" that is recharged by existential deeds and mental exploration. As he reads, and consumes words, and has experience beyond what he can immediately describe, the writer builds up a lexicon of patterns in which things occur with which he describes how realities are created as he envisions them having experienced one. In this context, by "reality" I mean any contiguous stream of experience such that one can become immersed in it, including thought, experience, narratives and music.

When the hoard of words is unleashed, Burroughs believed, it is like a writer bringing home his sword on something only he can see - for the time being. It is the shamanastic opening up of a space for concepts that is art in the eyes of that author, who explored hallucination and pure grinding literal reality like no one before him. In Naked Lunch, he warned that ideas were a virus and went on to show us how art can illuminate life and decipher its mythos. Some would say metal music is one of the most Burroughsian viruses: literal and uncompromising, something which peers through the gloss of distraction that covers the truth of events in human society.

Predation. Termination. Entropy. Failure. These are the types of events that most people would identify as "bad" or "evil," and present a challenge to anyone attempting to philosophize or make coherent the world in which we as mortal beings live, including the prospects of being victim to "unfortunate" or "negative" occurrence, meaning in the world of human beings injury or termination or loss (of other person or of objects). One either attempts to redefine reality to include imaginary spaces, or one approaches the problem of emptiness and impermanence in reality head on. To do that, one either "goes over" and attempts to find a positive element of life that is more important or "real" than the negative, or one "goes under" and searches for something of meaning in life despite the seemingly ultimate triumph of death, failure, and decay. Some would interpret the latter also as a sado-masochistic embrace of suffering, compared to a disregard for it (Buddhism) or celebration of it (Judaism).

Metal has always been music stretched across the divide between the sacred and the profane, or as seen in other ways, the "safe" and the "wild." With high ideals it tackles the most primitive and gnarled form of music, having few principles except architectonic assessment to guide it. Its celebration of passion itself could be called a going over, but its obsessive with morbidity, despair and violent anger could be construed as a going under in that it, through art, finds a way to make vivid negativity appealing as part of the experience of an adventure or passion. This is art illuminating life in a going under, revealing the process of existence warts and all while finding a way to consider it magic even after knowledge of its mechanisms are commonplace. If metal has a hoard of whatever the element of poetry in music is, it's a palette of sensations that most people would wish did not exist.

Although many take the easiest course of action, that of the functionally-minded utilitarian mentality that instantly defeats itself in the face of a more organized other, and declare metal to be "just music" and deny the cultural roots of its content and form, as well as the ideologies that propel its musicians, let us be honest about the impetus for this attitude: it comes from a basic, egalitarian "humility" where one assumes all people are simple and materially-directed. It is a form of cynicism, or belief that people do nothing which is not for their immediate personal advantage, turned into a positivity because in order to consider us all equals, we must consider us all cut to the form which can include all of our collected characters, from the geniuses to the retards to the religious zealots to the sewage processors. Since life is naturally diverse, all we have in common is a basic human stereotype of the most basic, democratic and foolishly short-term impulses limited by the boundaries of our personal body + space - this archetype might resemble Homer Simpson or Cartman more than it would resemble a human being of intellect and action potential.

This is how it is with crowds: they drag every member down to the level they share in common, and if they're cheeky, declare it an advancement. This is the fundamental nature of Christianity, to declare itself egalitarian and of a belief that all souls are equal, yet from this to thus proclaim that any who rise above the crowd must be brought down to the level of others. If we are all hampered by restrictions on murder, passion, hedonism, and intellect, we are all harmless, the reasoning goes. This reasoning took ahold in Europe somewhere around 1000 AD and ever since has been injecting its poison throughout the world in the hands of Europeans intoxicated with the grand visions and symbols of promise in Christian mythology. Eternal life! Pure good! A world more important than this one! These disguise a hidden negative expectation, which is why our lives in this society are shaped more by fear of misfortune than assertion to achievement or great passion.

In 1969, Black Sabbath rebelled against all of this. On one side was The Establishment with its staid rules and conventions, holding on despite its inherently liberal values and thus become a reactionary satire of itself, and on the other side were the hippies, essentially preaching the inherent message of Christianity - egalitarianism, comfort, moral judgment of "peace"ful and violent actions as opposites - in the same way, at a subtler level, the churches and public statements of politicans espoused the same values. Proto-metal came out raw and loud and deliberately simple with its own wrinkles of complexity in new ways of expressing pattern, roaring to life in Gothic themes with a melancholy, Romantic mood and postmodern moral relativism.

Like any genre, metal grew from its origins into a fuller sense of what its basic impetus was. What at first was hazy rebellion, morbidity and excessive hedonism slowly shaped to theory over time. In the speed metal years, bands like Metallica and Nuclear Assault essentially bleated liberal platitudes behind blustery 'aggressive' lyrics. Death metal wasn't much better, although the best bands escaped earthbound politics to express some vision of the "eternal," with excellent examples being Morbid Angel and Massacra and Necrovore. Dungeons and Dragons plus nihilistic bloodlust made for excellent fantasy fare while expressing principles of life itself: we're tired of the death-fear and the culture of euphemism. Let's talk about dying, and let the implication of, "so why are we wasting our time with this tedious urban-style existence?," as an afterthought linger in the mind of the listener.

The next phase of metal brings us to the current day, and that is its evolution through black metal toward a truly Romantic mindset: amoral, passionate, nationalist, cosmicist. These new metallions, separate from their mainstream counterparts in the "nu-metal" genre, who tend to be liberal hedonists without a plan like the previous generations of metal, are beyond morality and seek out of life those deeds which are great in the doing, embrace their own heritage and reject international entertainment culture, and see the world not in terms of individuals but patterns in natural change and human social evolution. There's only one problem: this applies to few of the actual black metal fans.

When black metal was resurrected by bands like Sarcofago and Beherit and Darkthrone, it was not accepted in the mainstream of the metal community; in fact, many rejected it outright as not "brutal" enough. In those shaky years of the late 1980s and early 1990s, these Sodom-inspired castoffs were not seen as fully competitive with the pounding certainty of death metal. But it was the uncertainty, doubt and ambiguity of black metal that ultimately made it appropriate when it arose, as the consequences of liberalism were suddenly seen as well as its connection to Christian beliefs such as egalitarianism and moralism. Seen, that is, by an elite few.

Thus when black metal was birthed, it did not emerge proclaiming elitism, for there was no need. There were a few who were happy to share their works, not knowing others would care enough to clone them and produce a social movement imitating their innovations. But that is what occurred, and now black metal in 2003 is indistinguishable from hardcore music in 1983, with a democratic and egalitarian movement affirming the right of every individual to have an mp3.com band, CD-R label, or 10-xeroxed-copies "elite underground" zine. Instead of recognizing innovation and following that angle, this community places a higher value on recognizing participation, and bringing everyone into the group. For this reason, evolution in black metal has basically stopped.

Any solutions to this problem will not be popular with the majority of current black metal fans because a solution would ruin the democratic state of metal in the now, which allows many people who could not otherwise socialize or have power in any community to assert themselves and be more important than other people, at least in the shared view of those who participate in small, insular, socially-hyperactive communities like black metal. Old school blackmetallers wrote a few letters a day and made excellent music; newer-school blackmetallers talk about how anti-social they are while participating in forums, chats, IRC, and file-sharing where they assert their importance. They support everything that black metal has to offer except, well, the un-PC parts, including elitism. To believe in that wouldn't make sense, they know, because most of them are aware that under the bluster their music is totally recombinant and unexceptional, and wouldn't get a second listen if it weren't for their ability to nag other people in their social group to pay attention to Darkthrone riff larceny and recycled random power chord arrangements.

In other words, you can't have both mass participation and the growth of a genre; the weight of including everyone and making their contribution seem "important" replaces the ability to selectively find that which is exceptional and celebrate it. Thus, to any outsider and most familiar with the genre, the new material appears to be a wall of thousands of tiny bands, with almost no standouts. (In fact, the best albums are still being produced by bands from the last generation - the new generation has produced almost no artistically significant works, and none on the level of the originals.) This is what happens to democratic values when translates into niche groups like black metal, which has as a result now become a hipster trap for troubled and/or pathetic losers.

So while "solutions" can be discussed, there is a meta-solution needed: an end to the democratic values in the community of metal fans who by their patronage shape the genre. This translates into something at this point in history that five years ago would have seemed unthinkable: the underground must die, and metal must compete on the level of mainstream music which is "serious" enough that the hordes of unwashed and unthinking and repelled - jazz, prog rock, classical, noise and synthpop. These genres emphasize musicality and artistry to a greater degree than would permit an egalitarian explosion of soundalike bands as grips black metal now, like death metal and speed metal and heavy metal before it.

Think over history. Metal was born at the start of the 1970s, but by the end of the decade was so washed out that Venom was its best shot when hardcore punk "occurred" and dominated the off-mainstream musical community with something more intense than metal bands. This continued until the early 1980s, when Bathory, and then Sodom and Slayer, produced raging metal to the primitive and violent standards of hardcore, introducing a new level of intensity into the genre. Most people experienced this change through mainstream speed metal like Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera or Slayer, finding out during the middle 1990s that the sold-out and self-cariacturing speed metal of the day was no competition for rising grunge. Death metal croaked in 1994 and black metal took over. Around 1996, black metal died when the original bands, puzzled, asked themselves, "Why do all the new bands suck, and why are most of the new fans clones who buy classics on eBay to make themselves seem 'true' or 'kvlt'?" Metal has through history been a race to outpace the process of commercial assimilation, which takes any style and turns it into something for use during the right moments in commercials.

Imagine a Budweiser, Miller Lite or Coors commercial about "frosty cold" beer, with Immortal and Emperor blasting in the background. Far off? Commercials now use death metal riffs borrowed by nu-metal bands. Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir are in all the mainstream stores, but what about when Marilyn Manson finally makes a black metal album - will it then be obvious that commerce can absorb anything that can convince anyone a sale is in order? We live in a unique time of multi-national corporate feudalism and international cosmopolitan culture fueled by our media industry in Hollywood; for this reason, unlike in any other time, artists in our time resist commerce if they wish to keep their beliefs as expressed in art from being assimilated. Absorbed. Made into a dumbed-down standard so everyone can participate.

The riff hoard of the next generation of metal warriors will not be for mainstream ears, nor will it be for underground ears, creating a "secret society" that can't enforce its own standards. It will aspire to the same hiding in plain view that classical, European folk and synthpop have achieved: because it will require brains, it won't be for general consumption. The footballheads who can get into Revenge or Conqueror or Blasphemy or Dimmu Borgir will not find themselves at home in a genre that required (intuitive) understanding of melodic composition and narrative song structure. It's long attention span art, and the undesirables are limited by their short attention spans to exist outside of it.

Maybe we can imagine different types of metal art in the future? Like Bathory and Ildjarn made simple songs of similar pacing that together as an album formed a flowing texture of narrative, one type of metal in the future might involve short poems of songs stitched together in lengthy improvisational sessions in the style of classical musicians, where each cluster of motifs are reinterpreted in each playing, but convey the same change in the music as a whole (this requires a good deal more brains than jamming along to harmony like the rock kidz do). Imagine Ildjarn crossed with a Brahms sonata on strings. Maybe there will be cellos, violins and acoustic basses in the mix as well?

Another type could be exemplified by the axis of recent releases from Summoning and Graveland: lush soundtracks of melodic which wraps itself in harmonic recursion, as derived from the style of Burzum which may have been influenced by centuries of European folk music. Longer songs with highly distinctive themes evolving from simple beginnings, and thus greater complexity in song structure, would give metal a chance to be "epic" in ways that both it and the soundtrack genre can only gesture at now. Imagine Carnegie Hall, and Darken onstage with fifteen musicians of his choosing recreating 15- minute metal symphonies.

Still other types could exist. Metal could go ultra-jazz, and be random jamming, which would probably take it further away from its eventual goal but gain some popularity points, or it could become like synthpop, making concise songs from interacting suites of melody. It could mix pure noise or even more intensely unrecognizable distortion into the mix, or drop the constant blast of intensity and become more like folk music. All of these things however require that it attract a different audience than what is now lining the pockets of metal labels, zines, and fans with eBay accounts.

As we enter our third issue here at Heidenlarm, we are reminded once again of how much life is divided into opposites. Light and dark, long-term and short-term. Unique compositions versus thrashing "aggressive" but recombinant music. Social piety, and independence: elitism, leadership, anti-egalitarianism, anti-Christianity. Metal music has been a continuing exploration of certain ideas by those who are both dissatisfied with social reality and in passionate embrace of some things natural to life itself, including death and fear. As always, metal is divided among itself approaching the true final days of any one of its genres, but the ideal that unites these genres and their creators remains real, and perhaps some of us will be passionate enough to accept and wield it.

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."

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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

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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.

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Here are some interesting places to visit:

Zines

http://finalsolutionzine.cjb.net/
Diverse, direct.

http://wheresmyskin.cjb.net/
Visceral, spontaneous.

Bands

www.blackdimension.com/acerbus
Death metal

www.mp3.com/arkadia
Black metal

eyesofligeia.cjb.net
Doom metal

rehtafruo.cjb.net
Black metal

www.dhivermort.com
Industrial necro

bahimiron.cjb.net
Black metal

www.malusaeternus.cjb.net
Black Metal

Labels

www.blackplague.org/antichrist
Selbstmord: black metal.

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About Us

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