Heidenlärm Metal Zine

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

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

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

1. Massacra - Final Holocaust

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

2. Necrovore - demos

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

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

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

4. Bathory - The Return

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

5. Sepultura - Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation

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

Why Absurd is Cool

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Classical Music for Metalheads

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

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

1. Ludwig van Beethoven - Ninth Symphony

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

2. Robert Schumann - First Symphony

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

3. Johannes Brahms - Fourth Symphony

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

4. Edvard Grieg - Peer Gynt

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

5. Andrés Segovia - 1927-1939 vol II

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

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

Luke LaVellian of NON SERVIAM

1. what for you makes a metal band great?

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

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

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

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

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

4. do you have any spiritual/religious beliefs?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13. do you play any instruments?

LL: No, unless my voice counts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

21. what do you think of osama bin laden?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

25. do you believe in the soul?

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

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

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

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

MkM of ANTAEUS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feel his pulse through us.

We are one stone of the edifice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Death is the main goal anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I had my fair deal of war around here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. Carcass or Bolt Thrower? Pick one.

Fuck... Bolt Thrower

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

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

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

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

The Deicide tour is already something really expensive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13. Your top 5 BM records?

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

those are the ultimate

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

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

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

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

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

ANTAEUS cyfaws.free.fr

VOICES WAKE US voiceswakeuszine@hotmail.com

Seth Putnam of ANAL CUNT

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

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

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

it depends what mood i'm in.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

blow it up.

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

you'd have to be more specific.

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

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

22. are you a hedonist?

i forgot the definition of that.

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

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

24. which american president had the longest penis?

your boyfriend.

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

no.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seth Putnam www.sethputnam.com

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

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

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

Bloodbath - Breeding Death

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

Megiddo - The Final War

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

Blutsabbath - Necrodaemon Terrorsathan

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

Nightmare Visions - Suffering from echoes

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

Strapping Young Lad - City

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

Countess - The Shining Swords of Hate

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

Wynjara - Wynjara

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

Nigrescent - Palace of the Dark Light

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

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

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

Wejdas - Wejdas

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

Mourn - Mourn

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

Spirit Caravan - Dreamwheel

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

Eisenvater - Eisenvater

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

Belial - 3

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

Belial - Never Again

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

Arckanum - Fran Marder

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

Cradle of Filth - Dusk and her Embrace

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

Vermin - Millennium Ride

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

Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times

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

Satyricon - Nemesis Divina

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

Darkthrone - Hate Them

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

Umbra - Ater

Sophomoric ambient collages. Avoid.

Black Moon Rising - demos 2002

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

Perpetual - Ad Perpetuam Rei Memoriam

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

Monumentum - Musaeum Hermeticum

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

Shub-Niggurath - The Kinglike Celebration

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

Old Funeral - The Older Ones

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

die blutleuchte - rus

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

Supplication - Un-Aesthetic Front

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

Exciter - The Dark Command

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

Rampage - Misogyny, Thy Name is Woman

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

Sammath - Verwoesting Devastation

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

Windir - Arntor

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

Believer - Sanity Obscure

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

Corvus Corax - The Atavistic Triad

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

Rehtaf Ruo - Boiled in Goat's Blood

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

Auf Krema - demo 2002

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

Demoncy - Faustian Dawn/Within the Sylvan Realms of Frost

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

D'hiver mort - Palindrome

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

Courage and Understanding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read SRP at groin.com
www.groin.com

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(c) 2003 Heidenlarm ezine/Dark Legions Archive