There is some skill in performing black metal…it takes an instrumental virtuoso with an ebony-hued heart to spit out songs as overpowering as the best black metal. Influenced by late ‘70s/early ‘80s speed-metal and thrash, by bands like Metallica and Motorhead, and even by itself with originators like Venom and Celtic Frost, black metal is the musical phenomena that refuses to go quietly into that dark night…
Fenriz Presents The Best of Old-School Black Metal
When black metal legend Fenriz of the band Darkthrone decided to put together Fenriz Presents the Best of Old-School Black Metal, he gathered up tracks from some of the meanest, scariest, and most bad-ass metal monsters on the planet. The resulting disc is a real Frankenstein compilation, a piecing together of some of the best (and most diverse) bands from the black metal world. Sure, some of these choices would be a slam-dunk even from somebody with only a passing familiarity of extreme heavy metal. Mercyful Fate, represented here by the raging guitars and rampaging rhythms of “Evil,” is one such easy choice, as is Celtic Frost, the dark majesty of the band’s “Dawn of Megiddo” playing like a grand funeral dirge. Venom gave the genre its name and defined the music for a generation afterwards; the band’s deadly song “Warhead” is an unrelenting blast of sheer explosive fury.
Other song choices provided here by Fenriz will thrill even the most hardcore collector of arcane death-and-black-metal. Sodom’s “Burst Command Til War” is exceptionally brutal, a jackhammer guitar riff driving home the vocals like an icepick jammed in your ear. Samael’s “Into the Pentagram” is equal parts Sabbath sludge and flesh-rending Slayer riffs while Bulldozer’s “Whiskey Time” grinds the listener into submission with pounding drumbeats and razor-sharp six-string work. Fenriz had to dig deep into the crypt for “The Third of the Storms,” a seminal black metal cut by Tom Warrior’s pre-Celtic Frost band Hellhammer. With Warrior’s impressive fretwork and a low-fi production that underemphasizes the already-buried vocals (creating a hypnotic aural assault), this rare track is a real treat for Celtic Frost fans.
Mayhem & Burzum
The long and tragic history between Scandinavian legends Mayhem and Burzum is well-documented, and neither band has lent songs to compilation albums before. However, Mayhem’s “The Freezing Moon” illustrates the long reach of the band’s influence, the song’s glorious sound a mix of soaring guitars, machine-gun rhythms, and guttural vocals. Burzum’s electronic-tinged “Ea, Lord of the Deeps” introduces typically unfamiliar elements into the black metal lexicon, the song a mix of thrashy death metal and industrial metal influences. Fittingly enough, the album closes with Bathory’s powerful “Dies Irae,” a chaotic clash of tightwire guitarwork and propulsive rhythms driving frontman Quorthon’s vocals into the realm of madness. Sadly, Quorthon (Thomas Forsberg) – one of the most influential figures in the European death/black metal scene – died too young in June 2004 of heart failure.
The lyrical subject matter is typically gruesome, the artist’s perspective on life usually macabre, the music almost always as abrasive as hell. Black metal exists, however, as a shared rumination on life and death between the artist and the fans. The genre is an obsessive reflection on the dark side of existence created by musical philosophers on society’s fringe for consumption by teen-and-twenty-something year old fans that have often just experienced their first taste of tragedy. In this light, the music is a catharsis, the liberating soul of rock ‘n’ roll driven to its logical end under the whip of tortured guitars and howling vocals.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Heavy metal in all its forms is once again building towards a mainstream audience. The often-maligned sub-genre of rock ‘n’ roll never really went anywhere, actually…it just disappeared underground, off the radar screen of the trend-oriented pundits of pop culture. As such, Fenriz has done new metal fans a large favor in compiling Fenriz Presents the Best of Old-School Black Metal. The album serves as an excellent introduction to this sub-sub-genre, offering crucial music from some of leading lights of black metal. If only for tracks from such controversial graybeards as Venom, Mayhem, and Burzum, the disc is well worth the price of admission. (Peaceville Records, released 2004)
Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine...
