Track from Filii Nigrantium Infernalium’s latest album

Are you into black metal? Old school thrash metal? What about NWOBHM? I think I might have just the right band for you. Take look at this track from the latest album of Portugal’s Filii Nigrantium Infernalium, “Pornokrates: Deo Gratias” (2013), which I heard for the first time yesterday.

Filii Nigrantium Infernalium have been around since 1989 and they are one of the oldest black metal Portuguese bands still active, accompanied by their veteran comrades-in-arms Decayed. As a bonus, I’m also posting my personal favourite from these Pornotuguese whores of Satan, “Inverno… Trono Inverno”, which featured in their 1995 EP, “A Era do Abutre”.

Necro rock’n’roll to blow your brains out, motherfuckers!

We Stand in the Shadow of the Wolf: Forgotten Woods

In my last post I mentioned Strid and Burzum as the main shapers of a specific branch of black metal stained with depressive overtones. Today I noticed the grave iniquity committed through the omission of perhaps the most significant band for the genesis of this kind of music: Forgotten Woods. Back in the 90’s, while the majority of their fellow Norwegian black metaleers was more into blast beats, tremolo riffs, symphonic orchestrations, murders and arson, Forgotten Woods launched their debut album “As the Wolves Gather” (1994) through No Colours Records, where we can hear the distinctive characters of their music, with mid-paced rhythms, an overall bleak ambience and a certain rock’n’roll feeling to it. These features would be matured in their second album, “The Curse of Mankind” (1996), which is arguably their best one.

Be it as it may, I publicly strive to right my wrong by sharing the title track of their first album, a beautiful piece of lycophiliac music for sorrowful criminals and outcasts. For, paraphrasing Mark Rowlands, we all stand in the shadow of the wolf. 

Old Witch - Come Mourning Come (band spotlight)

I don't want to write reviews on albums, mostly because I have little to actually say most of the time, apart from the boring, adjective-infused babble of regular blog reviews. I find most of those incredibly stale and I don't really think myself as the one person who's up to the task of making something different, and interesting, for once.

Yet there is good shit that feeds the brain to some extent, such as this CVLT NATION thing, which does what you expect a review to do while begging people to toss some cash over to the band so they can push a future physical release. It's all for the greater good I know, and it prompted me to check out the band and maybe spotlight them in my own personal way.

This album is really good. If I had to describe it by comparison, I'd say it's like a more emotional Rorcal with less concern for overal composition and a few buckets of granite rubble thrown in for good measure. 

Trve to the core, the band sports its blackness with a sort of mocking pride: not much can be known about it, music titles are written in ye olde capslocke with an obvious turn to an exaggerated aesthetic of the grim and the trve. That's all the more obvious by the exaggeration both in the song titles (turns out leaves do fall in autumn!), the lyrics (still keeping with the capslock motif) and the very feature description for the band: 

Stooping in a rotting throne of dead oak, casting black thoughts to the stars, burning cold over the glacial wilderness, she reaches withered hands to the cold, eternal night, vast above the deep winter forest. We have spilled our lives an offering to old gods, this brooding vast land. Come, the funeralboats unfurl cruel sails to the north wind, seeking haven beyond the pillars of death....  

This is not to say that the band itself is fooling around. In fact there's quite a surprising ammount of detail as we explore the bandcamp: each song features its own unique artwork related to its theme and the lyrics, although sporting that exaggerated aesthetic, are well fitting and ingeniously written. The superperformance of black metal imagery appears to me more the arrogant pride of someone who knows that what they are doing is pretty fucking good. It's a sardonic dismissal of the public attitude towards the niche artistry of underground metal, very similar to the notable performance of norwegian black metal band Immortal:

The depths of true significance that underground metal hides beneath layers of distortion, bad recording quality and overall antisocial behaviour has been a known position of comfort from which artists shell themselves from the travestry of mainstream culture. Yet there are other inventive creators whose performance bridges the gap between the embrace of underground art and its inevitable caricature.

Either that or Old Witch are just taking the piss. Whatever it is, I'm ok with it, just as long as good music is being made.

Edit: Tiago pointed out that the photos they use at both their facebook page and their metal-archives page are taken from the movie Begotten, which I think reinforces my point.

A Blast from the Past: Strid

Despite their fall into oblivion among most of the current black metal milieu, Strid is a seminal act for this genre. Their 1993 demo “End of Life” and particularly their 1994 eponymous EP would establish the formative background for what years later began to be known as “depressive black metal”, together with Burzum’s “Filosofem”. Starting off as a clear-cut Norwegian black metal band named Malfeitor in 1991, already in the first demo under the designation of Strid, the above-mentioned “End of Life”, they commenced to pursue a musical path that distinguished them from most of the more renowned black metal projects of that time. A path that was definitely consolidated in the 1994 EP, presenting us with an atmospheric, melancholic and slow-paced brand of black metal, with shrieking, tormented vocals guiding us along this foggy journey to the farthest recesses of loneliness and misanthropy. Their song “Det Hviskes Blant Sorte Vinder” is one of the best pieces of music I’ve ever heard.

As far as I know, they are still active, regardless of the suicide of their bassist/vocalist Storm in 2001, counting with a Dødheimsgard’s member in their ranks presently. In 2007, they’ve put out a compilation with all Strid’s and Malfeitor’s material. I’d be utterly delighted in case they decided to release some new stuff, but I’m really not sure about the degree of their “activeness” by now.

That being said, I’m posting here their demo and EP. I sincerely hope it ruins your Sunday evening, at least to some extent.  Sit back and unjoy.

"End of Life" (demo 1993)

Strid (EP 1994)

Tracklist:
1.Det Hviskes Blant Sorte Vinder
2.Nattevandring

Josef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - The Sun of the Natural World is Pure Fire (video)

I don't know much of Josef Van Wissem's work apart from what's available online and I've missed him live when I had that chance, so I can't really put this particular song into context. I do know that he wrote this album, which I'm yet to hear, Jarmusch claiming that he's just there to paint the veritable sound landscapes that fill into Wissem's lute playing.

This resulting piece is amazing. Diego Barrera manages to sort of "add to the noise" in consonance with Wissem's lute and Jarmusch's guitar, the resulting juxtaposition of noise and image that enforces a troubling, but entrancing environment as we are driven, baffled, by the slight tones of a minimal song. 

This is what I need. I want to be shown imagery that I can explore; I want sound and image to not impose, but to lead me on, and swallow me whole in blissful noise.

Now I want that album more than ever.