Marduk – “Wormwood”

 

What’s this, bass solos? In MY Black Metal? Is this the Marduk we know and love? That depends on your relationship with this infamous Swedish syndicate.

The familiar Marduk earned their reputation with 1999’s Panzer Division Marduk, a half hour of constant blast-beat drumming and guitar riffs like a blizzard of daggers. Coupled with this extreme take on the genre, smacked with the pejorative of “Norsecore,” was the band’s lyrical fascination with World War II. The false reputation of Nazi sympathy was likely influential on the visas denied them for US tours.

So what has become of Marduk in the past decade? 2004’s Plague Angel was the perfection of the formula, with superior production and the vocal virtuosity of Mortuus. The result was a relentless storm of hellfire, never again recaptured. Why? They gave into criticism, and 2007’s Romans 5:12 saw a forced attempt at progression: more emotional melodies, clean vocals, and slower tempos. But as Daniel Dennett said, true evolution produces “competence without comprehension.” Change cannot be forced, it must occur naturally.

With Wormwood, Marduk starts over, closer to the merciless fury of Plague Angel, but at the same time more dynamic and mature. Whereas prior experiments separated standard all-blasting songs and slower, groovier songs, tracks on this album have more transitions within the songs. This allows the intensity to be more consistently sustained, producing a more flowing, cohesive narrative.

Mortuus, as his name suggests, is the voice of death, one of the best in the genre. His vitriolic vocals range from throat-ripping shrieks, to guttural growls, to yells of malefic triumph. His variegated performance fits well the band’s departure from being a one-trick-demon-pony. The riffs, cleverly crafted as always, now sport the alliance of engaging drum rhythms just as much as the ruthless blast-beat attacks, in which this band is often accused of overindulging. All these elements combine most perfectly on the track “Into Utter Madness,” a malevolent onslaught both catchy and complex.

As my initial perplexity implies, the bass guitar on this album enjoys much more prominence than on your typical Black Metal opus. Its place in the production offers a fuller, deeper sound absent from the thinner, icier works of the past. On the other hand, this incites more claustrophobia than the cavernous Romans 5:12. The handful of bass solos, such as what ends the opening track, glimpse the more emotional side of Marduk, unveiling the undercurrent of sorrow beneath this aural vortex of violence.

Lyrically, the band has backed away from tanks and concentration camps, to the safer territory of death and blasphemy. The controversy was key to their identity, but if this is the price of letting these guys tour the US, I’ll take it.

So how does Wormwood measure up? On the one hand, it’s a marked improvement over the forced evolution of the previous album. Sadly, the spirit of that Black Metal blitzkrieg called Plague Angel could not be harnessed again. Still, through blood and iron, Marduk have sealed their status among the signature acts of Scandinavian Extreme Metal.

Body Hammer – “Jigoku”

Imagine yourself slowly transforming, losing your humanity to a cancer of scrap metal consuming your body from within. Imminent terror grips your mechanizing limbs. A fetishistic maniac is turning you against your loved ones, then against yourself, and finally, against mankind.

Now set that nightmare to music and Jigoku is a frighteningly close approximation. UMaine’s own Ryan Page, inspired by the 1989 film Testuo: The Iron Man, interprets this experience beyond the bounds of musical orthodoxy, crafting a truly unique opus of terror.

For those out of the loop, Tetsuo is a cyberpunk horror-fantasy by Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto. Filmed in black-and-white, this disturbing achievement of cinematography soon earned cult status. Body Hammer doesn’t necessarily rewrite the soundtrack to this movie—the late-80’s industrial rock score was appropriate enough. Rather Jigoku translates its themes into a musical journey into an abyss of madness, despair, and nihilistic rage.

Before even opening the package, Jigoku’s cover art conveys the essence of the Tetsuo concept: the hideous fusion of man and machine envisioned in the art of H. R. Giger. Witness a dark future: the obsolescence of humankind to technology. Think of the mental anguish of being the only remaining biological entity in a matrix of metal.

Musically, this boils down to cybergrind in counterpoint to dark ambient industrial—a mouthful, I know. Body Hammer doesn’t fall into pigeonholes. Rather, we have an amalgam of influences. On the one hand, we get grindcore: extremely short bursts of insanely fast drumming, riffing, and hardcore vocals. “The Bystander Effect” and “Blue Eyed Assassin” strike like lightning from the brooding storm cloud that is this album. Nor is this cookie-cutter grindcore. Metal is a key element in the riffing, especially on tracks like “29 Second Stairway.”

On the other hand, we have a prevailing ambient element, with atmospheres of distorted guitars and distant screams. Occasionally we hear clean guitar chanting a haunting eastern melody. But as suits the theme, the human element is stifled by the impending mechanical world, an industrial morass collapsing upon the listener. This is best achieved at “The Square Root of 964,” the closest the album comes to Black Metal—this track could have easily gone on the latest Black Funeral album.

I cannot stress enough that this is challenging music, a work in and of itself, and not a soundtrack. It is a carefully crafted conception of a purgatorial spiral of the mind. So support local music and pick this up. And if you dare, check out Tetsuo the Iron Man for a visual complement. Jigoku is proof that New Media students do much more than worship Steve Jobs and Adobe Photoshop.

Behemoth – “Evangelion”

“All hail slain and risen god!
All hail Dionysus!”

They have returned, the most blasphemous force out of Poland since the heliocentric model. Evangelion translates to “good news,” in this case for the Behemoth fanboys; but recent critics should pay attention to this remarkable improvement over 2007’s The Apostasy. Fans of Zos Kia Cultus should delight in this return to form, while those who acclaim Demigod shall witness a stunning progression. However, that’s not to say either work has been surpassed. Still, it’s awkward to give such praise to a Metal act so commercially exalted as to appear at Ozzfest and like events so abhorrent to the Underground.

Expectedly, this is the modern Death Metal Behemoth has come to epitomize: professional production, chaotic riffing and solos, and gratuitous amounts of blast-beats. Add in the band’s trademark use of Asiatic melodies, ancient mythology, and overuse of the preposition “Ov.”

Opening hymn “Daimonos” blasts off with all guns blazing, as does “Shemhamforash,” with such passionate violence not achieved since “Slaves Shall Serve.” Arguably the strongest tracks on the album, they envelope the listener in a maelstrom of blast-beats and blood-pumping riffs. Behemoth sacrificed technicality so as to honor the wall-of-sound principle, often borrowing Black Metal elements to achieve depth and flow. Jumping ship to a new producer also helped.

A little known fact is that Behemoth started out as pure Black Metal in the mid 90’s, and such reminisces permeate the album: an arpeggio here, a tremolo there, and even some Mayhem-style melodies. You’ll hear this especially in the closing track, where the band steps out of character for a simplistic, yet utterly sinister postlude.

Of course, this is Death Metal at its heart. “Transmigrating Beyond Realms Ov Amenti” could have come straight off of Demigod, sustaining a high level of brutality throughout the album. Matching this is Nergal’s vitriolic vocals, sounding pissed-off as ever. It’s a shame his Black Metal scream is completely gone. Inferno mixes up the cymbal work and fills on top of his nearly constant blasting, but his other drum patterns are too few and uninteresting. Orion’s bass, while adding firepower, does nothing remarkable (though I still recommend his band Vesania).

This being the band’s ninth studio album, it’s no surprise their dearth of fresh ideas. Few things, not even the guitar solos, are exceptional. Rather the album works on a consistent theme, rather than a mediocre sequence punctuated by sensational singles. However, the band has already premiered a music video for “Ov Fire and Void,” parts of which remind me of the one Rammstein did for “Mein Teil.” The downside of such homogeneity is that the formula gets tedious after a while. Three or four songs into it, you’ve gotten all it has to offer, and the rest is recycled material until the recessional hymn in this unholy mass of ordinary time.

This year has seen a dramatic resurgence of old school Death Metal, with stellar releases by Asphyx, Excoriate and Slugathor (personal chart-toppers). But as always, Behemoth continue to carry the new school’s standard into battle against religion, society and your eardrums.

Summer Vacation

This post is to excuse my lack of posting here in recent times and for the rest of the summer. The Vergil’s Inferno project should still be going strong, but as far as Metal goes, I won’t be too active in that sector aside from my attendance at Maryland Death Fest May 22-24. I may post some pictures from that festival and even a show review. But the entirety of my summer will be absorbed in my reemployment at the Squire Tarbox, boatloads of books, and the aforementioned thesis project. 

Enjoy your summer and keep it trve.

Candlemass – “Death Magic Doom”

“I saw the execution of my tomorrow, saw it and bowed
in the theater of hellfire; the inferno is now.
I am lost again. I lean against the purgatory gates.
To ease my suffering, you’re offering to unlock my fate.”

From the snowscapes of Sweden, the legendary Candlemass are back with a vengeance. With little expectation, the masters of Doom Metal have unleashed a monolithic opus worthy of the title “Death Magic Doom” (perhaps a gibe at Metallica’s “Death Magnetic”).
The opening hymn “If I Ever Die” launches abruptly into the band’s newer, more aggressive style characteristic of their eponymous 2003 rebirth. The instantly memorable first riff sets a higher standard, maintained all the way to the album’s conclusion. Despite their doomy classification, Candlemass aren’t afraid to pick up the pace. This creates dynamic contrasts that diversify the album’s moods. Such creative energy combined with a thick and crushing production creates a relentless showcase welcome to the modern listener. Gone are the atmosphere and reverbed-to-the-max snare drums of “Nightfall.” But this departure doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten their roots and their diehard fans.

This change is most evident in the vocal department. Rob Lowe has at last settled into his new role, matching the music’s more abrasive approach. Messiah Marcolin’s operatics better suited the epic style of the 80’s albums, but seemed out of place on the self-titled album. Lowe, on the other hand, never overpowers the instruments, finding his place within the music rather than in counterpoint to it. Still, he sings his heart out, running the gamut of emotions, from sadness to hatred to malevolence. Though an objectively weaker vocalist, he sounds more human.

And Lowe isn’t the only musician who gives it his all. Jan Lindh’s drumwork is marvelous, ranging from triumphal marches, to rocking grooves to, well, downright doominess! Even after 25 years, Leif Edling perfects the art of the guitar riff from the bass on up. The Dantean lyrical themes, demonstrated at this review’s opening, are nothing original, but appropriate for a band whose works are as timeless (to a true Metal fan) as the Divine Comedy itself.

And that leads us to songwriting. “Death Magic Doom” shines brightest in its choruses, where the time shifts and the anthems ring. This is most apparent in “The Bleeding Baroness” and especially “Dead Angel,” where Lowe, at a haunting pitch, is in dialogue with the lead guitar. One of Candlemass’ classic strengths is the subtle use of synths and samples, here with the hellish bells chiming in the crusher “Hammer of Doom.” All these unique qualities aside, this is a Heavy Metal tour de force.

With this release, their best since 1989’s “Tales of Creation,” the rebirth of Candlemass has reached its triumphant climax, reasserting the band’s place at the pinnacle of Doom Metal and, in the shadow of Black Sabbath, one of the greatest Metal bands of all time. 

 

Vergil’s Inferno blog

By the encouragement of Dr. Kristina Passman and the modeling of my esteemed colleague James Brophy, I have created a blog for my Honors undergraduate thesis project at the University of Maine. As an homage to the supreme language of Latin and my two favorite texts, Vergil’s Aeneid and Dante’s Inferno, I intend to unite the three in a full translation of Aeneid Book VI into terza rima, the rhyme and meter employed in the Divina Commedia. In addition I shall write an extensive commentary, exploring the religious, philosophical and literary influences of both poets, especially one upon the other. My goal is to complete the project by the end of 2010. 

Please bookmark the sight, and subscribe to its RSS feed if you’re interested: http://vergilsinferno.wordpress.com/

The purpose of “Vergil’s Inferno” is to explore and explicate the influence of Vergil’s vision of the afterlife upon Dante, and thus the prevailing concepts of damnation and deliverance. I will exercise my mastery of the Latin language, my understanding of poetry, and my deep fascination with the classical world and the debt to it the modern world fails to pay. 

How a pagan poet created a Christian Hell….

What you’ll see here is all my progress that’s fit to print, both as a journal and a exhibition to general interest. I will share translations, research texts, and anything relating to the project or my classical studies here at UMaine. So please show your support and feedback to keep me at a high pace. Leave comments, criticisms, libels, you name it. If you’re reading it then it was worth my time. Thank you.

DJ of the Month

Coincidentally, on the month of my birth, WMEB honored me with their employee of the month display outside the station in the Memorial Union. Here’s the text of the blurb written for it. Consider it a taste for what’s the come, as my roommate Zev Eisenberg is creating a feature on my show for a New Media project. Here’s the full text:

“Jeremy Swist is a second-year Honors College student, majoring in Latin and History with a minor in Classics. A former Bostonian, he calls Westport Island his home. Last summer he wrote reviews for The Metal Observer webzine. In addition to Metal he enjoys classical music, ancient history and attending first-year Honors lectures for the hell of it. He serves the Modern Languages & Classics department as a Latin tutor.

“Ministry of Metal” has been running strong for a full year, with a mission to restore dignity to a genre so diluted by commercialization. This is achieved by playing both modern extreme metal and the old school classics. A typical show features Black Metal acts like Bathory, Emperor and Deathspell Omega, Death Metal like Morbid Angel and Asphyx, and Traditional Metal like Candlemass and Manilla Road. Jeremy taps a collection of over 500 albums, spanning several genres and over three decades of music. With a focus on European acts, he flies Metal’s true colors as an international phenomenon, expressing cultural pride and the plight of the human condition. A full broadcast explores the genre’s prolific development and vastness of styles, then dares you to affirm that “it still all sounds the same.” What began as a schism from Rock n’ Roll today incorporates diverse elements from industrial to symphonic. Invited are both veteran headbangers and open-minded initiates. Jeremy takes requests via FirstClass, but receives most through his multinational fan-base centered at UltimateMetal.com.

“Ministry of Metal” airs Sundays 7-10 PM.” 

Blut Aus Nord – “Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue With The Stars”

Witness the majestic return of one of the vanguards of the French Black Metal revolution. Nominally a sequel to their 1996 epic, this is not so much a back-to-your-roots album as it is the marriage of their original style with recent experimental offerings. Blut Aus Nord have birthed a worthy successor to both Memoria Vetusta I and the pioneering Work Which Transforms God of 2003. When so many bands don crowns of decaying laurels, Vindsval’s triumvirate remains ever the masters of their craft.

The first song “Antithesis of the Flesh” storms through your headphones in a transcendent synthesis of old and new. Copious melodies weave through atmospheric keyboards and monastic chants. Meanwhile inhuman blasts and industrial drumbeats propel the listener into galactic soundscapes. Scenes of terror and mystique give way to regal fanfare. Incorporating elements from Ultima Thulée through Odinist, rarely is an album so diverse yet euphoniously consistent.

For a genre immersed in darkness and misanthropy, dare I say this composition is colorful and enlivening? The artwork alone paints an organic yet otherworldly exhibition. Musically, it contrasts emotive melodies with the mathematical rhythms of the drum computer; futuristic yet as ancient as the human condition itself. Lyrics are absent, offering freer interpretation and drawing the listener closer to the music’s own eloquence.

This is as far removed from standard Black Metal as Oslo from Paris. Buzz saw guitar riffing underlies clean and acoustic guitar harmonies and solos, shimmering with progressive highlights. Contemplative ambience interplays with headbangable riffs. Screeching vocals blend into a musical fabric drenched in beautiful pain. All sense of traditional song structure is discarded for an intelligently structured opus worth several listens just to comprehend its magnificence.

Black Metal stalwarts may find discomfort in the cleaner production and experimental elements. As for the unenlightened, this is the perfect gateway to Metal in its true grandeur. Leave your pop culture stereotypes at the dock and dive in. Let this album drown you in an ocean of sound, for both meditation and catharsis. It’s far too early for an “album of the year” declaration, but if anything will contend with this, 2009 should be a glorious year for Metal.   

I’m in the paper again…

…this time for non-musical grievances. I finally heeded the call to write opinion pieces for The Maine Campus, the student newspaper for UMaine. Of a range of topics I could rant about, I felt most compelled to lament society’s neglect of the English language. The article’s intended title was “Thoughts of Technology & Language,” but the editors fancied a more alliterative legend. At least the mugshot will get more people around here to acknowledge my pitiful existence. Read the online publication at this address - http://media.www.mainecampus.com/media/storage/paper322/news/2009/02/16/Opinion/OpEd-A.Lexicon.Lost.To.Lolz-3631195.shtml

But I will copy the article here for your convenience.

Thoughts on Technology & Language

Languages don’t evolve – they devolve. I’ve adopted this philological maxim as my mantra. And while it’s a linguistic principle for tongues to simplify over time, recent culture has taken it beyond the disuse of tenses and cases.

Behold an age of instantaneous information. Speedy Internet access now lets us share pictures, videos and words in a flash. Written sentences can no longer keep up. We ingest media so quickly we have no time to actually read. News websites are becoming increasingly visual because people are more enthralled by the camera than the keyboard.

This disadvantage is affecting the English language itself. Our generation now expresses itself with shorter spellings (“u” for “you”) and acronyms (“lol”), for the sake of celerity. Now, such perversion is appropriate in the context of “LOLcats,” but its use has become so common that many embrace it as valid English. I know professors whose students turn in essays written to the standards of the “LOLcat Bible,” not as a farce, but as a reflection of total immersion in a paradigm where words become secondary to “new media.” Why read Aristotle’s Politics when a boiled-down wiki is bookmarked next to Facebook? It’s a disservice enough to read a translated text, let alone an electronic abstraction.

Again, language simplifies. I do foresee the day when contractions like “doesn’t” and “won’t” will drop the apostrophe and become standard. That’s natural. But our technology threatens the diversity of our lexicon. Increasingly, words are becoming too formal and archaic for common comprehension. You may not notice this much, but try descending this ivory tower into reality. You’ll discover why poverty and ignorance keeps the lower class in the dark ages. Children would rather watch Hannah Montana than read anything at all. A chasm widens between the vocabulary on this page and the simple English that modern media has allowed us to survive upon. It won’t be the first estrangement of a classical language from the vulgate.

How can a Bible rendered to a fourth-grade reading level teach us to think critically about our world? Why read Dickens when every other word requires a dictionary? Culture is unconsciously committing what I call “lexic cleansing.” You’re not at fault. You’re the choir to which I’m preaching. But how small a minority we are, immune to this linguistic purgation. Who’s to blame? I’ll mention the ignorance encouraged by right-wing politics, but what disturb me also are the left-wing elites who deify technology as the salvation of the human mind. They’re too spellbound by their iPhones to realize that technology is what you bring to it, not vice-versa. Television and Internet promised an intellectual renaissance. Now in the hands of the masses, their predominant use is for pornography. Increasing the availability of information has decreased the quality of its expression.

As we drown in our portable TV screens, we dispose our need to express ourselves with the beauty of language. We continually absorb information with fewer words as possible, to the point where smilies and “facepalms” replace our critical capacities. Perhaps we are coming full-circle to ancient Egypt, to a language expressed through pictures. Is literacy again becoming the luxury of elitists? Not while my fellow “emoticon-oclasts” take a stand against this opium of the masses.

Jeremy Swist is a sophomore logophile.

Enslaved – “Blodhemn”

As most of you know, Enslaved is a big name out there in the Metal scene. Along with Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon, they are a second-wave Norwegian Black Metal band that has received exceptional popularity in recent years. Like the other two mentioned, they accomplished this by branching out and fusing styles. Enslaved, even from the start, had a progressive edge over their more predictable countrymen. Many BM stalwarts hail their debut Vikigligr Veldi as their first and finest hour. Balancing that out are the prog fanboys going gaga over their latest outputs.

However, it is the middle of the spectrum that deserves the most attention, and Blodhemn is the least appreciated of this transition period. It’s deeply rooted in the harsh, Viking-themed Metal of its three predecessors, but it hints at the unique progressions (and dilutions) of its posterity. This is not ambiguity. This is the peak of their power, before the future digressions watered it down.

The production is clean and sharp, like a storm of razor blades backed by thunderous artillery. Gone is the murky atmosphere of the past, but that merely turns up the barometric pressure, and you’re breathing fresh air, charging across the battlefield in broad daylight. This top-gun production is also necessary to showcase the complexity of every second of music. But even with clinical production, you can still lose yourself in a monolithic wall of sound.

Not one musician underplays his role, from the unique drum patterns, to the mind-bending riffs, to the hypnotic clean vocals interplaying with Grutle Kjellson’s vitriolic growls. This album is consistently fast, and takes a few listens to keep track of what’s going on. Pleasing from the start, and forever enduring, are the quality riffs, such as the opener to “Eit Auga Til Mimir” (one of my favorite riffs of all time), which has a resemblance to Mayhem. The melodies are evocative and overwhelmingly triumphant.

I’m baffled by how underrated this album is. Its songs are rarely played live, as if this were a chapter the band soon forgot. Perhaps the gratuitous amounts of energy required to record this album simply couldn’t be matched in a live setting. All the Pink Floyd-related substances must have weakened their Viking resolve.

Whoever said that Black Metal died in the late 90’s has likely never heard Blodhemn.