I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THERION-Theli (1997).

I bought this disc when I was living in Boston and I immediately fell for it.  I seem to recall I was doing a lot of driving at the time, and this mix of extreme metal, orchestral accompaniment and twinned vocals was very captivating.  It was also really fun to play very loud on a dark highway.

I’d read a very good review of this disc that claimed it was a big step forward in styles of thrash/black metal (and if you Google reviews for this album they are pretty universally great).  The disc is exemplified by the track “To Mega Therion” which is almost entirely a full choir singing what I guess is the chorus.  The verses are populated by a guy screaming in a guttural voice who is answered by an almost mechanically twinned voice which sounds great but is even harder to understand.  Follow this with a beautiful piano (!) solo not unlike something Randy Rhoads put together for Blizzard of Oz, and add a pounding double bass drum all the way through (truth be told the album could be a little heavier in the bass) and you get a crazy mix of styles which is catchy and creepy at the same time.

It’s hard to match a song like that.  And, admittedly, the band doesn’t quite manage to do so, but the rest of the album keeps up this orchestral death metal throughout.

Reading about Therion has taught me that this album is something of  touchstone for a new genre of metal, called variously symphonic or operatic metal (I suppose we have this to blame for the Trans Siberian Orchestra?).

In addition to the choirs and guitars there are a lot of keyboards. They are disconcerting when you’re thinking death metal and yet really they add an even fuller sound, even if at times they are not as grand or powerful as anything else.  At times the album seems cheesey, but that may have more to do with thirteen years distance than the music itself.

Anyone who has seen The Exorcist knows that choirs can be spooky.  And when you mix it with the heavy guitars and guttural vocals, you get a really cool sinister yet catchy (and possibly uplifting) album.  There are certainly a lot heavier albums, but this one is pretty stellar.

[READ: Summer of 2010, finished December 12, 2010] Lords of Chaos

My brother-in-law gave me this book for my birthday this year.  I was familiar with it as it is fairly well-known in heavy metal circles as a fascinating read.  And so it was.

This book is basically a history of black metal in Norway and how some bands’ antics went beyond music into burning churches and even murder.  The authors present a pretty neutral account of the story.  They let the main participants (criminals) have their say and the interviews don’t comment on their answers, they just let them tell their side of the story.  The authors also know a lot about the music scene.  Of course, in the end, the authors (thankfully) disapprove of the violence.  It makes for an interesting and somewhat conflicting read.

The book opens with a history of the devil in rock and roll.  There’s mention of Aleister Crowley and of course Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.  But they also mention some unknown bands like Coven–check out this scary album cover!  And of course we learn about Anton LaVey and The Satanic Bible.  In fact, later in the book, there’s an interview with LaVey himself.  (LaVey comes across as a kind of pompous jerk, but not in any way evil).

Then they move into the late 70s and 80s and discuss the unholy metal trio of Venom, Mercyful Fate and Bathory as the godfathers of the modern scene.  Venom were kind of goofy.  Mercyful Fate were more serious and Bathory was pretty extreme.  Of course, this led to some Satanic bands in America like Slayer and Possessed (I always like to point out that Larry from Primus was the guitarist here, so you can see just how evil they were).

Euronymous

It wasn’t until this heavy death metal was exported to Europe that it turned into something other.  The bands in Norway wore corpsepaint, which takes the look of Kiss and King Diamond to a further extreme.  And it is with the Norwegian band Mayhem that the first notorious moment occurs.  The lead singer of Mayhem, Dead, killed himself with a shotgun.

It’s this moment that acts as a catalyst of the book.  The authors interview other members of Mayhem as well as members from other local bands who knew Dead. Dead’s band mate Euronymous, who was more or less Dead’s closest friend. treated Dead’s suicide like it was nothing.  As someone points out, when you worship death, the death of a friend is no big deal.  Euronymous was the first to find Dead, so naturally, he took pictures and (apparently) “souvenirs” from the scene.  One of the photos has been used as the cover of an unofficial/official bootleg of the band (called Dawn of the Black Hearts–I’m not going to post the picture here, but you can find it anywhere online).

And then the scene gets really interesting.  Euronymous was now the de facto leader of the Norway black metal scene.  But an up and comer named Varg Vikernes took matters into his own hands.  He killed Euronymous with a knife and before being caught went on an arson spree, burning several historic churches.  (Which has led to copycat arsons).  Varg was jailed for 21 years (and has been releasing music from jail under the name Burzum).

That is what happened (read a more thorough summary here).  The rest of the book looks to find out why this happened and why it happened in a place like Norway.  The authors delve into the historical mythologies in Norway and learn that while Satanism is the sort of catch-all phrase for the black metal scene, in Norway it is more paganism/heathenism with people like Varg Vikernes trying to right the wrongs that Christians did to the pagan peoples of Norway and environs hundred of years ago.

It seems that there are couple of camps in the scene as well.  Some think that LaVey’s Satantic Bible is a good model of life (basically be a heathen and don’t apologize for it), while others think he is too “nice” and that bands that preach but don’t act on their beliefs are wimps.  And of course, there are other bands who just do it for show.

The authors take a tour through the history of Norse myths and their impact on contemporary culture (this section was a bit long and slow, but was actually quite informative).  The most interesting parts are the interviews with the various participants of the scene and even the convicted criminals.

The surprising thing about the interviews is how intelligent and articulate these men are.  They’re not raging psychopaths (until they get to the part about thinking its okay to kill the weak), they are well-read, knowledgable and calm.  And their viewpoints on the surface aren’t really that far from right-wing ideas like “greed is good.”  Except instead of amassing wealth, they are trying to amass power, superiority.

One of the interviewees explains that Christianity is weak because it helps the poor and is open to all.  It is this weakness that he can’t stand.  And when I read this I thought it sounded not that far off from some of the young people at the Republican convention that Wells Tower talks about in “The Kids are Far-Right”  And indeed, when the book comes to a close, the authors show that the black metal scene is tending to converge with the far right.  And really it is that aspect that comes across as scarier than any of the corpsepaint and theatrics of any metal band.  I couldn’t help think that a lot of these “Satanists” didn’t sound all that far off from some right-wing American politicians.

The book also looks at how the “scene” has expanded into different countries with varying levels of pervasiveness (into Germany, Sweden France and the U.S.).  For the U.S., they mention bands like Deicide and The Electric Hellfire Club (who are actually more electronic than metal).  But the U.S.’ most notorious “Satanic” pact came from a group of teens in Florida who called themselves “Lords of Chaos.”  They were not a band, just a bunch of kids who caused real mayhem.  They killed a teacher and had planned to take over Disney with shotguns (The elaborate plan was not likely to be realized; nevertheless they were caught before anything could really happen).

So in some respects we see that the book drifts away from the strict focus of black metal, but the breadth of scope allows it to look into evil in general (there’s talk with religious and psychological professionals), and why countries and locales that you wouldn’t imagine could produce people who  think that way.

This was a really interesting look into a crazy scene.  The authors do an excellent job of laying out their information and letting you really see what’s going on.  The one thing I noted at the end of the book was that the authors do talk in much harsher terms as they bring the book to a close.  So, if you are frustrated by the neutrality of the book and the amount of uncensured talk the perpetrators get, the final two chapters bring home how seriously the authors take this.  They seem to be saying intellectual contemplation (even embracing) of Satanism is one thing but acting on it is something else entirely.

It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s a really informative read.  Also, the book was released in 2003. I wonder if any new developments have happened since then.  I feel like black metal has pretty much fallen off the radar (as many in the book predict it will).