And We Saw The Midnight Sun

How many times
Do I have to contemplate my own reflection
And say; I have been blind
— Emperor

A country’s relationship between the sun and moon often produces strange effects on its inhabitant’s psyche. How else can a region like Scandinavia account for producing an IKEA, innovators in consumer logistics and mass-market furniture design or the savvy wireless technologies from the likes of Nokia?

The solar rays not only beam down on businessmen but for artisans as well. Halldor Laxness won the Nobel Prize in 1955 for literature while successful crime writing team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo wrote thriller after thriller during the ‘60s and ‘70s.

I am Not Stiller put Swedish author Max Frisch on the literary map as one of the most widely read authors in Europe. Henning Mankell’s gumshoe Kurt Wallander is still solving shocking murders in his fictitious town Ystad.

In the land of the midnight sun, Norway, Christian churches burn and steeples topple. Set afire by the arsonist hands of anti-Christian ideologists, misanthropic beliefs or as some authorities have pointed to — people who play black metal music, though it’s a bit speculative. The members of the black metal band Gorogoth think more churches ought to burn, and believe there will be more as times passes.

Black metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal featuring fast tempos, heavily distorted guitars, synchronized double-kick drums, bass, and vocals typically sung in what’s called a death growl — deep and guttural from the girth of the bowels.

The lyrical content consists of morbidity, death, pain, depression, nihilism, atheism, Satanism, antitheism, paganism, and suffering. There are some black metal artists who write poetic compositions about winter, forests, nature, folklore, mythology, and fantasy.

The black metal scene started around the mid-eighties and evolved during the ‘90s in Norway. Bands like Bathory, Darkthrone, Emperor, and Mayhem slowly developed the music from a lo-fi sound production to a clean, slick quality for CD buying hip scenesters.

Mayhem often considered the founding fathers of black metal were the first to establish the musical rules: corpse paint for the face, musical opposition to Christianity, poor sound production, and alternative names for band members like Euronymous, Dead, and Hellhammer.

As the story, legend or conjecture of Mayhem goes Hellhammer worked in a mental hospital. Dead, the singer committed suicide slashing his wrist and swallowing a shotgun barrel.

Upon discovery of the body Euronymous made necklaces of the singer’s shattered skull and distributed among black metal musicians he deemed worthy. Necrobutcher landed in prison for stabbing a homosexual who apparently made a pass at him around Lillehammer Stadium. Thirty-six knife wounds were counted in the dead man’s body, and so black metal was born.

Everything here is so cold
Everything here is so dark
I remember it as from a dream
In the corner of this time
— Mayhem Freezing Moon

As black metal gathers momentum talented bands like Opeth, Enslaved, Katatonia, Dark Tranquility, Satyricon, and Amon Amarth are using aspects of Norse paganism, Viking imagery, Nordic folk music, and elements of classical music achieving sonic depth and qualities ranging from silence to chaotic din much like Mahler or Carl Ruggles used to add color and emotion in their work.

Audiences are discovering a music not only serious in lyrical content but innovative musicianship which quite frankly hasn’t been heard much these days.

In orbit they pass around – the memories from abandoned past
Images from within your mind bring unknown feelings into your veins
Delve into thy twilight past, a voyage done before
The borderland ‘twixt life and death – existing evermore
— Dark Tranquility

Black metal is definitely not your father’s rock-n-roll. Gone are the popular themes of sex, chicks, cars, and fast times. Pardon the pun, but I think this is the one bright spot going on in contemporary music. More bands and musicians are entering the scene contributing dynamic musical complexities, a unique lyricism, and new stylistic approaches to their craft.

Who can say how much longer black metal will be around and replaced for the next new thing. I’m hoping this movement will act as a catalyst to morph new musical attitudes sustained by well-crafted tunes, innovative playing, and thought provoking ideas.

One can only hope the planetary orbs continue to rotate, eclipse, and crash into each other to keep producing new talent from a region ensconced in cold hell.

J. Prock