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The Coroner's Report - Veterans Day: Enslaved, Kataklysm Emerge from the Underground By Peter Atkinson, Contributor Tuesday, November 16, 2010 @ 1:41 PM
Both bands have been slogging away in the underground — often on the far fringes — for going on two decades, yet continue to fly the flag of extreme metal experimentation (Enslaved) and death metal brutality (Kataklysm) with no sign of compromise — or regret. They’ve eaten more of their share of shit over the years — Enslaved literally played at a laundromat during a 2001 tour in America and Kataklysm, already 13-year veterans, got bumped from what could have been a breakthrough tour in 2004 by a band who’s first album had just come out — but have taken it in stride and soldiered on.
And just now, as each prepare to mark their 20th anniversaries, they are managing to get a small taste of a more mainstream audience. Yet neither shows any sign of slowing down. So here’s to them.
On the phone from Norway, Bjørnson offered the following about one of extreme metal’s most daring, inventive and cerebral bands.
On meeting the Norwegian Embassy staff in Washington.
On Norway promoting extreme metal as a cultural export.
On learning to push the musical envelope.
So at the start we took the chance of being a little bit different, being on the outside. And things happened naturally. Some things happened by accident, like changing drummers [losing Trym Torson to Emperor] between Frost and Eld forced us to change because the new guy who came in [Harald Helgeson, who was later replaced by Dirge Rep who gave way to current drummer Cato Bekkevold in 2003] was more of a prog metal drummer and couldn’t really do the black metal blasts. At some point around the millennium change, we started to realize on a conscious level that the reason why we really enjoyed doing this was by changing all the time. We gave ourselves new challenges, kept fresh and it really made starting every tour, starting every recording session, exciting. And it fit our personalities to have these changes.
On the more basic musical approach to Axioma Ethica Odini
The first few songs when I started writing, they were pretty intense and straight in your face. And that just told me that this was the direction Enslaved wanted to go now and we tried to make it happen. We like to think Enslaved is more or less an entity on its own, it takes on a will and a direction that is more than just the sum of the guys on the band. And this is where we wanted to go now.
On the "truths" of Axioma Ethica Odini.
The mythological or the ethical aspect, I would differentiate that from typical religion because the thing about basic religions like Christianity or Islam or Judiasm is the monotheism. That’s why they fit so well, like a hand in the glove, the evangelists and the politicians. They all have very singular views about what truth is. But the ethics of pluralistic religions or mythologically based religions is they leave things open to interpretation, they leave some leeway for different people with different circumstances to actually arrive at different truths. That’s what we’re trying to highlight. Truth isn’t necessarily a truth if it hasn’t been lived. Finding it on page this or that in the bible doesn’t necessarily make it a truth.
On "success."
Talking about ethics, that kind of work ethic is why I think we’re still enjoying it so much. Success is not necessary measured in terms of how many mornings you can sleep in without having to get up, it’s more about the feeling of actually having made an impact on something.
On marking the 20th anniversary of Enslaved.
They’ve even begun to branch out into further extremes, with frontman Maurizio Iacono launching his gladiator-themed side band Ex Deo, with the rest of Kataklysm — guitarist/producer Jean-Francois Dagenais, bassist Stephane Barbe and drummer Max Duhamel — all participating. And just after Kataklysm scored their biggest tour to date — playing on last summer’s short Ozzfest run — and issued their 10th album, Heaven’s Venom, Ex Deo were readying for a tour of the states with Nile in a clash of ancient Rome and ancient Egypt.
On the phone from Baltimore, and through his thick French-Canadian accent, Dagenais talked about the band’s long fight for recognition.
On Kataklysm’s first Ozzfest experience — literally.
On bouncing back and forth between Ozzfest dates and off-date club shows.
On touring yet again with Devildriver, after their well-publicized feud.
And then Maurizio expressed his frustration and Dez answered back, and no one wants to look bad, and when you fuel each other things can get ugly quick. We were mostly pissed off because of the politics of it. Maybe we were a bit naive at the time, but it made us realize that politics is part of the game and you’re just gonna have to deal with it. Stuff happens when you play music, things can happen between bands and we don’t hold grudges. We’ve toured with them a bunch of times and they called us and asked if we wanted to join them for this whole tour and we said yes.
On the punchier, angrier tone of Heaven’s Venom.
On Ex Deo’s unexpected rise.
On 20 years in the underground.
As long as we can keep it going and the fans are there to support us, we’re happy doing this. We don’t have a huge fan base but our fan base is really solid. That’s the right way to do it. And over the last few years, every year is bigger and better and we get more opportunities and that’s what keeps it exciting and interesting. You’re wondering how far you can push it.
Like lineup changes. The Dimmu camp’s been a bit of a clusterfuck over the past year, what with the ugly firings of keyboardist Mustis and bassist/clean vocalist Vortex and Snowy Shaw being announced as Vortex’s replacement then literally quitting on the same day. On top of that, the remaining band members — frontman Shagrath and guitarists Silenoz and Galder — decided to craft the most complex, heavily orchestrated album of the band’s long career to follow up the comparatively stripped down In Sorte Diaboli.
With a 100-piece orchestra and Wicked Witch of West-sounding female guest vocalists in tow, and draping themselves in some truly ridiculous new costuming, Dimmu deliver Abrahadabra, an album that is every bit as outrageous and bloated as you could imagine. Bigger is not always better, and Abrahadabra staggers under its own immense weight — the ample, sometimes overdone symphonics of Death Cult Armageddon are nothing compared to this.
The choirs, the strings and horns, the curtain of keyboards — the bells! the bells! — all but smother what black metal majesty there is here. "Ritualist," "Renewal," "Chess With The Abyss" and "Endings And Continuations" all do have their viscerally satisfying moments. And the hyper-drive "A Jewel Traced Through Coal" is one of the most menacing songs the band’s ever done. But with so much of, well, everything slathered on top, the guitar crunch, bracing tempos and Shagrath’s signature snarl ultimately fight a losing battle to dig themselves out from under it. C
Darkly is done with typically grand Cradle flair. Though they haven’t done the full orchestra thing since 2003’s Damnation And A Day, Cradle still weave a tapestry of opulent strings, gothic keyboard arrangements and operatic female vocals into their usual breathless black metal caterwauling — nobody spews more words per minute than frontman Dani Filth. Where the band’s last few albums have had their moments of hookiness and crunch, Darkly is pretty much all-ahead-full, riding Martin Skaroupka’s frantic drumming.
One notable exception is the first single, "Forgive Me Father (I Have Sinned)," a rather drab hard rocker with Filth and Lucy Atkins trading vocals and a rare flashy guitar solo from Paul Allender. Like their cover of Heaven 17’s "Temptation" on Thornography or the duet with Liv Kristine on "Nymphetamine" before it, "Father’s" only real purpose seems to be to get a bit of radio play, yet as such it ultimately disappoints.
Indeed, Darkly underwhelms in the end. Where Dimmu at least went all out with Abrahadabra, Cradle feel like they’re on cruise control here. There isn’t much to distinguish Darkly from many of its predecessors. It’s not bad, it just ain’t all the great. C
And now for the rest …
Despite hailing from Phoenix, Abigail Williams have the Nordic symphonic black metal thing down to a science, all the way to their revolving door lineup — vocalist Ken Sorceron is the sole original member. That’s not necessarily a good thing. The band’s second album borrows liberally from the In The Nightside Eclipse-era Emperor playbook — though ex-Emperor drummer Trym Torson, who played on Abigail’s debut, is nowhere to be found here. The desolate, screaming vocals; the raw, shrill, expansive wash of guitar; the blast-and-crawl drum battery; it’s mid-’90s Norway with precious little America 2010 — save for some nifty leads — to add any new or unique twists. So in the end, what’s the point? C
Mass-hole quartet The Acacia Strain are their typical sledgehammer selves on their fifth album. Wormwood is a blunt, brutish affair that lumbers out of the gate with aptly titled "Beast" and proceeds to stomp the crap out of everything in its path. With its bowel-shaking bass throb, eerie, deliberate pacing, thick-as-mud riffing and Vincent Bennett’s strep throat bellow, Wormwood is certainly one of the year’s heaviest albums. And with the bulk of its songs obsessing about murder and death, both real ("Jonestown," "Ramirez") and imagined ("Tactical Nuke," "The Hills Have Eyes") — delivered with disturbing authority by Bennett — it’s one of the most horrific as well. B+
Sweden’s answer to Deicide, Aeon are all about blasphemy and brutality, in no particular order, though their third album doles out plenty of both. "Kill Them All." "Abomination To God." "Suffer The Soul." "Forgiveness Denied." You get the picture. Tommy Dahlström and lead guitarist Zeb Nilsson’s hellish harmonizing gives Aeon an aura of evil that would make singing about puppies and flowers sound like something out of the Exorcist. Musically, Path of Fire is nothing all that special, save for the fantastic drumming of now departed Nils Fjellström and the cool, but brief, Middle Eastern instrumental foray "Total Kristus Inversus." Aeon pack a pretty good wallop, thanks in part to Erik Rutan’s potent production, but don’t do a hell of a lot that you probably haven’t heard before. C+
This low-fi, old-school combo of Down/ex-Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo, Hank Williams III, Eyehategod’s Mike Williams and bassist Collin Yeo sounds like it was dug up in a time capsule from the early ‘80s, when hardcore first reared its ugly head. Crusty and utterly relentless, Arson Anthem crank out caustic two-minute ditties like a rusty old machine gun. The crude, demo-quality sound of Insecurity makes Anselmo’s ragged guitaring and Williams’ ass-biting vocals that much more abrasive as they barrel through "Death Of An Idiot," "More Than One War" and "Kleptomania." Only album closer "Teach The Gun (To Love The Bullet)" boasts anything in the way of real dynamics — the rest is just raw fury unleashed. B
If you’re looking for something to annoy the neighbors, these Coloradans are just the thing. Their discordant, spasmodic, pummeling second album recalls old Brutal Truth, Pig Destroyer or Agoraphobic Nosebleed. Ill Hope may be a lot of wonderfully horrible noise, but these guys take a little different approach to the usual fits-and-starts insanity by building creepy, extended slow sections and punctuating them with microburst freakouts. The maniacal vocals — and preoccupation with piss, shit and sacrilege — cement-mixer riffing and epileptic time signatures are there in abundance, the Trees just take their time getting to them. B+
After 14 years of mostly thankless toil, Sweden’s The Crown threw up their hands and said "fuck it" in 2004 and everyone went off to play with someone else, seemingly happy to be done with that chapter of their lives. But here they are — guitarists Marko Tervonen and Marcus Sunesson, bassist Magnus Olsfelt and drummer Janne Saarenpä — back together six years later with new frontman Jonas Stålhammar and boasting the same fire and fury of their Deathrace King/Crowned In Terror creative heyday. Buoyed by this second wind, Doomsday doles loads of violent and roughshod, yet surprisingly catchy, death and roll with the title track, "Blood O.D." and the super-hooky "Soul Slasher" leading the charge. Stålhammar’s raspy holler and attack dog delivery fits perfectly as The Crown steamrolls through this reunion album that, save for a couple clunky mid-tempo numbers like "Desolation Domain," is an absolute monster. A-
After stumbling badly with their scattershot Roadrunner debut The Hinderers in 2007, Atlanta’s Daath recovered nicely with 2009’s The Concealers with its taut, gritty thrash and the astonishing guitar work of Eyal Levi and Emil Werstler. That momentum, and the enjoyable Levi/Werstler instrumental album from earlier this year, bade well for Daath’s new self-titled full-length. Unfortunately, it comes up well short of the mark. The songiness of The Concealers is largely lost, replaced by a mish-mash of aimless riffing that eventually yields to the obligatory, but still amazing, solos. As the songs bleed into each another it’s tough to figure out where one ends and the next begins. The snub-nosed "Indestructible Overdose," the more involved "Arch [Enemy] Misanthrope" and back-to-back brutes "A Cold Devotion" and "N.A.T.G.O.D." do show some moxie and direction. But while four out of 13 might yield a respectable batting average in baseball, over the course of an album that’s pretty weak. D
German thrashers Dew-Scented issue their eighth album, which yet again boasts a title that begins with the letter "I." Cute little gimmick that, sort of an alternate take on Morbid Angel moving up the alphabet with each of their albums. But if that’s all you got to hang your hat on you’re in trouble. Dew-Scented are fairly textbook European thrash, but weave enough chugging hooks and biting leads into the mix to keep things interesting. "The Invocation," "Condemnation" and the blast-beaty "Have No Mercy On Us" are standouts here, despite Leif Jensen’s atonal bark. Though Invocation ultimately runs out of gas toward the end, Dew-Scented deliver enough rough-and-tumble thrash to make it worth — pardon the "I" joke — investigating. B-
Though pretty tame when compared to everything else here, Greek power-metallers Firewind — aka Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Gus G’s other band — offer up their feistiest effort yet with Days of Defiance. Shedding some of the slickness of their prior release, the otherwise excellent The Premonition, and flexing more muscle here gives Defiance a welcome oomph — despite some cheesy keyboard solos. By the same token, Gus G’s fluid soloing is nothing short of spectacular, while at the same time not really being showy or pretentious. He’s one guitar whiz who seems to care as much about his riffs and melodies as he does his leadwork — and his stint with Ozzy doesn’t seem to be a real distraction. Defiance is taut, brash and crunchy enough to satisfy when Cannibal Corpse is just too much to handle. B+
This duo teams Animals As Leader drummer Navene Koperweis and Job For A Cowboy singer Jonny Davy for something that, no surprise, sounds a lot like a cross between both bands. With Koperweis handling all the instruments, Dementia whipsaws between tech-death and prog metal, with delicate, almost jazzy guitar solos — and even some sax wails and synthesized noodling — punctuating the otherwise manic grind. Davy sounds pretty much like he does in Cowboy here — guttural, occasionally screechy and always spitting his lyrics with breathless intensity. But he matches well with Koperweis’ cacophony, and knows to shut up during the wankier bits. B
Can’t say I was expecting much from reunited Bay Area bangers Forbidden, but they deliver a surprisingly awesome comeback album with Omega Wave, their first in 13 years. Forbidden sound like a completely new band here, one that doesn’t seem at all interested in reveling in nostalgia. Rather, they take the "Adapt Or Die" mentality of one of Omega’s tracks and have crafted a thoroughly modern-sounded album that is heavier, thrashier and more technical than anything they’ve done probably since their 1988 debut. "Forsaken At The Gates," "Overthrow," "Behind The Mask" and the title track charge like rhinos, the guitar work of Craig Locicero and Steve Smyth is brilliant and Russ Anderson still boasts on the one the rangiest voices in thrash — sounding positively Halford-esque here. Omega is a well constructed and, more importantly, focused work by a band prone to wandering in the past and gives them more than solid footing for the future. Let’s hope they don’t slip up. A-
An all-star quintet featuring several supergroup veterans — Napalm Death bassist Shane Embury, Dimmu Borgir guitarist Silenoz and occasional drummer Tony Laureano, Old Man’s Child guitarist Jardar and ex-Morgoth frontman Marc Grewe — Insidious Disease is one of those rare side projects that actually pretty much nails it. Mixing Swedish style death and roll with splashes of grind, some moody atmospherics and a whole lot of misanthrope, Shadowcast is brimming with abrasiveness and teeth-clenched conviction. Insidious don’t try to do anything fancy, nor do they take the tribute band-like retro route like so many others, they just thrash and burn their way through the likes of "Nuclear Salvation," "The Essence of Neglect" and the delightful "Abortion Stew" with vicious glee. B+
The Last Felony join a growing list noteworthy death metal bands emerging from Montreal — Augury, Beneath The Massacre, Neuraxis, etc. — with an impressively brutal second album. Too Many Humans won’t wow you with dazzling instrumentation, try to make you puke — despite titles like "We Are The Future Housing Developments For Maggots" and "A Cathedral Of Flesh And Fluids" — or deliver chunky cheap thrills. Instead, it’s just straight up, full-on, no-frills death metal. And there’s no shame in that, especially when it’s played with the punishing authority they display here. B+
After reuniting in 2007 for Legacy of Evil, this Norwegian two-man black metal "band" are now down to just one — Vidar Jensen, aka Daemon. While handling all the instrumentation and voices, Daemon still kicks up a huge sounding, unholy racket for Limbonic’s seventh full-length. The hyper-speed sonic wall of the title track, "Portal of the Unknown" and "Curse of the Necromancer" must have made for quite a workout — even without his banshee howl vocalizing. Lending some dramatic contrast are the funereal, heavily symphonic "Crypt of Bereavement" and "Dark Winds," which tend to drone on a bit too long. Better is the bipolar "A World In Pandemonium," which begins as a death march and ends in a dead sprint. It kills. B
Israeli ex-pats Melechesh may have left the Holy Land, but they haven’t left the Middle East behind as far as their music is concerned. Though not as World Music-y as countrymen Orphaned Land, who layer on loads of traditional instrumentation, Melechesh take a more direct approach. The band’s fifth full-length, and first with Nuclear Blast, offers a propulsive mix of black and death metal, taking occasional forays into Middle Eastern sonics — not unlike American Egypt-philes Nile. Melechesh, who recorded the album in Istanbul, employ exotic instruments like the sitar and santur during jammy asides that punctuate The Epigenesis’ more expansive songs, notably the title track, "Mystics of the Pillar" and "A Greater Chain of Being." While the Sumerian mysticism of the lyrical themes can get lost in the bludgeon when the band go full-metal, the Mesopotamian musical interludes and overtones definitely get the point across. A-
When Malevolent Creation mainstay guitarist Phil Fasciana’s not crafting tall tales about shooting felonious crackheads — Google "Phil Fasciana and chocolate milk," you’ll be amazed — he can still write some pretty mean-ass death metal. Malevolent’s 11th album is as solid and satisfying as anything they’ve done in a long time, thanks to a hateful but tidy batch of tunes, a vicious performance by the band and the so-raw-it-bleeds production by Erik Rutan. "Compulsive Face Breaker," "Slaughterhouse," "Lead Spitter" and "Target Rich Environment" make no bones about where the band’s heads are at here. So even if Fasciana’s not literally "taking out" the street trash, he sure thinks about it — a lot. B
Don’t dismiss these Tennesseans as a joke because of their goofy name or tracks like "Yippee Kay Yay Motherfucker." Tony Danza, the band, can grind with the best of them. And they do it with a technical flare that goes well beyond the usual churn and burn. The myriad neck-break time changes and mechanical bottom end on Danza III sound like some bastard hybrid of industrial music and math metal. And when matched with shrill, hummingbird guitar flourishes and the band’s flesh-ripping ferocity topped by Jesse Freeland’s ursine roar, the effect is pure sensory overload; seriously. A-
Not to be outdone by Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire or The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, Germany’s War From A Harlot’s Mouth prove to be, well, a mouthful and present a full-on assault on the ears. Metalcore, death metal and math metal get run through the blender on their short, occasionally sweet third album. MMX is a largely free-form affair where song structure goes right out the window, save for brief instrumental interludes like "Sleep Is The Brother of Death" and "Cancer Man" that only add to the sense of disconnect. Between the 180-degree tempo changes, crazy-quilt riffing and spasmodic vocals, it sometimes sounds like these guys aren’t playing the same song. Things don’t really start to gel until the end with the industrial strength "Spineless," "Recluse MMX" and "Inferno III/VI," but by then your ears will have pretty much bled shut. C+
Infamous Swedish black metal miscreants Watain turn in a surprisingly long-winded and rather dull fourth full-length withLawless Darkness, an album that seems bent more on testing one’s patience than luring them over to the dark side. Where three-four minutes of efficient old school bludgeon would have done the trick, these guys just go on and on for six, seven, nine minutes and, ultimately, with album closer "Waters of Ain," a staggering 14:28. God lord! And it’s not like there’s a whole hell of a lot going on, it’s just pretty basic black metal bluster kneaded, rolled and stretched until there’s lots of surface, but not much depth. C
How bizarre that some of the truest vintage Norwegian-style black metal you’ll hear these days is actually produced by this bunch of beardos from Atlanta. The bone-sawing third full-length from Withered is a bleak, forbidding, yet strangely majestic outing that hints of old Mayhem or Gorgoroth — though without all the satanic mumbo jumbo. Dualitas is at times assaultive, as on the thunderous "Residue In The Void," and at others grim and desolate as on the sprawling "Aethereal Breath," where the sludgy, low-fi sonics become the sound of dread itself. Withered expertly weave the ebb and flow into something truly epic here. And with the bestial vocal theatrics and distortion-drenched guitaring of Dylan Kilgore and Mike Thompson, Dualitas says frozen northern wastelands way more than it does "Hot-lanta." A-
Ex-Emperor/Zyklon guitarist Samoth reteams with original Zyklon bassist Cosmocrator in this death/thrash trio that delivers lots of Zyklon-style unbridled aggression, but in a bit leaner, meaner package. Without a second guitarist to provide the fancy solos and dynamic flare, The Wretched End stick to meat and potatoes riff-o-rama here as Samoth saws away with abandon. Ominous gets off to a furious start with "Red Forest Alienation" and the hooky "The Armageddonist" and "Of Men And Wolves." Though there’s some bland stretches here and there where things get one-dimensional, the one-two punch of "Fleshbomb" and "Human Corporation" gets it all back on track and Ominous ultimately triumphs. B
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