Nefastos wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 12:31 pm
obnoxion wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 12:20 pmDark Funeral. It is basically the same song over and over again. And this goes especially for the lyrics, which must be among the most impoverished in big league black metal. Just the same words recycled, over and over again.
You are not wrong. Somehow it was just this emptiness of form, connected to the correct key words (basically, "Satan") that I found tantalizing.
I might just be unable to perform a search properly in this thread, but have any of you (or someone else) been listening to Behexen? I didn't find any mentions of the band here, and considering both it's artistic merit, heavy religious influences and the fact that it hails from our home country, I thought it was certainly worth bringing up.
I discovered "Nightside Emanations" back in 2012, the year it was first released. The wonderful cover art, depicting Lilith in a serpentine, winged form with each of her most well-known attributes, instantly caught my interest.
You can see the cover art in the video while listening to "Death's Black Light":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUsxlFyu3d4
All in all I'd have to say that this is a brilliant album, and I personally think this example of raw black metal is elevated by the fact that the musicians take the material's foundations seriously. An excerpt of the lyrics:
"Can you hear it's heavy beat?
The pulse of the black dragon
Fulfilled with new obscure power
Stolen from the Sephirotic side
The abyss shows it's face
Feed the roots of the Tree of Death
It's branches crush the strings of lies
And reveal our terrifying God
The time of re-awakening is at hand
In your wisdom, Lord of the other side..."
A bit off-topic: based on the reading I've done about the different early Nordic black metal scenes over the years, I'm convinced that genuine Satanism (in any form) wasn't practiced amongst the Norwegian musicians (not until later, with bands from ca 2000s onwards), whereas Sweden and Finland "were first", given the foundation of the Misanthropic Luciferian Order and rise of several bands with theistic Satanist beliefs (Arckanum, Dissection, Archgoat, Watain, Satanic Warmaster).
Maybe not very surprising, since black metal in Norway evolved from espousing anti-authoritarian/punk attitudes in the mid 80s to anti-Christianity in the early 90s, while combining themes from both Scandinavian folklore and Satanic symbols in the music and its presentation. But it seems that those early bands left their so called Satanic ties to simply imagery, much like their inspirational sources (Venom, Bathory).