There's almost as many opinions of what black metal is, and where to draw the line, as there are followers. More than a handful of bands have been maligned for lack of credibility, whilst just as many have gotten away with metal in the borderland.

In an era characterized by extensive genre mixing, I see no reason to get heavily provoked by a single band, whose expression does not follow orthodox policies. Certainly, one needs to have a very flexible view of the genre and also considered full individual freedom, even musically, as a vital part of the black landscape, to regard Myrkur as black metal. Myrkur has some elements of the genre, but more influences from outside, and personally I don't consider the band as black metal. But off course that's no criticism of Myrkur but rather of aspects outside her control. The music stands on its own, and will of course be judged as such.
That some promotes the band as black metal is their business, and that some virtually consider and describe Myrkur as the saviour of the Nordic black metal heritage, shall definitely be left at their own expense. It should be obvious that anyone off course is free to form their own individual view on the matter. The only ones I wish to reprimand is those shoving their opinions down other folks throat. Take that, missionary bastards.

Danish Amalie Bruun, otherwise residing in New York, blends as said black elements into her multifaceted musical work under her artist/stage name Myrkur. I find it hard to agree to both that black tones supposedly dominates M, and that it in addition is supposed to have such a strong mark of the black Norwegian nineties. Lest you look outside the aforementioned genre.

Here are fair and fairytale-ish, almost sacral parts with a taste of both Theatre of Tragedy and The 3rd and The Mortal. Here are sequences of subdued, hushed post-metallic character, where Alcest meets hints of Seigmen. Piano, fiddle and fair maiden vocals also provide partly folk musical moods, but there's not many acoustic nature moods in the style of Ulver (and later Empyrium). I mention the latter because Myrkur is often compared to Ulver, except I can't find any considerable similarities beyond a blissful blend of delicate bleak and black fragrance.
And then there's the elements of raw black metal, naturally. Some of these has a traditional approach. Some fractions even has a hint of the first wave, particularly evident in Mordet (The Murder). Most is still of a rather eclectic character. Without other particular similarities, its the peculiar and bizarre, dissonant and unforgiving spirit of bands like Slagmaur, Angst Skvadron and Den Saakaldte I primarily think of.
To further set it in perspective; among the 11 songs and 37 minutes on M, only two songs, Mordet and Skaði, has copious black impulses, against five songs with little or no relation to the genre, plus four songs that doesn't contain metallic elements whatsoever.

The album is enormously varied, but bound together by a dreamy mood, sometimes slipping into nightmares. The melodies are often good, even catchy, without becoming too candy-coated or far too available in a commercial sense.
Myrkur sings like an angel from Hell. The elf-soft clean vocals is crystal clear and ravishing pure as the nature it belongs to with its earmark of graceful milkmaid or more risky and seductive hulder (the Scandinavian forest nymph), while the black variety though is sharp, shrill and harsh, and may require some familiarization. Everything delivered with wholeheartedly compassion and immersive spirit. She has composed all the music and lyrics herself, and handles both guitar and piano in addition to superb vocals, impressive enough. Along with her is a sizeable horde of guests. Teloch (Mayhem, Nidingr et al.) handles bass and additional guitars, Håvard Jørgensen (ex- Ulver and Satyricon) plays acoustic guitar and Øyvind Myrvoll (Nidingr) batter the leather interior. Various violins, tuba and horn is handled by an additional leach, and Christopher Amott (ex-Arch Enemy) contributes a little extra guitar on Mordet.
The instrumentation is of course flawlessly executed. As is the sound.

The album was recorded in several places, including Tomba Emmanuelle, and Garm (Ulver) has been helpfully involved in production and mix. The sound of fair(y) vocals and acoustic elements are pure and clear as a mountain stream, while the guitars offers contrast with its discordant appearance. In the blackest moments it sounds pointed and jagged as the mountain pinnacles. Slightly more raspy and grinding than sharp and cold, admittedly.

I like this album very good, but the celestially soaring music probably forms a record that might be picked up infrequently, rather than being played at all hours. With songs of partly poppy leaning (Dybt in Skoven) and harmonic, acoustic folk/art songs that operatic folk/pop artists as Sissel Kyrkjebø or Christine Gulbrandsen could easily have sung, such as the Scandinavian lullaby Byssan Lull, M offers a little too much of a “good” thing to climb higher in the rankings.
The expression isn't significantly changed since last year's self-titled EP, but both compositions and sound quality is improved a few notches since then.
Myrkur delivers pleasant moods. Too good for those whom the band is strange enough targeted and promoted towards. I would rather recommend it to fans of atmospheric nature-devoted and folk-inspired metal, soaked in ancient romanticism, than to black metal followers.
Myrkur, I hereby baptise thee “fairly ambient and partly medieval folk/black”.
M is released in all formats, and Myrkur plays live in aforementioned Tomba Emmanuelle in Oslo on August 28th.

See the video for Onde Børn (Evil Children).

I am not basically the most obvious guy to take on The Anthropocene Extinction. Despite knowledge of Cattle Decapitation, I have never bothered kicking their tires. A deathgrind band obsessed with gore, named after the beheading of livestock, consisting of up to several vegetarians sounded like a hefty audible diet, with indigestion as a result. Something my impression of albums like To Serve Man and Humanure more or less confirms.
I mostly find deathgrind, deathcore, goregrind and correspondingly brutal death metal (whatever it's all called) exaggeratedly focused on brutality and speed. Willingly sacrificing the properties required to challenge the mind and consolidate its position as real quality metal, just to deliver the rawest, most unrelenting savage and carnage. The same applies to the most exaggerated examples of apparently chaotic, aimless and meaningless technicality in extreme metal.
Yet, the song Mammals In Babylon that was premièred in advance of the release seemed particularly promising. Also, I'm to naive to have adopted good routines for corruption, thus I might just be the right guy to provide the ultimate honest and impartial answer.

It doesn't take long before a wall of low frequent, distorted and down tuned guitars slam against me as hard and brutally as the heat wave as you exit a temperate plane in the tropics and get heaps of flaming hot degrees glued to the skin and sucked into the lungs. The next thing that catches me off guard is not the large amount of technical refinements, but how controlled and structured they are, and the extensive diversity of extreme branches that are sewn together. The third revelation consists of the amounts of melody, its pleasingness and availability. Despite the band's barbaric past and the powerful and frenetic brutality they have in their expression, this doesn't sound nearly as inhospitable and unaccessible as expected.

The vocal styles vary a lot on the album. Various forms of growling, from deep guttural to ultra-deep industrial vacuum cleaner, are also visited by a blacker vocal offspring. The most startling vocal form is still the clean singing, sounding a bit like an annoying, nagging young prat. I take note that not everyone is equally enthusiastic about this, but the melody lines this vocal form provides constitutes the albums most melodic aspect. It creates praiseworthy contrast and dynamics in the music.
Eventually I realize that the voice can remind a clue about a contrived childish Udo Dirkschneider, and I also find sequences that provide small associations to ICS Vortex. Mainly in the melody lines.

On previous occasions the band's technical slant occurred to me as fairly random and messy. Albeit that's only to be regarded as a first impression, as I haven't really heard any of the band's previous six albums. The Anthropocene Extinction gives a totally different impression from the very first moment. The technicality is toned down to make room for other inputs, and it's structured in a mature way as well. To me, the difference is like when a kid with wild, tousled and tangled hair comes out of the hair salon with a clean, neat and precise haircut, to use a corny analogy.
The pace differs profusely as the band alters between various deadly expressions and sub-genres. Expect everything from from death/doom to gorecore speed/death and anticipate abrupt, lightning-fast transitions in tight synergistic interaction. Mighty and elitist as Nile, yet eccentric as Tetragrammaton by The Monolith Deathcult. (Quite eclectic, but not completely burlesque, that is).

The band's history stretches almost 20 years back in time, even if no one in the current line-up was part of the original troop. Vocalist Travis Ryan is still practically to reckon as an original member. The band seems in all cases to be highly competent in all respects.
The album was produced, mixed and mastered in Flatline Audio in Colorado, USA. The sound is very massive and forceful. It is unfortunately also unnecessarily compact (or dynamically compressed, with its DR5), but I shall let that pass. A couple of places a hissing/crackly/jarring sound is used as an effect. It may have been stylish the first time an industrial band did so, but it's not particularly tough any more. And that's pretty much all I can find to nitpick at.

Cattle Decapitation surprises me significantly with an extravagant display of “catchy” bestial aggression characterized by intricate diversity. Purely subjective, I find some modern rhythmic antics and related components that don't appeal much to me. This prevents full score.
I thought the emperor was naked, but the decadent hedonist indeed has the most elegant leather coat money can buy. No wonder I didn't notice it, after all it turns out to be tailor-made out of human skin.

Watch the 15 minutes mini-documentary The Making of "The Anthropocene Extinction".

Originally written for the new Norwegian metal & prog-rock web-zine Permafrost, and published August 15th. Thanks for the gullible confidence in yours truly.

With its technical, jazzy, proggy and melodic twists, Unquestionable Presence doesn't come across as what is normally associates with technical death metal as of today. The music is not harder than melodic thrash, and should be able to appeal to fans of both melodic death and thrash as well as classic heavy metal.
The songs aren't as “conceptually” coherent in form as many other classics, as they are a bit more jazz-progressive in structure, although the songs in no way appears to be spontaneous and loosely structured either.

The band Oblivion was born in Sarasota, Florida in 1984, but changed the name to R.A.V.A.G.E. the following year. After three years and a small handful of “misc-releases”, primarily demos, the band went through another change of name, and finally ended up as Atheist. Their second, and unarguably (it seems) most popular album came out in 1991. It has been the “victim” of a wide range of re-releases, but conceivably never with as extensive an amount of extras as this package offers.

With continuous variation, good melodies and unexpected transitions, the album appear as a half-hour victory lap where tracks with distinctiveness still glide well together. The instrumentation appears almost surprisingly solid, and Atheist makes their antics sound so darned effortless and playful. The drummer seems to have arms as an octopus, and the guitarists shines with exquisite classical solos, whilst hefty changes in riffs and proggy bass-lines keeps the pace unproblematic. The performance is tight as a tick, a tiger, Dick's hatband or any rusty old hose clamp.

The production is clear and detailed, but not polished. The sound is more in the vein of good, old-fashioned and analogous, with a dynamic lifelike touch. The album was originally recorded in Morrisound in Tampa, Florida, just about 60 miles (100 km) from their natural habitat.
Whereas the original master had sovereign DR13 as dynamic range, this has shrunk to still respectable, yet somewhat more modest DR8 over the years. A graphic representation of the opener Mother Man shows how this affects the final result, where the high pinnacles are ground down a bit. However, there are many examples of far more sinister nature.

This re-release comes in a digipak packed with additional material. First you get six pre-productions, followed by three demo, drum tracks etc. The most interesting thing about these is that they differ slightly from the final results, not just in sound but also in instrumentation, something fans that knows the record by heart presumably will find pleasure in exploring.
In addition, the release is accompanied by a DVD. It serves up rehearsals, interviews and two concerts; Live at the Waters Club 1990 and Live in Bradentown 1991. No small amount. I have no idea what has previously been available, and how, though.

Unquestionable Presence is undoubtedly an old classic that has stood the test of time. Something the albums ranking as number 170 on Metal Storms Top 200 albums can testify to. So whether you need a new copy of an old favourite, or just is a fan of technical, progressive and melodic landscaped death/thrash without knowledge of the album, I without a doubt recommend this treat.
The genre isn't my absolute favourite, especially considering the aforementioned jazz/prog structure, and purely subjective I could have contended myself with 4 points. Yet, the album has exceedingly strong qualities, and I like its stunning peculiarity a lot.
Die hard fans will probably still think that any character below 6 points is much too little.

On the other side:
I have not written a dice-based review in almost a month and The Plague Within has eventually been played so many times it was only natural that it was judged in this column. The irony is that this one is reviewed because it has been given low priority, since I did not get a promo. (I probably shouldn't say that loud).

Full-length number 14 came 25 years after the first album. Even before the album came out, the antennas in the underground begun vibrating. Something different was brewing. Quite right. Our British friends have finally reversed the trend. But wait... Did the turning point come now?
At the end of the 90s the British disappointed most fans. The poppy crap album Host was not just a temporary downturn. The sequel Believe in Nothing disappointed almost more as I personally was certain that they then had to face the fatality and offer penance. But no, again and again, smooth and boring products were delivered, until one gave up and stopped paying attention. Paradise was lost, I believed in nothing!
From 2007, however, a presumably futile turnaround began. Could it be possible to turn a high inertia giant on its way towards, and perhaps even over the edge of the precipice? Hardly.

As you already know, this small miracle did happen, and it happened in those days, and in those days it happened, and thus disciples, wise men and wise guys, started speculating in whether Gregor Mackintosh's harder tones in Vallenfyre and Nick Holmes growling entry into Bloodbath had given a taste for blood.

Much could be said about the band, their history, and their new album especially. Others have already taken care of that. All I have to do is to present my own view, and a simple synopsis should be enough. Thus you've read this far to no avail. Mohaha... What did I say? Misanthropy!
Paradise Lost have many years of experience and of course they know that first impressions and last impressions are important aspects in many a context. Even so on albums. No Hope in Sight kicks of with sharp guitars, heaviness and gloomy melancholy. Along with great melody lines in well interwoven parts, this song works as a hypnotic gateway to The Plague Within. The three tracks toward the leaden “mid-song” Beneath Broken Earth is not quite as strong, but it is still the most solid material our returning friends have delivered in over fifteen years.
Toward the terminal monolith Return to the Sun it's a bit up and down, but even this alternates between “good” and “very good”.

When the Brits once again has resorted to really hard and heavy songs with good melodies, I am certainly satisfied. That Mr. Holmes again growls constitute a far from insignificant icing on the cake. The combination with pleasant clean vocals is as always unbeatable. Gothic spices in the form of strings and piano represents the last frosting on the cake.
I've faltered so much between 4 and 5 that I eventually found out that a solid four would be appropriate. Moreover, I gave V points to eight out of nine releases on the previous page. But what the hell. It feels good to have Paradise Lost back in true vigour, so I'll reward them by rounding off up to 5.

Welcome back!

Besides an album sampler you should definitely check out the lyric video for No Hope In Sight (which you can also hear below) and the video to Beneath Broken Earth. If you have not already heard and/or bought the album off course.