Bayusik, yesterday

We contacted Mikael Bayusik to get the low-down on what really went on with the Night Conquers Day keyboard player. Here’s what he had to say:

American metal bands Dawnbringer and Nightbringer are locked in a bitter dispute over whether night or day should be “brought”.

Nightbringer mainman Naas Alcameth claimed that any self-respecting metalhead would probably prefer night over day and that the argument was completely nonsensical anyway.

“We’re prepared to have a fistfight over it though” he said yesterday.

In response, Dawnbringer guitarist Scott Hoffman took up Alcameth’s challenge.

“The fight is on, man! We ain’t scared of no pussies in goth makeup. They only want to bring the night so it’s harder to see how gay they look. Or so it’s easier to bum other men in bushes 24/7. We’re bringing the dawn in boys, yeehaa!”

Whatever the outcome of the hastily arranged duel, a dozen or so bands called Stormbringer also waded into the debate this morning. Generic Black, spokesman for the loose coalition of identically monikered bands issued a statement at a press conference earlier today.

“Be it night or day that wins out, we, the Stormbringers will still be there to rain on them. And maybe thunder a bit. So whatever happens, we win by sheer force of numbers. And if the Plaguebringers think they can get up to their usual pestilence spreading mischief, they’re sadly mistaken. The Doombringers let their tyres down. And the Deathbringers too.”

“Oh, and as to the Warbringers, I say… bring it on!” he quipped.

The Nightbringer vs. Dawnbringer fight is due to take place in a forest clearing somewhere in Pennsylvania at exactly 02:00am next Sunday. The event is free, but you must bring your own dawn with you so as the combatants can see each other.

Former members of defunct black metal band Night Conquers Day have been barred from attending the event and will not be allowed entry. Erik of Watain is also barred due to height restrictions. And also because he’s a lame twat.

Scooby and the gang were taking vacation in Sweden. As usual, Scooby and Shaggy had wandered off by themselves and were about to get into some spooky trouble at the local recording studio!

“Say Scoobs, why’s that freaky dude over there like staring at us like that?”

“Rhy ron’t row Rhaggy!”

“Zoiks! He’s coming over!”

Scooby shook nervously all over as a creepy looking midget with long, badly dyed, greasy hair approached the two friends.

“What are you two doing here?” he said in a high pitched and rather gay voice.

Laughing in that rather irritating way that he does, Shaggy scratched his head as he replied, “Like, I don’t know, we just got like lost I guess, we’ll be on our way! Sorry!”

“Rhat’s right! Rorry!”

“Wait a minute. If you want you can come in and watch us playing one of our new songs. You see, my name’s Erik and I play in a really happening black metal group called Watain. In fact, it’s the most evil and blasphemous band ever!”

Scooby placed his paws over his eyes as Erik bustled the two chums into the recording studio. Inside, a fat man was sweating behind the mixing desk and was pale with fright.

“W-who are th-these g-g-guys Erik?” he said in a terrified voice.

“Just some… aquaintances of mine” he said with an evil cackle, “they’ve come to listen to our latest black metal record! Bwa hahaha! It’s the most evil and darkest and sataniest album ever recorded! It’s going to destroy the whole world! Hahahaha!!!!”

As Scooby and Shaggy watched, Erik ordered the fearful record producer to play back one of the songs off their latest album “Lawless Darkness”.

“Rhaggy! Ro romething!” Scooby howled in terror.

“Like, I don’t know what to do old buddy! We’re like, doomed!”

Suddenly the music began to play at deafening volume. Scooby and Shaggy cowered, then slowly uncovered their eyes and looked at each other in bewilderment.

“Rhaggy, rhat’s rappening?”

“I don’t know Scoobs, this music like, totally sucks! It’s just lame rock/heavy metal music with harsh vocals. It sounds like a Judas Priest tribute act performed by a bunch of like, Down’s Syndrome children or something.”

Erik angrily slammed his little fists on the mixing desk and tried to run out the door, but tripping over his ego, he fell flat on his face and was held down by several police officers who appeared out of nowhere.

“Well done you two” said one of the senior officers, “we’ve been watching this little villain for a while now. If you hadn’t stopped him, this crap would be all over MTV by now.”

One of the police officers grabbed Erik’s head and pulled upwards. His face stretched until his face came off altogether.

“Zoiks! Scoobs! It’s like, Blacky Lawless out of WASP!”

“That’s right! I used the kvlty trappings of underground black metal to pass off terrible music on moronic people who don’t know any better. And I would have got away with it too, if it wasn’t for you pesky kids.”

“Like, what’ll happen to him now chief?” Shaggy asked the senior officer as Blacky was led away.

“Don’t you kids worry, we’re going to take him out to the woods and shoot him in the back of the neck.”

“Well Scoobs, I guess that’s what you get for being a Lawless Blacky (Darkness)! Ha ha! I don’t know, make your own lame ending joke up.”

“Scooby dooby dooooo!”

Having badly upset Fenriz of Darkthrone merely by presenting him with an unpalatable truth, it’s come to light that Robert of criminul gangsta black metal act Ritual is still rather pissed off at us as well.

Check this out: Ritual interview

It doesn’t bother me that people like antihumanism.com think I am a retarted ghetto kid from a broken home

It doesn’t bother you, yet you mention us several times in a single interview? Even Fenriz only slags us off once every few months or so.

I read an interview on a web site a few weeks ago and, well, it was extremely unprofessional (to put it mildly…)

Yep, Mr. Metal Crypt is talking about us, and Mr Ritual still thinks we’re this Prozak dude. Honestly, we at Antihumanism.com think well of Metal Crypt as a website, but calling us “unprofessional” is downright slander my friends. Last time I checked, our entire site had 2 less typing errors than Terrorizer’s latest issue, so put that in your metal crypt and entomb it. Metal Crypt writers please note sarcasm, thanks. ;)

I noticed that the comments on the web site were pretty inflammatory, and rarely in your favour.

To be fair, most people were jumping on the bandwagon, kicking a man when he was down, which is easy to do. But it was still funny.

Anyway, Rob, just let this bitterness towards us go mate. It’s unbecoming of you. And take solace in the fact that you will never be as absurd and pathetic as Fenriz has become.

Yet again it’s been brought to our attention that Fenriz is still cut up about Antihumanism.com’s strong criticism of “new” Darkthrone.

In the official Darkthrone myspace blog, he says:

anyone remember that lowlife who took a month of his spare time just to make a FAKE dakthrone mini-site with fake album cover and fake songs? well, let’s just say if I was like that guy, I understand why he is ANTI-HUMAN, HAHAHAHA!!

Official Darkthrone myspace blog

Fenriz mate, it took about 5 minutes all in all. If I remember correctly, the guy who made the “fake” song (though it was at least as “good” as your current ”official” material) spent less than an hour making it.

It seems that you’re still pissed at us because so many people thought our parody was REAL (the thread at the Nuclear War Now forum was especially hilarious before it was deleted) and that must have really hurt your ego…

The mysterious Nodnol Tohder, who allegedly did the typesetting for Emperor’s 1994 classic album “In the Nightside Eclipse” layout (see the original booklet liner notes, or google him) does not actually exist!

Read back to front, Nodnol Tohder = Redhot London, and is the name of a gay strip club in Norway where Samoth (owner of the record label NAP) discovered future signing Limbonic Art, who were the house band at the time!

Next week: Frost of Satyricon reveals the professional make-up techniques used for the band photos in “Nemesis Divina” and tells us of his agonizing decision to endorse Rimmel lipstick instead of Zildjian cymbals!!!

Someone was telling me the other day how “great” the death metal band Morbid from Sweden were. Of course everyone knows about them and has probably heard their “December Moon” demo. This is because the infamous and revered Dead performed the vocals and possibly, at a push, because it features soon-to-be members of Entombed.

But Morbid, even on this “cult classic” recording are far too “rock” oriented, too simplistic to be a great band (or even to really show hints of being one), despite the easy charm of the songs and the mostly excellent and unearthly vocal performance of Mr Dead. Indeed, Ohlin was recruited into Mayhem on the strength of his performance here, as Attila later would be from his work on Tormentor’s “Anno Domini”. It was apparent that the obvious talents of Dead would be better utilised elsewhere.

Later Morbid material (after Dead left) moved further in this rock driven direction, and Entombed would eventually move even further into good old rock ‘n’ roll before being consumed by it utterly.

So ultimately we’re left with a decent(ish) and somehow quaintly enjoyable but otherwise totally forgettable recording, made famous and selling many copies merely by virtue of the iconic status of one of its more talented contributors.

And then there’s Burzum’s new album, “Belus”.

A lot has already been written and said about Vikernes’ comeback album and without exception it all comes back to his previous, undisputed classic albums of the black metal genre, the likes of “Det Som Engang Var” and ”Hvis Lyset Tar Oss”.

Without doubt, Vikernes is an iconic leading figure in black metal and the monumental status that Burzum maintains within underground metal means that any new work he creates, especially after a gap of many years, will cause angry and heated debate as to its merits, or lack of.

Now let’s be brutally honest, “Belus” isn’t great. It’s barely even good. It certainly isn’t the equal of any of the previous albums (no, not even the ambient works, you philistines).

Let’s also get something straight, I really wanted to like this album. At a time when almost nothing of real quality is released anymore, I desperately wanted this album to be something special, for it to have the almost magical power of being able to transport the listener to fantastic realms of imagination, to take you on a mysterious journey of unexpected discoveries as the music gradually unravelled.

All that I found in “Det Som Engang Var”. It was only with a reluctant, grudging realisation that I found this was not the case with “Belus”. As much as I wanted to love this new album, I couldn’t find it in myself to pretend that it’s somehow as good or even better than his previous works. 

For a band like Taake, whose music verges on the sweetly fluid emo-melodious side of black metal, “Belus” would be a good album. For any band playing what people mockingly call norsecore, “Belus” would be a good album. And when I say “good”, I only mean in terms relative to the bands in question.

But when we talk about Burzum, listening to “Belus” is a bit like opening a fine bottle of a good vintage champagne and finding it filled with cheap lemonade. And no amount of self-delusion on the part of disappointed fans can hide that.

“Orthodox” black metal is very popular at the moment, though is rapidly reaching saturation point if it hasn’t already done so. The likes of Watain and Ondskapt have signed to major labels (relatively speaking, that is) and there are countless imitators of the imitators.

Scientists at the Ohio State Institute of Metal Fail have been studying this tiresome phenomenon since about 2004, and have discovered a succinct formula and breakdown of “orthodox” black metal (concentrating on the main Swedish exponents), which is as follows:

Dissection + Mayhem 1989-1993 + misused Latin + random bible quotes x “orthodox” image + 70’s heavy metal/rock + any old random shit (artist’s choice) = orthodox black metal.

The Institute’s experts have also calibrated a detailed breakdown of “orthodox” black metal in terms of percentages:

25% (the trve) Mayhem, 25% Dissection, 10% random shit, 20% image,  10% Marduk, 5% homosexuality, 5% tracing paper.

The scientists also noted that the percentage quota may vary slightly between individual bands, especially in the case of Mortuus (of Marduk) aka Arioch’s band Fragrant Mist, where the “random shit” percentage may be as high as 60-70%.

Dr. Marcus She-Ra, head of the Ohio State Institute of Metal Fail said: “Bands like Watain, Ondskapt and probably Ofermod, who started this whole thing in the first place, had a certain potential, but they did not live up to it. Our research indicates that these so-called ‘orthodox’ bands do not really understand how an album like ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’ is constructed and merely seek to emulate it in as simple a way as possible, adding other random elements to widen audience appeal or just because the artists are fucking idiots. In other words these bands know how to appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities of 2nd wave black metal fans, however musically they only graze the surface without ever attaining the heights of their influences. In short, I would say ‘orthodox’ black metal on the whole is nothing but a sham, creating a very marketable product sourced in the kvlty aura of former underground teen-idols like Watain, but having no deeper essence or meaning. It’s all about the image, baby.”

When asked, the Watain camp refused to comment on the research, but did state that they had a lot of merchandise available (beer bottle openers, belt buckles, fan boy picture disks for each member of the band etc), hilariously quoting the following from the Temple ov Watain website:

Remember that wearing Watain merchandise means showing your support towards a divine form of art that has been and will always be rightfully feared and hated by humanity. It is a sign of loyalty or belonging to the hungry ones, the fearless and feared, the enemies of the world as we know it. Support the War!

It was a cold, misty morning, and Johan Lahger entered his dark and mouldy woodland bedroom deep within the depths of somewhere or other in Sweden.

He turned his moss-covered laptop on and plucked his New York Yankees baseball cap from his head. On a shelf above his desk, next to a radio controlled Dalek toy, lay his legendary troll mask, buried beneath almost 10 years of dust.

In the blue green glare of the Microsoft Windows logo, Johan reverently lifted the garishly painted papier-mache mask and attached it to his grinning face. Johan had magickally transformed into his infamous stage persona. He was once again the almighty SHAMAATAE!!!

“Fuck, the elastic’s really tight, I must have put on weight” he muttered as finally he logged on, scratching thoughtfully at his crotch.

Ding!  Aha, an email had arrived! Shamaatae (for it was he) clicked on the icon and read with impatience the typo-ridden news from his record label. The artwork for Arckanum’s comeback album, “ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ” was ready at last. Excellent! He quickly downloaded the image files, the Great God Pan helping them speed through the okkultik broadband in a digital dance of flowing 0’s and 1’s.

“What the flying FUCK!??!!!?!!” Shamaatae gasped as he gazed upon the projected front cover of his forthcoming album. Instead of eleven Þ runes invoking some kind of mysticness, a crudely photoshopped line of plain old alphabet “p’s” had been hastily pasted across the bottom of the cover.

The woodland troll grabbed his i-phone and immediately rang the label boss.

“Hell-o? Johan?” came the cheery answer.

“It’s Shamaatae actually, I’ve got the mask on. I’ve just received your email with the cover art…”

“What d’you think? Looks good eh?”

The troll huffed. “No it bloody well does NOT. You’ve totally fucked up. I wanted a little line of RUNES for the album title, you’ve just put a load of sodding p’s on there!”

“Yeah I had some trouble with that, I don’t really know how to type runes. It took me 6 years to find out how to do umlauts for christ’s sake. I thought using p’s was a good compromise.”

“But those fucking little p’s don’t have any occult significance you fuckhead! What mystic relevance do a line of p’s add up to? It looks like something from Sesame Street!”

“Look I’m sorry alright? How about I just remove the lettering altogether? It’ll look better like that, I promise. Okay?”

“Okay. Good then,” sulked the mighty troll.

“Just one other thing. The CD pressing plant called this morning. They’re not able to spread the tracks over 11 CDs like you wanted…”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!!!! I knew I should have gone with Osmose! Those guys have custom keyboards with “666” keys so you don’t even need to press “6” three times! AND they know how to do runes AND sodding umlauts too!”  

Shamaatae hung up and threw his i-phone across the desk.

Snap! The elastic holding the troll mask onto Johan’s face snapped and Shamaatae fell lifeless to the floor. The raging troll had turned back into mild-mannered Johan once more.

“Bollocks, the sun’s come up” observed Johan ruefully as Shamaatae’s grotesque features grimaced up at him.

“Oh well,” Johan sighed as he reached up, carefully pulling another rubber mask down from his shelf, “I’ve still got you Ronald.”

He attached the rubber, factorymade mask to his face and squinted through the eyeholes into an ornate trollish mirror. Ronald McDonald stared back.

“I’ve gots me some hamburgling to be a foilin’!”

If, like me, you consider that the genres of black metal and grunge have little in common besides key figures in both having blown their heads off with shotguns, you may be surprised to learn that a project exists claiming to mix those disparate music forms together.

Or probably, you wont be surprised in the least, if considering the fact that almost every single other music genre has by now been incorporated into a bastardised gimmick-laden form of black metal disguised as unique originality by some clueless hivemind drone peons hoping to gain their 15 minutes of fame.

Well without further ado, here’s what I’ve been building up to, it’s my fail of the week: Ea, Lord of the Tapes (that’s the cutest, most self-referential, ironic and hipsterish label name I’ve heard in a while) release #1: HØST (on kvltsette of corpse!).

Here’s the record label (I don’t know why I call it a record label, it’s just some bored dude with a tape deck who wants to be part of something, anything, to stave off existential fears of the futility of existence) description:

By mixing the sounds of grunge and black metal together, they end up having a very unique and incredibly fresh sound. This 7 track, self titled album is full of RIFFS, catchy bass lines, rockin’ drums, and Burzum grunts. This is black-’n-roll at its finest.

If you like black metal but you want something entirely different, check out HØST.

Oh dear. Take a minute to fully digest this abominable description. Maybe do a few bench presses or go for a quick run to stave off those horrible homosexual vibes from ruining your morning.

If I liked black metal but wanted something entirely different, I guess I’d listen to music that still had the same spirit communicated through different means. I’d try Dead Can Dance or Tangerine Dream or a myriad of classical composers. Not Kurt Cobain with corpsepaint.

KILL ALL HIPSTERS.