Tag Archive for 'Black Metal'

Black Metal Nudes

Published on May 5, 2010 in Music and Photography. 0 Comments Tags: Black Metal, Corpse Paint, Jeremy Saffer, Photography.

Black Metal Nudes

Using the momentum from the release of the almost-sold-out successful “Bring The Noise” photo book, which is a collection of band photography, photographer Jeremy Saffer sets his lens on a slightly different subject…

Combining his favorite sub genre of Metal (Black Metal), along with his career-long work in fine art nude photography, Saffer has been shooting content for a new book and calendar series.

“For those who know me or follow my work, I work mostly with bands, and dabble in some fine-art photography, and being that black metal has had the longest tenure as my favorite genre in metal, it made sense to some how cross the paths of my work. I am shooting this project in a few ways. I am shooting fine-art and fashion style nude images with corpse paint — very elegant, standard poses…but also shooting very metal/creepy poses — so there’s a good mix of traditional and non-traditional posing for both genres.”

For more information, visit www.jeremysaffer.com/corpsepaint.

Photographer Jeremy Saffer released his first book of photography in 2009. Entitled “Bring The Noise”, the 120-page hardcover collection features 156 full-color band images, all taken from Saffer’s extensive career, shooting music’s best and brightest. “Bring The Noise” gathers a broad selection of artists, representing the varied spectrum of both the metal and hardcore scenes. LACUNA COIL, BLEEDING THROUGH, ALL THAT REMAINS, DIMMU BORGIR, BRING ME THE HORIZON, NORMA JEAN, EARTH CRISIS, BEHEMOTH and many more all make appearances within the pages of “Bring The Noise”, which also contain a number of never-before-seen images exclusive to the book.

Jeremy recently started a behind-the-shoot video series — including the “Behind The Shoot of Behemoth”, which can be viewed below.

(via)

Until The Light Takes Us

Published on April 4, 2010 in Cinema, Movie Of The Week, Music and Occult. 2 Comments Tags: Black Metal, Burzum, Satanic, Until The, Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes, Varg Vikernes.

Until The Light Takes Us

The Norwegian Black Metal scene has always been one of pure fascination and one surrounded in a veil of intrigue, violence, savagery and murder.

Marry all that with a sound that is so raw, malevolent, and brutal in its structure, timbre and delivery and you have a movement that was destined to remain ostensibly underground yet always, controversial.

Directed by Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell Until The Light Takes Us is as raw, lo-fi and underproduced as the musical genre itself. The film features interviews with the key perpetrators of the Norwegian Black Metal scene, Darkthrone’s Gylve Nagell and the imprisoned Varg Vikernes, incarcerated over the murder of a fellow bandmate.

It isn’t a new story. The Norwegian scene had been covered extensively in the 1998 book Lords Of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground where this bastard genre spawned from the tail end of the Thrash Metal movement of the early 80′s.

The entire Norwegian scene gained notoriety moreso from the church burnings, Satanic vandalism and murder than from the deliberately awful musical stylings. Let’s face it, as musicians the entire scene was pretty naff, but as arsonists, now that’s where these temper-tantrum tough guys excelled at.

The film explores a grim world of art, music, arson, murder, religious and cultural rebellion. The streets of Oslo are permeated with every modern American gaudy icon you can imagine from McDonalds to Levis. And centuries ago, another invasion stripped the nation of its Nordic culture and history as Christianity’s stranglehold took hold and has yet to let go.

It’s a fascinating insight into the genre and director’s Aites and Ewell pretty much let the protagonists of the movement relay their views throughout the course of the film without any sort of rebuttal or counter argument. And it works.

Screening at ACMI
Friday April 2 9.30pm
Friday April 9 9.30pm

Dark Funeral & Rotting Christ Live @ Billboard, Melbourne, Australia

Published on January 5, 2010 in Gigs, Music and My Photography. 3 Comments Tags: Billboard, Black Metal, Dark Funeral, Rotting Christ.

Dark Funeral & Rotting Christ Live @ Billboard, Melbourne, Australia

With the near-encounter with Rotting Christ yesterday in the streets of Melbourne, seriously – what better way to kick off 2010′s gig photography with a nice touch of Black Metal evilness?

I was scheduled to shoot both Rotting Christ and headliners Dark Funeral at Billboard tonight – one of my fave venues to shoot at by the way – for Heavy Metal website and all round cool dudes, Metal Obsession.

Surprisingly, there were no bouncers in the photo-pit tonight and the show was only being shot by two photographers. Myself and someone else, who’s name I didn’t catch unfortunately. We had plenty of room to move in and I used this opportunity to shoot from both sides of the stage. I have a nasty habit of staying in the one spot during a shoot and not fully utilizing my space to get the artist from all sorts of different angles. What can I tell you, I’m a creature of habit.

And so with the lack of security and tons of space to work with, I endeavored to capture Rotting Christ from as many angles as possible. Certainly was great not to be hampered by a three-song limit so I stayed and shot the band for the majority of their impressive set.

As they hail from Greece, where my heritage is from, it was cool hearing the band members talk in Greek amongst themselves between songs and fully understand what was being said! Ha!

I was pleasantly surprised by the band’s energetic, well received and damn good set. I had a misconception about these guys and always felt they were much, much heavier – but they put in a blistering performance and certainly won me over. Really need to check out some of their discography, because on tonight’s showing, they obliterated!

By the time Dark Funeral hit the stage, all decked out in the Black Metal Satanic corpse-paint and the like, I was feeling a little weary. (And it probably shows in my photos of these guys). I have much respect for band’s that go that extra mile on a visual front – it always makes for more interesting photos, but tonight, I just wasn’t feeling it.

They were super-loud and often times, it all got lost in a blitz of speed and volume. I had my back resting against the P.A. system and all I could ~~hear~~ feel, was a blur of rapid sound rattling my rib-cage. (That was kinda fun!)

I shot as much of the band as I could from the side of the photo-pit and called it a night after that.

Continue reading ‘Dark Funeral & Rotting Christ Live @ Billboard, Melbourne, Australia’

Triptykon Press Release

Published on January 3, 2010 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: Black Metal, Eparistera Daimones, Tom Gabriel Warrior, TRIPTYKON.

Triptykon Press Release

Straight from the band’s press office… and boy, am I excited about this forthcoming release!

Triptykon, the group formed by former Hellhammer/Celtic Frost singer, guitarist, and main songwriter Tom Gabriel Warrior, is proud to announce that the groups’ own label, Prowling Death Records Ltd., has entered into a licensing agreement with renowned metal giant Century Media Records.

Under the agreement, Century Media Records will release Triptykon’s massive debut album, Eparistera Daimones, in Europe and North America on March 22, 2010.

Eparistera Daimones was produced by Tom Gabriel Warrior and Triptykon guitarist V. Santura and recorded in V. Santura’s own Woodshed Studio in southern Germany, in the course of the second half of 2009. Like Celtic Frost’s highly praised Monotheist album, Eparistera Daimones was mastered by Walter Schmid at Oakland Recording in Winterthur, Switzerland. Eparistera Daimones is said to be heavier than Monotheist, dark, daring, and very diverse.

Tom Gabriel Warrior:

“I am very pleased about continuing my long-standing and very constructive affiliation with Century Media Records. After the demise of Celtic Frost, I was looking for continuity in every other aspect of my life, and the cooperation between Prowling Death Records Ltd. and Century Media Records has in the past already provided an outstanding platform for releases by Hellhammer (the Demon Entrails demo reissue album, 2008) and Celtic Frost (Monotheist, 2006).”

Eparistera Daimones will feature the following nine songs, at a playing time of around 70 minutes:

1. Goetia
2. Abyss Within My Soul
3. In Shrouds Decayed
4. Shrine
5. A Thousand Lies
6. Descendant
7. Myopic Empire
8. My Pain
9. The Prolonging

A further three Triptykon songs have also been recorded, and they, too, will be released in the course of 2010

The album will be further distinguished by stunning artwork from two highly acclaimed international artists, who, together with the group themselves, thus form their own artistic triptych.

Triptykon consists of V. Santura (guitar, vocals), Norman Lonhard (drums, percussion), Vanja Slajh (bass), and Tom Gabriel Warrior (voice, guitars). The group has unambiguously stated that it pursues the continuation and further development of the path Warrior began in Hellhammer and Celtic Frost. The group’s onstage debut is scheduled to take place as part of the distinguished Roadburn Festival, on April 16, 2010.

For further information and a full band biography, visit Triptykon’s website and MySpace page, where samples of the album’s music have been posted.

Until The Light Takes Us

Published on December 28, 2009 in Cinema, Music and Occult. 2 Comments Tags: Aaron Aites, Audrey Ewell, Bård “Faust” Eithun, Black Metal, Until The Light Takes Us, Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes.

Until The Light Takes Us

Until The Light Takes Us tells the story of black metal. Part music scene and part cultural uprising, black metal rose to worldwide notoriety in the mid-nineties when a rash of suicides, murders, and church burnings accompanied the explosive artistic growth and output of a music scene that would forever redefine what heavy metal is and what it stands for to other musicians, artists and music fans world-wide. Until The Light Takes Us goes behind the highly sensationalized media reports of “Satanists running amok in Europe” to examine the complex and largely misunderstood principles and beliefs that led to this rebellion against both Christianity and modern culture.

To capture this on film, directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell moved to Norway and lived with the musicians for several years, building relationships that allowed them to create a surprisingly intimate portrait of this violent, but ultimately misunderstood, movement. The result is a poignant, moving story that’s as much about the idea that reality is composed of whatever the most people believe, regardless of what’s actually true, as it is about a music scene that blazed a path of murder and arson across the northern sky.

View the trailer here.

Continue reading ‘Until The Light Takes Us’

Sigh: A Tribute To Venom

Published on December 20, 2009 in Album Of The Week, Article By Löst Jimmy and Music. 0 Comments Tags: Black Metal, Sigh, Venom.

Sigh: A Tribute To Venom

Ask any Metal fan about their memories of first hearing coarse NWOBHM act Venom you will I’m sure receive a forthright and decisive answer. The band ridiculed by some but hailed as cult by most stand out as a defIinitive turning point in Heavy Metal’s evolution. I most certainly recall my first encounter with the cacophonic trio, via the triumphant Neat Records’ compilation album Lead Weight. On this hissing cassette Venom presented their belching extreme delight that is the track Angel Dust. And so the curiosity and calamity began later with the amazing debut Welcome To Hell and then perhaps their finest hour, the defining opus Black Metal in all its cataclysmic glory.

And indeed if there was ever a band best suited to deliver a demonic tribute to Venom then that has to be Japan’s wanton licentious Metal outfit Sigh. It goes without saying that Sigh have Venom inexorably bound up in their metal genes and the vinyl tribute EP (paired up with an integral CD) simply reinforces the irascible black metal resonance with full on affection for the subject matter. What you get on this twisted lump of delicious vinyl is a series of Venom classics served up in Sigh’s very own interpretive juices. 7 tracks ranging from my favourites and yours…Countess Bathory, Black Metal and that fantasty singalong Teacher’s Pet. The latter song royally dished out by corrosive, rabid vocals, which plays upon my most base wants, evoking ideas of the lovely Dr.Mikannibal playing teacher to my errant rascal…I digress of course. It is an enjoyable romp which is truly a labour of love on the part of Sigh, your ears crave the alluring metal assualt of ill repute. Sigh capture all the erratic, eroding, exhiliration of Venom’s style and pay metal homage in a most blackened form.

Sigh’s latest album ‘Scenes From Hell’ is released on The End Records on January 19th.

Sigh – A Tribute To Venom (2008, The End Records TE115-1) (Limited Edition LP release with CD, and digitally online)

Sigh: A Tribute To Venom

ChthoniC – Mirror Of Retribution

Published on August 16, 2009 in Album Of The Week, Article By Löst Jimmy and Music. 0 Comments Tags: Black Metal, Chthonic, Mirror Of Retribution.

ChthoniC - Mirror Of Retribution

The new ChthoniC album release Mirror of Retribution has finally hit the streets, the long anticipated follow up to the 2005 musical fury that was Seediq Bale. And dear readers this exceeds all expectations.

First things first the cosmetics; I am disappointed that my copy is just a standard jewel case job with a rather flimsy underweight lyric laden booklet, much better is my coveted digipack copy of Seediq Bale. Nevertheless it is but a minor gripe and the spine-tingling front cover design features monstrous wringing hands works very well.

Upon placing the disc in the CD grinder things kick off with the haunting intro entitled Autoscopy, this is a moody synth overture which could easily be at home as a horror soundtrack but in reality it is only a foil to the sensational blood letting of the second track Blooming Blades with its complex array of riffs, urgent vocals that compels the heart to really start pumping. If you didn’t know you were in the grip of ChthoniC and their audio vortex by the opening strains of ‘Blades then you are in serious need of metal shock therapy!

The relentless unyielding song Hearts Condemned is just the prescription to loosen that earwax build up, it is Warp Factor 11 and no late fees; a brilliant metal track in which the bass pounding of Doris will literally knock your block off! What a Wonderful Way to go!

There is no end to what ChthoniC throws at the listener the length and breadth of the album. There is the surging rage of Venom In My Veins with its nasty but neat guitar hooks hanging onto the punishing pace which is in danger of causing prolonged buffeting of all internal organs. Freddy’s searing vocals backed up by the formidable guitar shreds of Jesse, the super percussion of Doris and Dani and not forgetting the keyboards by CJ combine to meld the uniqueness of the ChthoniC sound on this album.

The lyrics are something else too, leading the listener to delve more into the turbulent history of Taiwan and its peoples aswell as taking you on a journey to discover an ancient myth of Hell. What better way to take on the weary strain of everyday life than let yourself be carried away by such seriously spectacular imagery.

The likes of 1947 which describes a heavily outnumbered local Taiwanese militia’s bloody last stand against the odds from an attacking Chinese Army takes on a distinctly indigenous theme creating a beautifully structured instrumental track, its slow gentle sooth takes the sting out from the pounding heat of the previous barrage of songs. The album is a finely tempered collection, among other standouts are Sing-Ling Temple, Rise of the Shadows and the excellent bonus song Unlimited Taiwan.

Perhaps The Aroused for me is the weaker track of the selection but it is held together by the lyrical subject matter and towards the song’s end a taste of Doris’s rapid fire bass and Jesse briefly in screaming guitar mode.

As the album’s tracks unfold you really get a sense that this release is a fledged step up from the magnificent Seediq Bale. Mirror of Retribution is a truly electrifying slab of metal, it is creative, cultured, dramatic, harmonious, sublime and you will not find me spitting out as many adjectives to accurately praise an album very often.

To conclude, the Terrorizer magazine quote stuck to on the front of the album’s CD jewel case reads thus; “Powerful, Dark, Alien & Other Worldly, this marks the entry of a new Titan into the pantheon of melodic Black Metal”

I couldn’t have put it better myself…

By LostJimmy

Triptykon

Published on August 8, 2009 in Music. 1 Comment Tags: Black Metal, Celtic Frost, Tom Gabriel Fischer, TRIPTYKON.

Triptykon

As Celtic Frost arose from Hellhammer’s ashes, so arises Triptykon from Celtic Frost’s ashes.

Triptykon, the group formed by Tom Gabriel Warrior after his departure from Celtic Frost in April of 2008, is scheduled to commence studio recording sessions for a first album in mid-August 2009. The album, tentatively titled Eparistera Daimones, will mainly be recorded in southern Germany, with additional recording sessions to take place in Switzerland. Produced by Warrior and Triptykon guitarist V. Santura, the recording and mixing sessions are expected to continue until November 2009. The album is currently scheduled for release in spring of 2010, through the group’s own label, Prowling Death Records (home of Hellhammer and Celtic Frost).

Triptykon was created specifically to continue and further evolve the darkness invoked by its immediate precursors, seminal black/extreme metal pioneers Hellhammer and Celtic Frost. Accordingly, Triptykon’s first album is a persistent development of the virulent and towering musical darkness perpetuated not only by Warrior’s early work but also within his extensive contributions to Celtic Frost’s highly acclaimed Monotheist album. As expected, a significant part of the music on the album consists of material written by Warrior during the past few years and originally intended for Monotheist’s successor. This is balanced by new, original music written by Warrior and Santura since Triptykon’s inception.

Although the group has so far proceeded in virtual concealment, the music for Eparistera Daimones has been described as akin to a bleak, black ocean of heaviness, accentuated by moments of unexpected grace. Songs currently under consideration for inclusion on Triptykon’s debut album are, among others, “Myopic Empire”, “Among Veiled Spirits”, “Sepultus”, “Abyss Within My Soul”, “Goetia”, “A Thousand Lies”, and the 17-minute “The Prolonging”.

Triptykon will follow the release of Eparistera Daimones with a number of festival appearances and a full tour. The group’s onstage debut is scheduled to take place as part of the renowned Roadburn Festival, in April 2010.

Sarke – Vorunah

Published on July 23, 2009 in Album Of The Week and Music. 0 Comments Tags: Black Metal, Sarke, Vorunah.

Sarke - Vorunah

I kid you not, Facebook has some uses afterall. My good pal Antonio (aka Ominous) slapped a link to a track from the band Sarke on my Facebook Wall.

I had first heard of Norway’s Sarke from reading Tom Gabriel Fischer’s blog a couple of weeks ago. So with these two cracking endorsements, I had to check the band out for myself.

On first listen, the absolute first thing that came to mind was… Celtic Frost. And if you’ve been reading Dogmatic for a while, you surely know the affinity we have for things of the Celtic Frost/Tom Fischer persuasion.

Upon playing the album ‘Vorunah’ once, I immediately put it on again… and again… and again! To say it blew me away is an understatement. This is a no-nonsense, stripped back classic album with more groove and panache than Satyricon at their finest. These tracks will sound positively amazing live.

In essence, Sarke are a minimalist band. Featuring only two members, Sarke (who handles all guitars, bass and drums) and vocalist Nocturno Culto. (Would love to see that stamped on a birth certificate hey?) Their live line-up features Cyrus: Guitars (Susperia, Satyricon, Dimmu Borgir), Asgeir Mickelson: Drums (Spiral Architect, Borknagar, Testament), and Anders Hunstad: Keyboards (Tulus). Apparently Tom will be performing a rendition of Celtic Frost’s brilliant ‘Dethroned Emperor’ at this year’s Wacken Open Air festival).

Says Tom, “It’s an honor and a privilege to be invited to appear onstage with SARKE, a group whose lineup doesn’t only contain personal friends but also musicians I respect deeply. We shall make our appearance at Wacken a truly special event!”

The album features 8 amazingly crafted, old-school tinged, menacing riff-laden gems with the track ‘Old’ particularly blowing me away.

A true classic album folks.

Sarke - Vorunah