Svartalvheim

“What does black metal mean to you?” The phrasing of this question implies that musical messages are not just inter-subjective, but utterly atomised. Music and culture hold no collective meaning, but exist solely to serve individual egos and their alleged stake in the zeitgeist. Culture becomes nothing more than a means to furnish one’s personality (or lack thereof), a way to be noticed in the market of transactional relationships. New artists and opinion makers come along every year declaring that black metal means “x”, with little grounding in collective reality or history beyond blunt assertion. But equally true is the notion that a dogmatic adherence to rules – rules that effectively arose in arbitrary circumstances and became solidified through force of will/habit – leads to stasis, a constant replay of the same moments over and over.

And that, barring some worthy exceptions, is essentially the contemporary picture of black metal. Hordes of artists lift templates from the past wholesale, not so much taking influence from previous artists as they are repurposing their ideas fully formed, using them to determine the shape of their craft; the Deathspell Omega school, the Darkthrone academy, the Wolves in the Throne Room collective. Those artists that do attempt to strike out on their own path – barring a few exceptions – usually do so with so little regard for context or the possibility of inter-subjective meaning behind their work that they often come off as a Dadaist nightmare.

But twas not always so. I do take great pains to champion new work that is clearly forging a new narrative, so I hate to play the “wasn’t like this back in the day” fiddle. And it’s certainly true that in black metal’s heyday the music was still hotly disputed, the meaning still open to multiple interpretations for sure. But there were some unmistakable underlying threads that connected these artists together, and made their work undeniably unique yet still contained within the same general genre borders. To flesh out this point, let’s turn again to Norway.

Ancient are an unlikely holdout of second wave BM. Their origins were commonplace enough, but after succumbing to some regrettably CoF shaped trends in the mid-90s – a time when metal reached a state of postmodern fervor – they provide an interesting pocket of additional reading for anyone with a passion for Scandinavian extreme metal. No one can deny that their debut ‘Svartalvheim’ released all the way back in 1994 is a solid survey of black metal as it was at the time however. Emphasis on the word “survey”, because much like Gorgoroth’s Pentagram, ‘Svartalvheim’ comes across as a summary of Norwegian stylings to that point. It utilises a broader range of styles and moods than Emperor or Burzum were doing at the time, whilst still managing to retain a distinctive character. And these stylistic nods remain couched in relatively simple music from a technical perspective.

The real tension at the heart of this album is between black metal’s drive toward mysticism, replete with ethereal keyboard textures, acoustic guitar flourishes, and a pronounced melodic impetus, drawing on symphonic and folk traditions in metal, such as they were in 1994. This is then smashed against the pre second wave characteristics of dirt simple blackened thrash riffs, a heavy bass tone, and slower, punky rhythms that look positively bouncy when set against the mid-paced blast-beats that also fill out this album. This tension, between spiritualism and primitivism, the barbarian and the warlock, is one that surprisingly few artists are able to contain within one album, especially one as technically modest as ‘Svartalvheim’. But the albums coming out of Norway at this time remain special for this very reason, maintaining a unique and distinctive character without compressing their sound into an overly bespoke and focused niche.

The majority of these songs are relatively slow for black metal, marching along at 120bpm or thereabouts. The riffs are a chimera of folky punk, old school thrash, and highly melodic waves of black metal riffing. The result could be approximated as a more focused version of ‘Dark Medieval Times’. Ancient are not afraid of a catchy riff, one that in a different key would be at home on a pop punk track, but it works primarily because the keyboards and low, roaring vocals maintain a subtly evil atmosphere. The framing, presentation, guitar tone, and surface level adornments maintain an unmistakably glum vibe. But offsetting this are simple yet elegant melodies, sometimes articulated through the distorted guitars, but just as often found in acoustic passages and an array of keyboard sounds, all of which maintains that childlike fantastical quality that strikes at the oddly naïve heart of black metal.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

Here we look at Ancient, one of the Norwegian black metal bands known better for the vampiric, goth cheese of their later releases. Their first album has just about none of that and in many ways shows how good this oft mocked band was at one point in time, making thick, murky, bass heavy, barely melodic black metal; showing that they must have been doing something right in order to get noticed before all the gothic silliness and fake teeth that would later come to define them. Before all of that, there was Svartalvheim, a true exercise in murk that showed this band's talent.

Svartalvheim goes for a grim sound driven by evil, trudging riffs that whip up a storm just from the sheer tone of the guitar. There's also a lot more bass present in this to flesh out the tone. That tone is what truly sets this album apart, it's thick and low, it just seems to consist of a pure sonic extract of evil and darkness distilled into a vile black mist, giving the songs a huge boost in atmosphere, crunch, and pure down and dirty satanic evil. It gives the riffs and melodies the oomph and obscure darkness that they need to stick with you and make you curious enough for repeat listens. This tone is also helped along by the occasional inclusion of acoustic guitars which are also very low and slow to add some delicacy and calmness while still giving off an air of all-enveloping mystic blackness. I could go on about the tone all day, but I'm pretty sure you want to hear about the actual pieces of music, moving on.

Right off the bat, the album begins with forest ambiance of birds chirping and wolves howling over a gloomy ambient drone before launching into the menacing riffs of Trumps of an Archangel which swirl around the listener like a dark storm cloud. Huldradans starts after a while of that and you hear the acoustic guitar blended with the electric guitar to create some truly malevolent rhythms together. Huldradans also features a gnarly solo which imposes high over the end of the song, letting you know Ancient are here to slay. Riffs are used to their best effect on Call of the Absu Deep at a trudging pace worthy of a long session of headbanging while the song gives off an atmosphere almost like drowning in the blackness created by the riffs and tones. Det Glemte Riket and Paa Evig Vandring both feature have use of atmospherics via the acoustics near the beginning to create a sense of black tranquility which relaxes while still conveying gloom. This makes up the entirety of Ved Trolltiern. The next two songs feature some of the more aggressive and angular riffing on Svartalvheim going for a very sinister, creeping feeling on them with riffs that would easily unnerve someone in the dark for a spine tingling feeling of intensity. The album then ends with ambient synths with distorted air raid sirens blaring your doom out to you. Svartalvheim really delivers in the song department, every note benefits from sharp writing and a downright miasmic tone.

Fans of black metal, do not pass this up. I mean it, I know that this band has developed a rather goofy reputation over the years, but Svartalvheim is an unsung high point in the genre. It's dark and sinister while at the same time majestic and beautiful, all helped by great acoustic guitar play, hard riffs, and a tone that you swear Satan himself helped tune. The songs benefit from menacing riffs and a demonic bass-heaviness that easily helps this album stand out among it's tinnier peers in the world of black metal. Give this one a spin, ideally in the dark.

Norwegian black metal was like a refuge for all extreme metal maniacs in the nineties. Of course, not only the guys from Bergen and Oslo rediscovered this very special genre. But due to the barren landscapes of their home country, a bunch of insane Norwegians seemed to be predestined for bringing back black metal into our consciousness. Or, more exactly, they developed enthusiastically a new variant of the genre while compiling a more gloomy approach. Surely you will agree that some of the Norwegian albums can hardly be compared with Venom´s early works. The debut of Ancient constitutes one of these Norwegian classics that lives on its gloominess and authenticity. The songs maybe do not convince all along the line, although most of them achieve a more than satisfying level. But the dark and original atmosphere is the biggest plus of this full-length. Icecold fields, dark forests, dismal fjords and rugged mountains arise before your inner eye. Welcome to the Scandinavian winter.

With regard to their musical approach, the band did not hesitate to combine atmospheric - or should I say "soft" - parts with more aggressive sequences. Calm guitar passages gave us the possibility to rest at a silently flowing river, but most of the time we had to face the harsh Norwegian environment. The howling of wolves and other nature sounds increased the specific mood of this debut. Furthermore, Ancient skillfully varied the tempo while offering very peculiar melody lines so that nobody had to worry about a lack of diversity.

The band started the full-length with the most aggressive track, perhaps just to convince the listener that he had bought a black metal album. But already the second tune proved that Ancient were able to integrate concise melody lines in their style of metal. The throaty voice ensured that the necessary amount of sordidness was not abandoned while acoustic guitar parts were accompanied by mysterious whispers. The keyboards did not work as an instrument in a narrower sense. Its main function was to emphasize the mood of the music. This applied particularly to Ancient´s epic tunes such as "Det glemte riket" and "Paa evig vandring". These pieces were countered by harsh and fast tracks which were characterized by rapidly hammering drums and thudding guitars. It sounded as if Aphazel maltreated the six strings while wearing boxing gloves. Maybe that explains why the guitar sound reminded me of Bathory´s second album. Thus, do not expect an usual or even filigree guitar work. Not least due to the alarm signal at the end, the overall impression of the album was disturbing - in a very pleasant way, of course.

The optical design of "Svartalvheim" matched with the acoustical content in an excellent manner, especially the surreal landscape on the back cover. However, I deeply regret that this unique album is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In other words, with regard to Norwegian black metal, the age of discovery is long gone.

Despite the fact that Norway is one of (if not the) most prolific countries, in terms of black metal output, I have never been very fond of a vast majority of the bands. Aside from the giants of the scene (Immortal, Mayhem, and Darkthrone), I've never been able to listen to the "grvm" stuff from that country because it bored the shit out of me. But, you've got to dig around and find some stuff, because there is some quality in that cesspool of a scene. One such album that has been a nice find is Ancient's debut full-length "Svartalvheim." While the band would later go on to turn into another shitty band, this record has some substance to it that's worth a listen.

What really impressed me with the sound of Ancient was their ability to conjure up riffs and melodies that were entirely reminiscent of phenomenal bands such as Bathory and Dissection. After the intro is the track "Trumps of an Archangel" which is an awesome song. Plenty of Bathory worship in the riffs, with the occasional melodic moments, some nasty vocals, and plenty of vile. Seriously, this track is some great, disgusting old-school black metal and had the entire album consisted of material like this track, it would have been amazing. "Huldradans" is a cool track that's definitely more in vein of Dissection (Acoustics and all!), as there's plenty of melody in the riff throughout. "The Call of the Absu Deep" is a much more doomy track that should get anyone's headbanging. Unfortunately, the music aside from these tracks is plagued with mediocrity and terrible songwriting.

"Det Glemte Riket" would have been a promising song, but too many random inclusions of acoustic sections kind of killed the song a bit. It would be one thing if the acoustic sections added some kind of dark sound or killer solo, but they were just randomly placed acoustic parts that didn't fit the song at all. This happens in "Paa Evig Vandring" as well, and "Ved Trolltjern" is an acoustic song throughout with some echoed vocals, nothing more. At the end of "Svartalvheim," though, the good outweighs the bad and keeps Ancient's debut from being another awful album in the Norway scene and I would definitely recommend it to fans of Bathory, Dissection, Immortal, etc.

Highlights
"Trumps of an Archangel"
"Huldradans"
"The Call of the Absu Deep"

Originally written for Nightmare Reality Webzine.
nightmarerealitywebzine.blogspot.com

One look at the visibly budget-conscious and cheesy album cover of the Norwegian black metal band Ancient's debut full-length would very well lead one to believe that this was another obscure but forgettable exercise in all things blastbeat-rife and 'kvlt'. But much to my surprise, 'Svartalvheim' is an album from the second wave of Norwegian black metal that really stands out from the others in terms of its interesting stylistic direction. True, there are plenty of sounds here to root the band in with their compatriots Burzum, Mayhem and Emperor, but Ancient's adventurous take on the black metal sound here makes 'Svartalvheim' certainly worth the experience.

The closest act I could compare Ancient with at this early stage in their career would be Ulver, who was coming onto the scene at roughly the same time. Ancient uses much of the same folky acoustics here to contrast the otherwise lo-fi and simplistic black metal. 'Paa Evig Vandring' is the biggest surprise track here, a nine minute long powerhouse that goes from black metal into a longwinded baroque organ display, eventually developing into a psychedelic soundscape. The untitled closing track of this album even goes into spacey ambiance, sounding like it could have been taken from a science fiction film. However, much of 'Svartalvheim' is divided between acoustic folkiness and traditional black metal, and suffice to say, the less metallic aspects of Ancient are what they excel most at.

In terms of the black metal itself, it is not nearly the best that the Norwegian scene at this point would have to offer. Mayhem was able to capture the same blastbeats and dark riffs with a much more atmospheric quality to them, and the vocals here are a little underwhelming. Some of the riffs are darkly melodic, and while the black metal aspect of Ancient is never truly lacking here, it's not nearly as impressive as some of the other bands in Norway at the time, and is dwarfed even by their more experimental aspects. All the same, 'Svartalvheim' can be lauded for being willing to experiment with a genre that at the time was still wrapped up in murder conspiracies and church burnings. An impressive effort from this Norwegian duo.

A few years ago I got to know black metal. Before I listened to some thrash or heavy metal groups and BM became the first kind of extreme music to me. I didn't know with what groups I could start, but I didn't want to start by listening to giants like Immortal, Emperor, Gorgoroth and others. I wanted to listen to some quiet, not very famous melodic BM bands. So, I chose Ancient.

That time I was on leave in Scandinavia, the most proper place to listen to such an extreme music. It was a night in Norway and I was sitting in a car near Bodø, when I switched on "Svartalvheim". You can imagine, how the music stroked me. I was really absorbed by inexpressible atmosphere of Norwegian night and Norwegian music. After that, being in some other places, I listened to "Svartalvheim" again but I was not so amazed, nevertheless, it sounded pretty good. I've been enjoying this music up to now.

"Svartalvheim" can not boast with brilliant quality, which is not a reason to complain because all instruments sound clearly. The guys wanted to create an aggressive, raw mood on the album. Yes, they did it, but in a perfect mixture with nice guitar solos, fine drumming and real BM vocals. This amazing mixture you can really see on the whole album, especially on "Trumps of an Archangel", "The Call of the Absu Deep", "Eerily Howling Winds" and "Likferd". These songs, in my opinion, are the best of the whole catalog by Ancient.

All songs are not very long, so I listened to the album easily, on one breath. The power of certain songs is incredible, like on "The Call of the Absu Deep". I think that song is the quintessence of melodic black metal. But other songs are strong and powerful too. There are terrific acoustic plays on some parts of "Det glemte riket" and "Ved trolltjern", great guitar solos on "Huldradans" and "Trumps of an Archangel", malicious "Eerily Howling Winds" and "Likferd". Add here really scary "Intro" and "Outro".

I think "Svartalvheim" is the best album by "Ancient" (their latter works, like "Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends" and "The Cainian Chronicle", were not nearly as good) and easily one the most inspired releases from the early BM. Give it a listen and I hope you will agree with me after a couple of minutes.

Ancient nowadays are known for their very gothic approach to the style of black metal they play, this is the first ancient album I heard from them and to be honest this is the best album they have released. After first hearing their EP from the True Kings Of Norway split I immediately percieved that this band knew how to play black metal and in a very original style.

The most prominent feature of Ancient is perhaps their use of acoustic guitars, keyboards and even flutes, which Aphazel uses to great effect giving the music an epic quality. It is a shame this album is often overlooked due to the band’s current status as it is a really nice piece of work. Svartalvheim is also one of the last releases to feature vocalist and drummer Grimm who displays a great performance. His vocals are quite typical of the black metal genre, however they are not overly raspy and not quite as high pitch as other bands of the genre. His drumming although not overly technical is very tight and provides a solid foundation for the music. Aphazel himself manages to create very hypnotic, dark and at times epic riffs, we is able to back it up as well with keyboards that are sparingly used to reinforce the atmosphere or to provide an intermission as in the track "Paa Evig Vandring". Also the bass is quite audible, which provide more of a connection to the percussion and a backing to the guitars. While there may be only eight actual songs out of the eleven, three being instrumentals, it seems be a perfect amount as the listener is able to connect with each song rather than have to sit through an album of 14-12 songs (which sometimes is not such a bad thing). Lyrically Ancient deal with the typical anti-Christian themes which are mostly present in black metal as with the song "Trumps Of An Archangel" and occult topics like with the song "Call Of The Absu Deep". I am however lead to believe that the band also feature epic tales with song names translating to The Forgotten Empire and Eternal Wandering.

Perhaps one of the best ways to sum up this album is that you are able to hear that authentic Norwegian black metal sound. With the production on the album being quite good it is not polished sounding at all, the levels are near perfect and the sound is clear but not crystal. Svartalvheim has a very majestic presence in the way the songs are structured and how the instruments are played. I could go on all day about all the fine details but I prefer to keep my reviews short and simple as after all it is a review not an essay. To cut it short Svartalvheim is a must have for fans of 90’s Norwegian black metal, it is a very amazing album and you will be surprised to hear this album is you have heard any of their other later material.

Though most infamous for their works on Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends, the excellent costume of their frontman Aphazel, and their hilarious music videos, Ancient actually did, at one time, release a pretty good black metal album. It's something in the style of Hellhammer, Return/Black Mark-era Bathory, and second-wave Norwegian black metal, but abandons the element of utter ugliness and darkness at times in favor of something more epic-sounding, and introduces periods of acoustic darkness and even flutes.

The intro song, Svartalvheim, is something out of a haunted house with droning, moans, screams, and possibly bats. Nothing remarkable.

Trumps of an Archangel is an instant assault of typical black-metal hypnotic riffs and drum beats, and raspy vocals. However, the riffs and timing change a few times in the song, keeping it rather interesting.

Huldadrans has a few good bass lines, some strange chromatic riffs that are nearly lost in the production, a few breakdowns of video-game sounding (to me, at least) tremolo riffs, and a really distorted and bizarre solo. It ends with a very strange acoustic melody.

The Call of The Absu Deep is a doom-style song with plenty of distortion, an epic element, and raspy vocals that does well to match its somnatic lyrics of evil Babylonian dreams. It once stayed stuck in my head for hours after a sleepless night in 1998 for some reason. It slows down into a dark, evil acoustic slowdown reminiscent of Type-O Negative, but returns to its doomy epic black amalgamation.

Det Glemte Riket begins with another more use of desolate acoustic guitar along with a sample of cold winds, then breaks into a melodic and epic riff about a minute later. It's seven minutes long, and retains its sleepy, ephermal style while staying somewhat interesting with some rather creative riffs.

Paa Evig Vandrig is a very slow, doomy style which makes use of more acoustic guitar and even a bizarre, unexpected flute melody that reminds me of an old video game that I can't quite put my finger on. The riffs are interesting while they last, and the song moves to acoustical mode and has a long organ section accompanied by quite possibly a didgeridoo which abruptly ends with a loud distorted guitar leading to a return of the hypnotic double-bass drumming and the main chorus. It's a very long song, lasting over nine minutes, but is better done than later long song bands like Opeth.

Ved Trolltjern is a gloomy acoustic song accompanied by choral keyboards and a voice that sounds like a violently screaming whisper.

Eerily Howling winds has some really stupid sounding animal -- or a human imitating one -- at the beginning and then erupts into its assault of black metal darkness. It includes a deep sound like a faster version of Sabbath, along with its clashing chaotic Hellhammer-inspired guitar playing, some kind of voice, and plenty of blastbeats.

Likferd at first sounds like something from Candlemass, and then moves into something not very different from the rest of the album, and has a cool-sounding riff about 90 seconds in.

The Outro is a depressed key on a with what sounds like a vortex, sirens, and some other strange cacaphonies that repeatedly builds up to a crescendo but only goes out with a whimper at the end.

Though it pales in comparison to the masterpieces of other black metal bands such as Graveland, Darkthrone, Burzum, and so forth, it's a rather good and creative hypnagogic black metal album. I don't play it that much for some reason, but it's worth a listen.