What Burzum’s classic song Det Som En Gang Var has common with Satyricon’s new song King? Old school black metal dudes might say “F*** NOTHING!”, but hold on. I think there is something common. I love both Satyricon and Burzum. Both represent classic Norwegian black metal bands, but that is not the only reason why I enjoy their music. I am into melodic music and both of these bands have lots of great melodies in their music. Yeah, I’m not talking about singing but keyboards and guitars.
First listen to Burzum’s Det Som En Gang Var, one of the masterpieces of Burzum. It’s pretty long so it has been cut to two pieces.
Wasn’t that awesome? Oh boy, I never get bored with this one.. Next the second part.
Awesome. Great simple melodies combined with cruel and brutal vocals and striking guitars. Strong, really strong piece of music. Makes me bang my one a meter hair.
Now, listen to Satyricon’s King which is much different but has something in common with Burzum.
Man I love the guitars and raw vocals of Satyricon. Absolutely great. Gotta bang my head even stronger..
What I find common in these two otherwise different bands is their “rocking” sound. Interestingly old school black metal band Burzum plays pretty rocking songs, just like Satyricon’s latest material. What I mean with rocking sound is that these two songs do not have the typical chaotic drumming and guitars of traditional black metal music. Well, some people don’t actually call Satyricon black metal anymore. Listen to Satyricon’s Mother North and you’ll figure out the reason. Anyhow, I still drop Satyricon to black metal genre.
My point is not to discuss about genre’s in general. I just wanted to think loud my thoughts of the rocking sound of these two bands. Although Burzum’s song contains much slow motion rhythm and kind of doom melodies, this second part (second video) starts with pretty much rocking sound. You can hear it from the drums.
It’s late Satyrday (heh heh.. Saturday) here in Finland and I’m thinking about this kind of issues. May be I need some more beer..
Some years ago I read an article of the flagship of Finnish metal music, Amorphis. They started as a death metal band in 1990, and examples of their great early production are tracks like Karelia, Black Winter Day, Exile of the Sons of Uisliu, Sign from the North Side, Black Winter Day, In the Beginning and The Castaway.
The real success began when they released they masterpiece, Elegy. Awesome opening sounds of Better Unborn blasted out gazillion times from my ghetto blaster, continuing with the faster and furious Against Widows. On Rich And Poor opened my eyes to melodic death metal, while My Kantele forced me to sit down, close my eyes, enjoy a glass of whiskey and fly away with my dreams. Amorphis was in my head 5-7 hours a day during late 90’s. Then happened what?
Amorphis released Tuonela and Am Universum and turned to progressive and stoner metal. Even though I do enjoy tracks such as Divinity and Drifting Memories, but they dont’ give me such kicks as Drowned Maid. I realized I miss death metal grunts and doom sounds. When Amorphis released Far From The Sun, I quit buying new albums, but I kept on listening to old material. I think Pasi Koskinen (ex vocalist) felt the same as he left Amorphis. Amorphis had changed from melodic death metal to progressive and stoner. Latest albums of Amorphis contain again elements of death metal, which I find good, but the bands doesn’t still sound as great as in the early 1990’s.
Nowadays Amoprhis sounds pretty good and is getting better and better, but there are few things I cannot stand. Check the video below. I HATE that nu-metal jumping of Tomi Joutsen (vocalist)! And what the fuck are those 40 years old ladies with their cameras doing in the audience? Are they looking for death metal? I guess not. Come on! Where are good old moshers? With this kind of riffs and death metal grunts one NEEDS a moshing! Look at the audience at 1:07 minutes. Yes, I know we Finns are pretty quiet and shy, but this audience is just standing. I see no heads banging. I hate to see great bands playing their classic masterpieces to audience like this. This is waste or good music. No, fuck this is raping!
Now, let’s take a look at Satyricon, a Norwegian black metal band. Just like Amorphis, Satyricon was founded in 1990. They are known from their classic black metal album Bad Medieval Times which contains masterpieces such as Walk the Path of Sorrow, Dark Medieval Times and Min Hyllest Til Vinterland. Satyricon’s debut album is a great piece of Norwegian black metal, one of the classics.
In their next albums, The Shadowthrone, Satyricon continued with black metal, even though flutes did not appear in this album anymore. Third album of Satyricon was again one great metal album, even though I find it more furious. Nemesis Divina contains awesome tracks such as Mother North.
In 1999 Satyricon released Rebel Extravaganza, which is labeled as black metal, but it clearly contains elements of industrial metal. Satyricon started to explore different sounds. Latest two albums of Satyricon, called Volcano and Now Diabolica! are also black metal albums, but they sounds much more “rocking” than older material. Satyricon’s awesome guitars are still there, but the rhythm has changed and albums are much easier to understand. They are clearly targeted to bigger masses. For many old-school black metal fans this has been disappointing.
Why these great bands, Amorphis and Satyricon, together with many other big names change their genre or style? Reasons are probably many, but change is not always just bad. With Amorphis I feel it has been negative, but in case of Satyricon the change has been interesting and positive. Sure I still enjoy their old music, but I also find the new stuff interesting. I have always loved guitars of Satyricon and they are still there, and combination of those guitars and new rhythm sounds cool.
Many death metal bands change their style towards progressive or even rock in order to reach more fans. They make music for living and selling 10.000 records in five years does not bring money enough for living. Remember what happened with Metallica in middle of 1990’s? A great thrash metal band cut their hair and released Load and Reload albums. Was that disappointing? Oh yes, if you ask me, but with that move Metallica found lots of new fans. There are zillions of people who say Metallica’s best song is Enter Sandman just because they haven’t heard the albums before Black and they are not familiar with thrash metal.
Bands get older and artists get interested in various new things. Their lives usually stabilize and they don’t carry so much hate anymore. Hate works as the fuel of metal music and if you don’t hate anything, it is pretty difficult to create such music as Arch Enemy’s. Bands evolve and they want to experiments different sounds and themes. Even though I might feel disappointed with Amorphis, I find the evolution of bands great. I love discovering new music and every now and then old bands release interesting new but different music. One great example is Celtic Frost.
November poll results indicate that most of the visitors of this log are black metal fans, so today I write about Satyricon, a black metal band from Norway. Satyricon was founded back in 1990 and has become as one of the best known black metal bands. They released their first album, Dark Medieval Times, in 1993. Satyricon is known expecially from their first album. Next Satyricon album, The Shadowthrone, was relesed in 1994. The second album continued the same sound as the first one, but without flutes which did appear in the first album. After their third album, Nemesis Divina, Satyricon released a bit different album, Rebel Extravaganza. This album was dissappointing for some people because it included some industrial metal elements. Volcano, released in 2002, received a number of prizes and lots of attention.
In 2006 Satyricon released a new album, which is called Now, Diabolical. In this new album Satyricon continues the same sound as was in Volcano. The new album sounds cold and rocking which I find good. The new album breaks rules and shows that Satyricon sounds damn good even though they experiments new sounds and ways of making music. If you liked Volcano, then this album is definitely worth of checking out.
What’s up with Satyricon? Well, the latest news tells that Frost has broken his leg few days ago. Because of this Satyricon has cancelled their gig in Arnhem Metal Meeting in Holland. Satyricon has also announced that they are very happy with their gigs in Russia and they will definitely go touring in Russia again. Satyricon’s gigs in Moscow have been sold out.
(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)
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What Burzum’s classic song Det Som En Gang Var has common with Satyricon’s new song King? Old school black metal dudes might say “F*** NOTHING!”, but hold on. I think there is something common. I love both Satyricon and Burzum. Both represent classic Norwegian black metal bands, but that is not the only reason why I enjoy their music. I am into melodic music and both of these bands have lots of great melodies in their music. Yeah, I’m not talking about singing but keyboards and guitars.
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