The artist: Immortal are one of the most well known black metal bands who contributed to the second wave. The 1990s was a very dark time for black metal where some of the major acts committed church arson and even went as far as murdering individuals (most notoriously Varg Vikernes of Burzum for both cases). Black metal has been heavily linked with Anti-Christianity. However, Immortal are an excellent contrast to all the controversy in black metal. They've stayed away from Anti-Christianity as well as church burnings at all costs and despite these differences, Immortal are still one of the most respected bands by black metal fanatics. Ironically enough, Abbath was the one who got Varg into black metal but Abbath never wanted to follow the bandwagons going on back then.
The album: Sons of Northern Darkness is the last Immortal album before their break up in 2003 due to personal reasons which the band would later unite a few years later after a reunion special. Sons of Northern Darkness follows the musical style from At the Heart of Winter with more complex song structures whilst containing the thrash metal elements Immortal have adapted with since At the Heart of Winter. Some of the highlights in Sons of Northern Darkness include One By One, Tyrants and In My Kingdom Cold. This week's song Antarctica is also another strong track in the album.
The song: Antarctica begins with an arctic ambience (well, what were you expecting). It's not quite as eerie as Unearthly Kingdom but to make that up, Abbath breaks in with his frostbitten guitar and he does go all the way to make this intro well established. Horgh does some damn good drumming. It's not the typical blast beat black metal drumming but it does have some sweet rhythm to the intro sequence. Abbath doesn't kick in with his vocals until around 2 1/2 minutes in where he talks about how cold, vicious and metal Antarctica is. He describes it as a very harsh place. 5 minutes in gives us the dark acoustic guitars where Abbath summarizes Antarctica as dark, cold and massive. Heavier guitars make a comeback as well as the drumming that have a nice pace of hits on the Tom-tom drums. Overall, Antarctica is that ideal frostbitten song that black metal is often associated with, particularly Immortal. Who needs to sing about opposing Christianity and worshipping Satan when you can make something evil-sounding with a very bitter place like Antarctica?
No comments:
Post a Comment