PART I. (1991-1994) PART II. (1995-1996) PART III. (1999-2004)
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Tento text bol napísaný začiatkom júla 2026.
The Cult Is Alive (2006)
Nahrané: March - October 2005 at Necrohell 2 Studios Produkcia: Darkthrone Vydané: 27th February 2006 (Peaceville VILEF132) Zostava: Nocturno Culto (vocals, guitars, bass), Fenriz (drums, vocals) Zoznam skladieb: A1 The Cult of Goliath A2 Too Old Too Cold A3 Atomic Coming A4 Graveyard Slut A5 Underdogs and Overlords B1 Whisky Funeral B2 De underjodiske (Ælia Capitolina) B3 Tyster på gud B4 Shut Up B5 Forebyggende krig CELKOVÝ HRACÍ ČAS 38:52
Zmena image a nástup do zamestnania zavŕšili môj odklon od dlhoročného spôsobu života a uvažovania absolútne podriadeného metalu. Išlo o únik z mentálnej klietky, ktorý mi pomohol naučiť sa pozerať na život inou optikou a zároveň vnímať metal s potrebným odstupom. Najväčším prekvapením - a možno aj miernym zhrozením - bolo zistenie, že niektoré moje aktuálne postoje a reakcie na svet neboli len dôsledkom rokov strávených v metalovej bubline, ale súčasťou mojej vlastnej povahy.
Po dvoch rokoch som zmenil zamestnanie a začal cestovať do Amsterdamu a Londýna. Po niekoľkoročnej pauze som sa vrátil ku kupovaniu fyzických nosičov - už to však neboli kazety, ale CDčka. Tieto som nakupoval nielen na služobných cestách v kamenných predajniach, ale už aj z internetu, čo bola pre mňa úplná novinka a nová závislosť. Rok predtým som objavil Myspace a novú hudbu som začal vyhľadávať online.
V lete 2005 sa mi náhodou – vďaka našej spoločnej záľube vo veslárskych športoch a tradíciách – podarilo bližšie spoznať Anjoua, klávesáka The Last Days of Jesus. Anjoua som roky stretával na gotických akciách v Dune, Subclube atď., ale až teraz sme sa naozaj skamarátili. Toto priateľstvo a nové perspektívy, ktoré mi prinieslo, mi výrazne pomohli preklenúť fázu vyrovnávania sa s únikom z metalovej mentálnej klietky a korodujúcich vzťahov v rámci tejto komunity.
Medzitým sme s Ethereal Pandemonium, ktoré od rokov 2003-2004 fungovalo na pol plynu dokončovali album Lost'N'Sound. Bicie nahral Demogorgon pod dohľadom Vidara v štúdiu v Karlovej Vsi v roku 2004 a vzápätí sa vyparil niekam za prácou do UK. Kapela odvtedy hrala koncerty so živým bubeníkom Peťom Štendom, ktorý predtým búchal aj v Dementore. V rokoch 2005-2006 sme s Vidarom nahrávali na mnoho pokusov gitary u kamaráta v jeho domácom štúdiu v Lamači ("chlapci, naučte sa to hrať poriadne a príďte ešte raz").
Basu a spevy sme si nechali na záver - pre ich nahrávanie sme si rezervovali štúdio v bratislavskej Dimitrovke. Náš zvukový inžinier mal veľmi silný THC návyk - ktorému sa neustále venoval v zadnej miestnosti svojho štúdia. My sme medzitým snažili obsluhovať mixážne pulty a nahrávací sotfvér. Keď sa zvukár na chvíľu vzdialil od svojho bonga ku nám, skontroloval čo sme nahrali, potľapkal nás po pleciach a stále hovoril niečo o americkom zvuku. Takto sme si dosamonahrávali album za plnú hodinovú sadzbu, ktorú nám účtoval vždy vysmiaty zvukár a majiteľ štúdia v jednej osobe. Ten album následne zmixoval, zmastroval dokopy asi za tri hodiny a do rúk nám dal hotový produkt napálený na CDR.
V štúdiu znel album naozaj skvele - či mal americký zvuk neviem posúdiť, keďže to vôbec nebolo naším cieľom, ale pri jeho počúvaní sme boli spokojní. Štúdio sme vyplatili, prevzali napálené kópie hotového albumu a tešili sa na oficiálne vydanie. Prvý posluch CDR v aute cestou zo štúdia mi však zrušil môj americký úsmev. Dúfal som, že chyba je v mojom prijímači, ale nebola. Finálny zvuk Lost'N'Sound bol v skutočnosti plechový, plytký, všetko spolu splývalo akoby bolo zliate do jednej zvukovej roviny a čo mi vadilo najviac bolo to, že do popredia vystúpili falošné vokály, ktoré v štúdiu na prebasovaných reproduktoroch nebolo vôbec počuť. Roky nahrávania po rôznych štúdiách a závrečné fiasko s mixovaním a mastrovaním si vyžiadali svoju daň.
Album skúsil remastrovať náš známy, s ktorým sme nahrávali gitary, ale zle zmixovanému albumu remaster nepomohol. Mali sme v rukách finálny produkt, ktorý vznikal ťažkým pôrodom po mnoho rokov a pocity z neho boli viac než rozpačité. Má vôbec zmysel vydávať ho oficiálne?
Album The Cult Is Alive bol prvý album Darkthrone, ktorý som si od čias Goatlord kúpil na fyzickom nosiči. Od 2004 som bol zamestnaný, mohol som si to dovoliť. Dodnes si pamätám nadšenie, s ktorým som si vypočul album - blackmetalové riffy postavené na punkovej rytmike - teda to čomu sa začalo hovoriť black'n'roll - zneli sviežo, chytľavo a miestami priam hitovo. Najväčšiou zmenou oproti predchádzajúcim albumom je práve spomínaná rytmika. Objavujú sa d-beaty, rock'n'rollové groovy, aj klasické thrashovo-blackmetalové rytmy známe od priekopníkov žánru. Práve ich rozmanitosť robí jednotlivé skladby ľahko rozpoznateľnými.
Hoci gitary zostávajú zvukovo aj spôsobom hry nezameniteľným trademarkom Nocturna Culta, tentoraz si dovolí zaradiť aj jednoduchšie melodické riffy či na svoje pomery dlhšie gitarové sólo. Medzi vrcholy albumu pre mňa už pri prvom posluchu patrili Too Old Too Cold (aj vďaka videoklipu), Graveyard Slut a Whiskey Funeral. Vo vokáloch poteší môj obľúbený darkthronovský satanský rehot a tiež výkrik "UH!", ktorý sa pre blackened thrash punk stal rovnako typickým ako mustáž a kožená vesta.
Texty na The Cult Is Alive už nie sú paranoidnými halucináciami, ale scenárom k temnému komiksu, ktorý so sarkazmom a vo veľmi prenesených významoch koketuje s elitárstvom a nadradenosťou žánrových puristov. Trve kvlt tu dostáva lyrické nakladačky sprava aj zľava. Ani jedno trve oko nezostane bez monokľa.
"The first song I wrote for The Cult Is Alive was “Too Old Too Cold”: it was a total awakening, we felt like we were seventeen again. We thought, “Let’s just break free of all the chains.” And we did." Nocturno Culto
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F.O.A.D. (2007)
Nahrané: 2006 - 2007 at Necrohell 2 Studios Produkcia: Darkthrone Vydané: 24th September 2007 (Peaceville VILEF168) Zostava: Nocturno Culto (vocals, guitars, bass), Fenriz (drums, vocals) Zoznam skladieb: A1 These Shores Are Damned A2 Canadian Metal A3 The Church of Real Metal A4 The Banners of Old A5 F.O.A.D. B1 Splitkein Fever B2 Raised on Rock B3 Pervertor of the 7 Gates B4 Wisdom of the Dead CELKOVÝ HRACÍ ČAS 40:18
Lost'N'Sound mal síce zlý zvuk, ale skladby na ňom sme považovali za dobré. Viazalo sa k nim mnoho emócií a histórie a považovali sme za potrebné uzavrieť niekoľkoročnú snahu a trápenie - osobné aj kapelné. Vidar kvôli bookletu oslovil Nenada Brankoviča, ktorý na ňom odviedol super robotu.
Ja som zháňal label, ktorý by CD vydal - po mnohých neúspešných pokusoch nám vydanie ponúkol Belo zo Sanatorium, ktorý popri svojom death metalovom labeli Forensick music rozbehol menší label orientovaný na domáci black metal - KRV records. Belo albumu napriek jeho nedostatkom zabezpečil dôstojné vydanie, za čo mu patrí vďaka.
Oficiálnym vydaním albumu sa pre mňa skončila fáza mentálneho odchodu z metalovej bubliny. Ethereal Pandemonium, kapela, ktorá po mnohé roky pre mňa bola viac než len umeleckým a kreatívnym telesom - bolo to zoskupenie priateľov, s ktorými sme bez prestávky fungovali po mnoho rokov, pretože sme žili podobné životy a riešili podobné problémy, stretávali sa v krčmách, kde sa to celé zlievalo dokopy. Táto intenzita sa narušila po skončení vysokých škôl, kedy si každý z nás začal budovať vlastný život.
Sklamanie z výsledku Lost'N'Sound bolo pre mňa poslednou kvapkou. Moja kapela, v ktorej som po drámach z rokov 2003-2004 nikdy nenadobudol úplne normálne vzťahy so všetkými jej členmi, bola v tom momente pre mňa zdrojom prevládajúcej negativity a tak som si povedal dosť.
S Ethereal Pandemonium som odohral posledný koncert 3.2.2007 ako support nórskej kapely Kampfar. Na koncerte spievala aj Countess Ekorn a na base hral a spieval Nathuruss, ktorí boli po niekoľkoročnej prestávke späť v kapele. S krátkymi vlasmi a v modrých rifliach som na pódiu precítil svoj posledný koncert s EP ako niekto, kto zotrváva niekde, kde už vôbec nepatrí. Krátko na to som kapele napísal e-mail, v ktorom som oznámil svoje rozhodnutie o odchode z kapely.
"Cause when the world is over we're still the boys from nowhere. And tonight, tonight we're coming home." TRBNGR
Len rok po vydaní The Cult Is Alive sa vrátili Fenriz a Nocturno s novým albumom F.O.A.D. (Fuck off and die). Komixovosť textov naznačená už na The Cult Is Alive sa prejavila aj vo vizuále albume, kde sa prvý krát objavuje nový maskot kapely Mr. Necro z pera amerického ilustrátora Dennisa Dreada. Zadanie pre Dennisa bolo jasné - Fenriz chcel na obale niečo ako má kanadská thrash kapela Strappado (viac známa ako Slaughter), Nocturno Culto tam chcel mať prilbu. O ostatné sa postaral Dennis.
Album F.O.A.D. je poctou metalpunkovým kapelám z osemdesiatych rokov. Miestami pôsobí až ako mixtape ich najväčších hudobných inšpirácií, len namiesto coververzií ponúka úplne nové skladby. Do gatefoldu vinylu umiestnili obaja interpreti svoje top 10 starých albumov aj s komentármi, taktiež fotoprílohu, kde Fenriz a Nocturno Culto rozpisujú inšpirácie a dávajú kontext jednotlivým skladbám. Z nich sa dá potvrdiť postreh z predchádzajúceho prelomového albumu, kde sa naplno začala formovať kombinácia Fenrizovej punkovej rytmiky a metalových riffov Nocturna Culta.
Keď si pozriete inšpirácie a odporúčania oboch pánov, Fenrizov vkus je viac zakorenený v speed/power metale a cruste, kým Nocturna Culta to ťahá viac k proto black a death metalu. Po tom, čo sa na posledných pár albumoch v textoch vysmiali "trve kvlt" pózerom, ktorých znalosti metalu siahajú len do istej komfortnej hĺbky, nám Fenriz aj Nocturno Culto dávajú bez okolkov na známosť čo je v skutočnosti THE REAL METAL. Nie ten z učebníc ani z veľkých hudobných médií, ale ten objavovaný prehrabávaním sa v zabudnutých demonahrávkach a kultových LP platniach.
Ako ste na tom vy? Úprimne, čo sa týka vypočutých albumov - tak na Fenrizovej TOP 10 som skóroval s pózerskými 1/10, kým u Nocturna som dopadol o trochu lepšie - 6/10. Nevadí, dopočúvam, hoci dlhé vlasy mi to už asi nenavráti.
Hudobne na mňa F.O.A.D. pôsobí podobne ako Undisputed Attitude od Slayer. Nie preto, že by Darkthrone nahrali sériu coververzií, ale preto, že vytvorili vlastný album poskladaný z DNA všetkého, čo ich formovalo počas osemdesiatych rokov. A upozornenie na záver, tzv. The call of Cthulhu: "UH!", pri ktorom sa zježia všetky mustáže a postavia do pozoru všetky šnúrky na bielych teniskách, sa objaví v skladbe "Raised on rock".
"FOAD was a title that was EXTREMELY COMMON in the '80s underground. Also Venom and Voivod had songs called this. There was even a zine called FOAD—the list goes on. That's one of the reasons we used the title, so '80s freaks could see that our album was HOME." Fenriz
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Dark Thrones And Black Flags (2008)
Nahrané: 2007 - 2008 at Necrohell 2 Studios Produkcia: Darkthrone Vydané: 20th October 2008 (Peaceville VILEF237) Zostava: Nocturno Culto (vocals, guitars, bass), Fenriz (drums, vocals) Zoznam skladieb: A1 The Winds They Called the Dungeon Shaker A2 Death of All Oaths (Oath Minus) A3 Hiking Metal Punks A4 Blacksmith of the North (Keep that Ancient Fire) A5 Norway in September B1 Grizzly Trade B2 Hanging Out in Haiger B3 Dark Thrones and Black Flags B4 Launchpad To Nothingness B5 Witch Ghetto CELKOVÝ HRACÍ ČAS 38:58
"Break the Chains!"
V rokoch 2007-2008 som prešiel z aktívneho muzikantského života do role poslucháča, fanúšika a pozorovateľa rozmanitej škály subkultúr a undergroundového diania. Nebudem tu písať o tom ako som si zobral hypotéku na byt, oženil sa a prestal fajčiť (tentokrát natrvalo). Pokúsim sa tento text udržať v hudobnej rovine.
Spomenul by som jednorazový projekt Teaser Of Noobs, ktorý vznikol z online priateľstva s francúzom FrenchDeath-om (FD), čo bol jeho nick na Type O Negative chat boarde, kde sme sa poznali od raných 2000s. Po rokoch prispievania a diskusií na webe, kde sme zistili, že máme podobný zmysel pre humor a hudobný vkus, prišlo aj k osobnému stretnutiu.
FrenchDeath, vlastným menom Frédérick Martin, bol parížsky bonviván starej školy, skladateľ súčasnej vážnej hudby a jeden z ľudí, ktorých som poznal celé roky len z internetu. Keď prijal moje pozvanie do Bratislavy, až do poslednej chvíle som si nebol istý, či je to dobrý nápad. V prostredí uzavretého TON fóra sme boli všetci zvyknutí na extrémny humor, anonymitu a občas dosť šialené vyjadrenia. Jeden nikdy nevie. Moje obavy sa rozptýlili v momente keď som na bratislavskom letisku vyzdvihol priateľského blackmetalového hipíka s gitarou na pleci, pripraveného skúšať a nahrávať skladby, o ktorých sme sa bavili v online priestore.
Po pár prehýrených dňoch a nociach, počas ktorých sme v bývalej skúšobni Ethereal Pandemonium zisťovali vzájomnú hudobnú kompatibilitu, sme sa rozhodli nahrať cover verziu Type O Negative - Black No.1. Gitarové motívy sme nahrali v štúdiu v Dimitrovke (áno, v tom istom kde sme dva roky predtým popravili zvuk Lost'N'Sound). Tie potom FD zobral do Paríža, kde donahrával spev a bicie a vznikla z toho malá pocta kamarátom z TON boardu, z ktorých sa väčšina nikdy v živote osobne nestretla. Obal k singlu spravil ďaľší člen boardu, nemec Doc Vader, a bola na ňom koláž bratislavského hradu a Eiffelovej veže v tradičnom Type O Negative formáte. Skladba bola na Bandcampe až do momentu, kým ju platforma neskryla kvôli autorským právam.
FD sa medzitým pustil do písania knihy o black metale z pohľadu undergroundovej hudobnej kultúry. Keďže chcel zachytiť aj slovenskú scénu, sprostredkoval som mu stretnutia s niekoľkými hudobníkmi najmä z konca deväťdesiatych rokov. O novej vlne black metalu, ktorý sa rodil na Slovensku som nemal ani tušenia a nikoho z tejto generácie som už nepoznal. Kniha Eunolie: Legendes Du Black Metal, kde je okrem iných kapiel článok venovaný aj Ethereal Pandemonium, vyšla v roku 2009 a bola pokrstená na francúzskom festivale Hellfest. Ak by ste sa zamýšľali nad tým, čo znamená Eunolie - je to francúzsky fonetický zápis anglického Unholy.
Vďaka čoraz intenzívnejšiemu kamarátstvu s Anjouom a gotikmi som sa postupne dostával ku kapelám tzv. tretej goth-rockovej vlny, ktorá vrcholila niekedy v polovici 2000s. Na svetovú úroveň sa v tom období dostali aj domáci The Last Days of Jesus. Mary0, frontman TLDOJ bol dlhé roky jedným z pilierov európskej goth a Batcave scény a vďaka nemu bola Bratislava známym centrom a povinnou zastávkou pre mnohé goth a deathrockové kapely z celého sveta.
Ako pravidelnému návštevníkovi týchto akcií sa mi do uší dostali nové vplyvy. Vďaka psychobilly kapelám ako Nekromantix a Tiger Army, ktorých albumy som vtedy točil istý čas intenzívne dokola, som začal tajne poškuľovať po kontrabase, o ktorom som si navrával, že si ho doprajem k tridsiatym narodeninám. Nestalo sa tak, uspokojil som sa s lacnejším a menším nástrojom - v roku 2008 som si kúpil elektroakustickú basgitaru Ibanez. Vtedy som ešte netušil, že práve táto kúpa ma o pár rokov privedie späť k aktívnemu hraniu.
Asi preto, že je extrémne horúce leto, potím sa ako pes, počúvam ďaľší z radu album Darkthrone, v ktorom sú fotky kapely z potuliek po lesoch a pri skladbe "Hiking Metal Punks" mám pocit, ako by som stál vo vlhkej drevenej putike 3. cenovej kategórie niekde v močaristej Luisiane, kde svetlo žiarovky visiacej na stropnom kábli ožaruje publikum vlasáčov odetých v jeansových vestách s nášivkami a fľaškovým pivom v rukách. Na pódiu hrá svoj temný heavymetalpunk dvojčlenná kapela (basáka nie je vidieť), ktorá je plne sústredená na svoj výkon.
Dark Thrones and Black Flags je najmelodickejší album, ktorý doteraz Fenriz a Nocturno Culto vydali. Nesie sa v strednom až pomalšom tempe, štruktúra skladieb je priamočiarejšia, spev čistejší a miestami sa objavia fragmenty melódií, dokonca frázovania a-lá mladý King Diamond. Temný povel pre obyvateľov Innsmouthu "UH!" sa objaví na začiatku skladby "Hanging Out In Haiger" a aj úlne na záver albumu v skladbe "Witch Ghetto". Melódie ihneď udrú do uší a zaznávam tu niečo ako prechod od tradičnej riffovo orientovanej hry k harmonickejšiemu, akordovo orientovanému prístupu. Už to nie sú primárne sledy komplikovaných no zaujímavých Darkthrone™ riffov, ktoré sa o to ťažšie rozlišujú a hlavne pamätajú, ale harmonické akordové postupy, kde sloha a refrén sa zachytávajú v spánkovom laloku bez väčšej námahy.
Textovo sa kapela presúva od pohŕdania moderným metalom k epickejším, prírodným, ale aj cestovateľským témam v čase aj priestore. V booklete je rozsiahla ďakovačka kde Fenriz spomína množstvo kapiel a známych a rovnako ako aj na predchádzajúcom albume tu nájdeme hudobné odporúčania (z ktorých mňa osobne potešilo najmä demo The Devil's Blood, z ktorého si Fenriz kúpil päť kópií nielen pre svojich priateľov, ale aj pre Satanovu peňaženku, ktorú si takto chcel naplniť v dobách budúcich.)
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Circle the Wagons (2010)
Nahrané: 2008 - 2009 at Necrohell 2 Studios Produkcia: Darkthrone Vydané: 10th April 2010 (Peaceville VILEF276) Zostava: Nocturno Culto (vocals, guitars, bass), Fenriz (drums, vocals) Zoznam skladieb: A1 Those Treasures Will Never Befall You A2 Running For Borders A3 I Am the Graves of the 80s A4 Stylized Corpse B1 Circle the Wagons B2 Black Mountain Totem B3 I Am the Working Class B4 Eyes Burst at Dawn B5 Bränn inte slottet CELKOVÝ HRACÍ ČAS 41:01
"Break your chains and circle your wagons."
V roku 2009 vyšla okrem Eunolie: Legendes Du Black Metal ešte jedna knižná publikácia, ktorá sa ma osobne dotýkala. Bola to knižka Mimozemšťan a malá čertica, ktorú vydal pod pseudonymom môj bývalý šéf a dobrý kamarát. Týkala sa relatívne krátkeho, ale intenzívneho obdobia, ktoré ma na dlhú dobu ovplyvnilo vo viacerých oblastiach - z tých inšpiratívnych čerpám dodnes (a na tie dekadentné veľmi rád spomínam). V knihe som sa objavil v niekoľkých historkách, o ktorých píše autor v prvej osobe. Keď sa nad tým zamyslím, je to príbeh slovenského Jordana Belforta šmrncnutého Casanovom, napísaný štýlom akoby sa do autora na chvíľu prevtelil duch Saint-Exupéryho.
V roku 2010 som sa v práci dostal na nový trojročný projekt, v rámci ktorého som precestoval väčšiu časť Nemecka. Mal som možnosť stráviť veľa času v Stuttgarte a v jeho okolí, v Hannoveri, Mainzi ale aj Drážďanoch a Mníchove kde som ten rok absolvoval svoj prvý Oktoberfest. Pamätný a veľmi zaujímavý bol výlet autom cez celé Nemecko, keď sa vďaka výbuchu islandskej sopky Eyjafjallajökull na niekoľko dní zastavila letecká doprava. S projektovým tímom sme sa potom presúvali na workshopy po Európe v akomkoľvek aute, ktoré sa ešte podarilo zohnať v autopožičovniach.
Vo všetkých mestách, ktoré som navštívil som vyhľadával kamenné predajne s hudbou a nakupoval kopec CDčiek - kompenzoval som si tým dlhý čas kedy som počas VŠ rozpredal celú svoju zbierku kaziet a CD aby bolo na pivo a cigarety. A potom niekedy v lete prišiel ten moment... Sedel som u rodičov v podkrovnej miestnosti, do ktorej cez listy jablone prenikalo svetlo zapadajúceho slnka. Z nejakého dôvodu ma napadlo zapojiť starý gramofón, ktorý mali rodičia doma a začať som si púšťať staré platne. Po tom ako som dopočúval rozprávku o Statočnom cínovom vojačikovi, ktorá je v podaní Ivana Mistríka ako cínového vojačika, ten najväčší depres aký môže hovorené slovo spôsobiť nielen detskej duši, som vytiahol z krabice platňu Ultrametal, ktorú som naposledy počul niekedy začiatkom 90tych rokov. Po úvodných kapelách na strane A - Debustrol a Morrior začal hrať Master's Hammer a ich Géniové a Zapálili jsme onen svět.
Dodnes neviem, či za to mohlo zapadajúce slnko, rozhasená psychika po Ivanovi Mistríkovi, špeciálny mastering skladieb na kompilácii (odlišný od Ritualu) alebo všetko dokopy. Pri Master's Hammer mi uletel dekel. Zvuk starého gramofónu Tesla cez jeho stereo reproduktory v podkrovnej izbe ma v jedinom okamihu vyliečil z niekoľkoročnej závislosti na CD a presvedčil ma, že som dovtedy žil v omyle.
V nasledujúcich dňoch prišla fáza výberu gramofónu, s ktorou mi pomohli dlhoroční vinyloví maniaci a DJs Mary0 a Shony. Kúpil som si svoj prvý Pro-ject Debut 3 s predzosilovačom a začala sa nová éra zbierania a počúvania fyzických nosičov, ktorá trvá dodnes. K niekoľkým málo vinylom sa mi podarilo dostať už aj v predchádzajúcich rokoch, ale kúpil som ich len ako krajšie a väčšie verzie svojich obľúbených albumov bez toho, aby som mal potrebu si ich púšťať. Z konca 80s a začiatku 90s som mal u rodičov skoro všetky povinné jazdy, ktoré vychádzali v Opuse, Globuse a Monitore.
Práca, cestovanie a hudobné nosiče boli moje starosti a radosti roku 2010. Pôsobenie v kapele, skúšanie a živé hranie som mal vytesnené niekde v zadnej časti hlavy, veril som, že jedného dňa musí niečo prísť, ale nemal som ani ambíciu ani motiváciu riešiť niečo na vlastnú päsť. Veril som, že ak sa má niečo stať, skôr či neskôr k tomu dôjde.
Circle the Wagons je záver trilógie s obalovým maskotom Mr. Necrom od Dennisa Dreada. Od začiatku nám tu servírujú epický heavy metal s blackovým feelingom. Ak na predchádzajúcich albumoch koketovala dvojica Fenriz a Nocturno Culto s punkovými vplyvmi, tak tieto na Circle the Wagons absentujú. Máme tu do činenia so špinavým epickým heavy metalom s čistými, horrorovými spevmi.
Ak sa v 2010 niekto chcel zoznámiť s kultovou blackovou legendou Darkthrone, musel byť šokovaný. Rovnako občasníci, ktorí ať tak veľmi nesledovali vývoj kapely museli ostať zaskočení. Circle the Wagons je tak vzdialený od dobových blackmetalových superhviezd, ktoré dobývali srdcia metalových obdivovateľov úspechu, že viac to už asi nejde.
Ak Darkthrone patrili ku kapelám, ktoré začiatkom 90s odšartovali druhú vlnu black metalu, tak o dvadsať rokov neskôr výrazne prispeli k revivalu tradičného heavy a thrash metalu v undergrounde, ktoré dodnes žijú ako silné samostatné scény s množstvom mladých kapiel a vlastnými minifestivalmi. Kým koncom 00s šla väčšina scény "dopredu", Darkthrone sa vrátili o 30 rokov skôr, do doby pred Soulside Journey a A Blaze In the Norther Sky. Svoj posledný vagón zaradili pred ten úplne prvý.
A na záver niečo o hudbe na Circle the Wagons - je šťavnaťá, epická, melodická, nasratá s patričnou dávkou špiny a temnoty, ktorú majú páni v krvi. Nie je to earworm z dielne producentských mágov, ktorí vyrábajú hity na objednávku, ale rokmi vybrúsený rukopis, ktorý citlivo zaznamenal a replikoval pôvodnú DNA, z ktorej sám vznikol. Na The Cult Is Alive ešte Darkthrone zneli ako blackmetalová kapela, ktorá objavila punk. Na Circle the Wagons už znejú skôr ako heavymetalová kapela, ktorá zo seba black metal nedokáže, a našťastie ani nechce vyhnať.
P.S. A aby sme nezabudli, tak povel pre biele jazyky a mustáže "UH!" sa objaví niekoľkokrát v skladbe "I Am the Graves of the 80s".
Ak chcete podporiť JDØS vyberte si niečo z DISTRA. Ak sú ceny pre vás privysoké, napíšte mi e-mail: jablkadalekoodstromu@gmail.com, určite sa dohodneme. Ak máte feedback na ktorýkoľlvek z článkov, alebo by ste chceli niečo povedať pre JDØS, napíšte mi tiež.
Vďaka za support, Tom/EZR
Venované pamiatke Andrewa Orlocka (1984-2019).
Darkthrone is a band that has accompanied me through most of my life. That doesn’t mean they were always my favourite band, nor that I accepted each new album uncritically the moment it was released. There were stronger periods and weaker ones. Regardless of where I happened to be in life, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto were always working on another album that, sooner or later, reaffirmed that Darkthrone have been my kindred spirits since 1992. That is why I decided to write a few words about my journey through my own Darkthrone vinyl collection. Tom / EZR
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The Cult Is Alive (2006)
Changing my image and getting a proper job completed my departure from a way of life that had, for years, been completely subordinated to metal. It was an escape from a mental cage that helped me learn to look at the world through a different lens, while at the same time allowing me to maintain the necessary distance from metal. The biggest surprise — and perhaps a slightly disturbing realization — was discovering that some of my current attitudes and reactions to the world weren't simply the result of all those years spent inside the metal bubble. They were part of my own personality.
Two years later, I changed jobs and started travelling to Amsterdam and London. After several years away from buying physical releases, I returned to collecting music — only this time it wasn't cassettes but CDs. I bought them not only from record stores during my business trips, but also online, which was completely new to me and quickly became a new addiction. The year before, I had discovered Myspace and started searching for new music online.
In the summer of 2005, quite by chance – thanks to our shared interest in rowing sports and traditions – I got to know Anjou, the keyboard player of The Last Days of Jesus, a little better. I had been running into Anjou for years at goth events at Duna, Subclub and elsewhere, but it wasn't until then that we really became friends. That friendship, and the new perspectives it brought into my life, helped me enormously through the period of coming to terms with my escape from the mental cage of the metal scene and the corroding relationships within that community.
Meanwhile, Ethereal Pandemonium, which had been operating at half-speed since around 2003–2004, were finishing the album Lost'N'Sound. Demogorgon recorded the drums under Vidar's supervision at a studio in Karlova Ves in 2004, then promptly disappeared to the UK for work. From then on, the band played live with drummer Peťo Štendo, who had previously also played with Dementor. Throughout 2005 and 2006, Vidar and I made numerous attempts at recording the guitars at a friend's home studio in Lamač — "Boys, learn to play it properly and come back again."
We left the bass and vocals until the end and booked a studio at Dimitrovka in Bratislava to record them. Our sound engineer had a rather serious THC habit, which he was constantly attending to in the back room of the studio. Meanwhile, we were left trying to operate the mixing desk and recording software ourselves. Whenever the engineer managed to tear himself away from his bong for a moment and join us, he'd check what we'd recorded, pat us on the shoulders and keep talking about some kind of "American sound."
And so we basically recorded the rest of the album ourselves while paying the full hourly studio rate to the permanently grinning sound engineer, who also happened to own the place. He then mixed and mastered the entire album in what must have been about three hours and handed us the finished product burned onto a CD-R.
Inside the studio, the album actually sounded great. Whether it had that elusive "American sound" I couldn't tell — that had never been our intention anyway — but listening to it there, we were happy. We paid the studio bill, took our burned copies of the finished album and looked forward to finally releasing it officially.
My first listen to the CD-R in the car on the way home from the studio, however, wiped the American smile straight off my face.
I hoped there was something wrong with my car stereo.
There wasn't.
The final sound of Lost'N'Sound was actually metallic and shallow. Everything blurred together as though the entire recording had been flattened onto a single sonic plane. Worst of all for me, the off-key vocals suddenly jumped right to the front of the mix — something we hadn't noticed at all through the bass-heavy monitors in the studio.
Years of recording in different studios, followed by the final fiasco with the mixing and mastering, had taken their toll.
A friend of ours, with whom we'd recorded the guitars, tried to remaster the album, but no amount of mastering could rescue a badly mixed recording. After a long and difficult birth stretching across several years, we finally had the finished product in our hands — and our feelings about it were conflicted, to say the least.
Was there even any point in releasing it officially?
The Cult Is Alive was the first Darkthrone album I bought on a physical format since Goatlord. By 2004 I had a job, so I could finally afford it. I still remember the excitement of hearing the album for the first time — black metal riffs built around punk rhythms, or what had become known as black'n'roll, sounded fresh, catchy and at times almost hit-like. The biggest change compared to the previous albums was precisely that rhythmical approach. There were d-beats, rock'n'roll grooves, as well as classic thrash/black metal rhythms inherited from the pioneers of the genre. It was this rhythmic variety that made the individual songs so easy to distinguish from one another.
Although the guitars remained unmistakably Nocturno Culto in both sound and playing style, this time he allowed himself some simpler melodic riffs and even guitar solos that were relatively long by his standards. From the very first listen, the album's highlights for me were Too Old Too Cold — helped by the video as well — Graveyard Slut and Whiskey Funeral. On the vocal side, there's my favourite Darkthrone-style satanic cackle, as well as the mighty "UH!", which has become as essential to blackened thrash punk as a moustache and a leather vest.
The lyrics on The Cult Is Alive are no longer paranoid hallucinations, but more like the script for a dark comic book, sarcastically flirting — often through heavily veiled meanings — with the elitism and superiority complexes of genre purists. Trve kvlt gets a lyrical beating from both left and right. Not a single trve eye escapes without a black eye.
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F.O.A.D. (2007)
Although Lost'N'Sound suffered from poor sound quality, we still believed the songs themselves were good. There was a lot of history and emotion tied to them, and we felt the need to bring several years of effort and struggle — both personal and within the band — to some kind of conclusion. Vidar approached Nenad Branković to create the booklet, and he did an excellent job.
I was looking for a label willing to release the CD. After numerous unsuccessful attempts, we finally got an offer from Belo of Sanatorium, who, alongside his death metal label Forensick Music, had started a smaller label focused on the local black metal scene — KRV Records. Despite the album's shortcomings, Belo gave it a proper and dignified release, for which he deserves our thanks.
With the album's official release, the phase of my mental departure from the metal bubble finally came to an end. For many years, Ethereal Pandemonium had been much more to me than just an artistic and creative entity. It was a group of friends who had spent years together almost constantly because we lived similar lives and dealt with similar problems. We met in pubs, where music, friendship, problems and life itself all somehow blended into one. That intensity began to fall apart after we finished university and each of us started building a life of our own.
My disappointment with how Lost'N'Sound eventually turned out was the final straw. After all the drama of 2003–2004, my relationships with some members of the band had never really returned to normal. By that point, the band had become a source of predominantly negative feelings for me, and I finally told myself: enough.
I played my last show with Ethereal Pandemonium on February 3, 2007, supporting the Norwegian band Kampfar. Countess Ekorn also performed vocals that night, while Nathuruss played bass and sang; both had returned to the band after several years away. Standing on stage with short hair and blue jeans, I experienced my final EP show as someone lingering in a place where he no longer belonged at all.
Shortly afterwards, I sent the band an email telling them that I had decided to leave.
"Cause when the world is over we're still the boys from nowhere. And tonight, tonight we're coming home." TRBNGR
Only a year after the release of The Cult Is Alive, Fenriz and Nocturno returned with a new album, F.O.A.D. (Fuck Off and Die). The comic-book quality of the lyrics already hinted at on The Cult Is Alive also made its way into the album's visual identity, with the first appearance of the band's new mascot, Mr. Necro, created by American illustrator Dennis Dread. The brief Dennis received was pretty straightforward — Fenriz wanted something similar to what the Canadian thrash band Strappado (better known as Slaughter) had, while Nocturno Culto wanted a helmet. Dennis took care of the rest.
F.O.A.D. is a tribute to the metalpunk bands of the 1980s. At times, it almost feels like a mixtape of their greatest musical influences, except that instead of cover versions, Darkthrone offer entirely new songs. Inside the vinyl gatefold, both musicians included their personal Top 10 lists of old albums, complete with comments, as well as a collection of photographs in which Fenriz and Nocturno Culto discuss their influences and provide context for individual tracks. These notes also reinforce something already noticeable on the previous, transitional album: the combination of Fenriz's punk-driven rhythms with Nocturno Culto's metal riffs was now taking full shape.
Looking at the influences and recommendations of the two gentlemen, Fenriz's taste seems more deeply rooted in speed/power metal and crust, while Nocturno Culto gravitates more towards proto-black and death metal. After spending the previous few albums lyrically taking the piss out of "trve kvlt" posers whose knowledge of metal only reaches a certain comfortable depth, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto now make it perfectly clear what THE REAL METAL actually is. Not the kind found in textbooks or major music media, but the kind discovered by digging through forgotten demos and cult LPs.
And how do you measure up? Honestly, when it comes to albums I've actually heard, I scored a poser-worthy 1/10 on Fenriz's Top 10, while I did slightly better with Nocturno's — 6/10. Never mind, I'll catch up eventually, although I doubt it'll make my long hair grow back.
Musically, F.O.A.D. reminds me of Slayer's Undisputed Attitude. Not because Darkthrone recorded a collection of covers, but because they created an album of their own assembled from the DNA of everything that shaped them during the 1980s. And one final warning: the so-called Call of Cthulhu — "UH!" — powerful enough to make every moustache bristle and every shoelace on a pair of white sneakers snap to attention, can be heard in Raised on Rock.
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Dark Thrones And Black Flags (2008)
Between 2007 and 2008, I moved away from the life of an active musician and into the role of listener, fan and observer of a diverse range of subcultures and underground scenes. I won't write here about taking out a mortgage on a flat, getting married or quitting smoking (for good this time). I'll try to keep this story focused on music.
One thing worth mentioning is a one-off project called Teaser Of Noobs, which grew out of my online friendship with a Frenchman called FrenchDeath (FD) — his nickname on the Type O Negative message board, where we'd known each other since the early 2000s. After years of posting and discussing things online, discovering along the way that we shared a similar sense of humour and taste in music, we eventually decided to meet in person.
FrenchDeath, whose real name was Frédérick Martin, was an old-school Parisian bon vivant, a composer of contemporary classical music, and one of those people I'd known for years without ever meeting outside the internet. When he accepted my invitation to Bratislava, I wasn't entirely sure until the very last moment whether this had been such a good idea. In the closed environment of the TON forum, we were all accustomed to extreme humour, anonymity and occasionally rather insane statements. You never know. My doubts disappeared the moment I picked up a friendly black-metal hippie at Bratislava airport, guitar slung over his shoulder, ready to rehearse and record the songs we'd been talking about online.
After a few booze-fuelled days and nights spent in the former Ethereal Pandemonium rehearsal room figuring out whether we were actually musically compatible, we decided to record a cover of Type O Negative's Black No. 1. We recorded the guitar parts at the studio in Dimitrovka — yes, the very same place where we'd executed the sound of Lost'N'Sound two years earlier. FD then took the recordings back to Paris, where he added vocals and drums. What emerged was a small tribute to our friends from the TON board, most of whom had never actually met one another in real life. The single artwork was created by another board member, a German called Doc Vader, who made a collage of Bratislava Castle and the Eiffel Tower in the traditional Type O Negative visual style. The track remained on Bandcamp until the platform eventually hid it for copyright reasons. If anyone is interested, drop me a message and I'll send you the song together with the artwork.
Meanwhile, FD started writing a book about black metal from the perspective of underground music culture. Since he also wanted to cover the Slovak scene, I arranged meetings for him with several musicians, mainly people who had been active in the late 1990s. I had absolutely no idea about the new wave of black metal that was emerging in Slovakia at the time, and I no longer knew anyone from that generation. The book, Eunolie: Légendes Du Black Metal, which among many other bands also includes a piece on Ethereal Pandemonium, was published in 2009 and officially launched at France's Hellfest. And if you're wondering what Eunolie means — it's a French phonetic rendering of the English word Unholy.
Thanks to my increasingly close friendship with Anjou and the goth crowd, I gradually discovered bands from the so-called third wave of goth rock, which peaked sometime around the mid-2000s. During this period, Slovakia's own The Last Days of Jesus also reached a serious international level. Mary0, TLDOJ's frontman, had for years been one of the pillars of the European goth and Batcave scene, and largely thanks to him Bratislava became a well-known hub and an essential stop for numerous goth and deathrock bands from around the world.
As a regular at these events, I was inevitably exposed to new musical influences. Through psychobilly bands such as Nekromantix and Tiger Army, whose albums I was playing obsessively on repeat for a while, I secretly started eyeing up a double bass, telling myself that I'd treat myself to one for my thirtieth birthday.
It never happened.
I settled for something cheaper and considerably smaller instead — in 2008, I bought an Ibanez electro-acoustic bass guitar.
At the time, I had no idea that this particular purchase would bring me back to actively playing music just a few years later.
Maybe it's because we're having an extremely hot summer, I'm sweating like a dog, and I'm listening to yet another Darkthrone album filled with photos of the band wandering through the woods, but when Hiking Metal Punks comes on, I feel as if I'm standing inside a damp, third-rate wooden dive bar somewhere in the Louisiana swamps. A bare light bulb hanging from a cable in the ceiling illuminates an audience of longhairs in patch-covered denim vests, bottled beers in their hands. On stage, a two-man band (the bass player is nowhere to be seen) is playing its dark heavy-metal-punk, completely focused on the performance.
Dark Thrones and Black Flags is the most melodic album Fenriz and Nocturno Culto had released up to that point. It moves at mostly mid-paced to slower tempos, the song structures are more straightforward, the vocals cleaner, and here and there fragments of melodies — even bits of phrasing reminiscent of a young King Diamond — begin to appear. The sinister command to the inhabitants of Innsmouth, "UH!", appears at the beginning of Hanging Out in Haiger and once again at the very end of the album in Witch Ghetto. The melodies immediately catch the ear, and I can hear something resembling a shift from their traditionally riff-oriented songwriting towards a more harmonic, chord-oriented approach. Instead of being built primarily from sequences of complicated but interesting Darkthrone™ riffs — all the harder to distinguish from one another and, above all, to remember — the songs increasingly rely on harmonic chord progressions, with verses and choruses embedding themselves in the temporal lobe with considerably less effort.
Lyrically, the band moves away from its contempt for modern metal towards more epic themes involving nature, as well as journeys through both time and space. The booklet contains an extensive thank-you section in which Fenriz mentions a whole host of bands and acquaintances, and, just like on the previous album, there are plenty of musical recommendations. One that particularly pleased me was The Devil's Blood demo, of which Fenriz bought five copies — not only for his friends, but also for Satan's wallet, which he apparently hoped to fatten up sometime in the future.
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Circle the Wagons (2010)
In 2009, besides Eunolie: Légendes du Black Metal, another book was published that had a personal connection to me. It was called Mimozemšťan a malá čertica (The Alien and the Little She-Devil), written under a pseudonym by my former boss and good friend. It dealt with a relatively short but intense period of my life that went on to influence me in several ways for a long time — I still draw on the inspiring parts today (and remember the decadent ones very fondly). I appeared in several of the stories, which the author tells in the first person. Thinking about it now, it's basically the story of a Slovak Jordan Belfort with a touch of Casanova, written as if the spirit of Saint-Exupéry had briefly possessed the author.
In 2010, I joined a new three-year project at work that took me across much of Germany. I got to spend a lot of time in and around Stuttgart, as well as Hanover, Mainz, Dresden and Munich, where I also experienced my first Oktoberfest that year. One particularly memorable and interesting experience was a road trip across Germany after the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano brought air traffic to a standstill for several days. Our project team ended up travelling between workshops around Europe in whatever cars we could still get our hands on at rental agencies.
In every city I visited, I hunted down brick-and-mortar record stores and bought piles of CDs — making up for those university years when I'd sold off my entire cassette and CD collection to finance beer and cigarettes. And then, sometime that summer, the moment came...
I was sitting in the attic room at my parents' house, with the light of the setting sun filtering through the leaves of an apple tree. For some reason, I decided to hook up the old turntable my parents had at home and started playing some of their old records. After listening to the fairy tale The Steadfast Tin Soldier — with Ivan Mistrík as the tin soldier, quite possibly the most depressing experience the spoken word can inflict upon a child's soul — I pulled the Ultrametal compilation out of a box. I hadn't heard it since sometime in the early 1990s. After the opening bands on Side A — Debustrol and Morrior — Master's Hammer came on with Géniové and Zapálili jsme onen svět.
To this day, I don't know whether it was the setting sun, my shattered mental state after Ivan Mistrík, the particular mastering of the tracks on the compilation — different from Ritual — or all of it combined. But when Master's Hammer came on, it completely blew my mind. The sound of that old Tesla turntable coming through its stereo speakers in the attic cured me of several years of CD addiction in a single instant and convinced me that I'd been living a lie all along.
The next few days were devoted to choosing a turntable, with some help from long-time vinyl maniacs and DJs Mary0 and Shony. I bought my first Pro-Ject Debut III with a phono preamp, and a new era of collecting and listening to physical formats began — one that continues to this day. I'd already picked up a handful of vinyl records over the previous few years, but I'd bought them merely as bigger, nicer-looking versions of my favourite albums, without ever really feeling the need to play them. And from the late '80s and early '90s, I still had almost all the essential records released by Opus, Globus and Monitor sitting at my parents' place.
Work, travelling and physical music were my main concerns and pleasures in 2010. Being in a band, rehearsing and playing live had been pushed somewhere into the back of my mind. I believed that one day something would eventually come along, but I had neither the ambition nor the motivation to make anything happen on my own. I simply trusted that if something was meant to happen, sooner or later it would.
Circle the Wagons closes the trilogy featuring Dennis Dread’s cover mascot, Mr. Necro. From the very beginning, Darkthrone serve up epic heavy metal with a black-metal feel. While Fenriz and Nocturno Culto flirted with punk influences on the previous albums, those are largely absent from Circle the Wagons. What we are dealing with here is dirty, epic heavy metal with clean, horror-tinged vocals.
Anyone discovering the cult black-metal legend Darkthrone for the first time in 2010 must have been in for quite a shock. The same probably applied to occasional listeners who hadn’t been following the band’s evolution all that closely. Circle the Wagons is about as far removed as you can possibly get from the black-metal superstars of the time, who were busy winning the hearts of metal fans impressed by commercial success.
If Darkthrone were among the bands that helped launch the second wave of black metal in the early ’90s, then twenty years later they also played a significant role in the underground revival of traditional heavy and thrash metal — scenes that remain strong and independent to this day, with plenty of young bands and their own small festivals. While most of the scene was moving “forward” at the end of the 2000s, Darkthrone went thirty years backwards, to the era before Soulside Journey and A Blaze in the Northern Sky. They coupled their last wagon in front of the very first one.
And finally, a few words about the music on Circle the Wagons: it’s juicy, epic, melodic and pissed-off, with the proper dose of filth and darkness these gentlemen have running through their veins. This isn’t an earworm manufactured by production wizards who churn out hits on demand, but a musical signature refined over decades, carefully capturing and replicating the original DNA from which Darkthrone themselves once emerged. On The Cult Is Alive, Darkthrone still sounded like a black-metal band that had discovered punk. On Circle the Wagons, they sound more like a heavy-metal band that simply cannot — and fortunately does not want to — exorcise the black metal from within.
P.S. And lest we forget, the battle cry for white high-tops and moustaches — “UH!” — makes several appearances in I Am the Graves of the 80s.
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