Summer's End

Samhain (pronounced saw-in) is a Gaelic word meaning "summer's end", and referred to a harvest festival held in Ireland on October 31st.  Here in the upper Midwest summer's end comes a little earlier.  Today is a good day to celebrate Samhain.  Today is the last day of summer/first day of autumn.

What better way to celebrate Samhain than with music.  Today feels like a classic Norwegian black metal day, and what better way to explore the music of Norway than with some of the albums produced by Pytten and recorded at Grieghallen.

Early Burzum is kind of a joke but the trancey structure of Hvis Lyset Tar Oss is a breath of fresh air from the sometimes formulaic song structures of heavy metal bands.


Back before the webernets it was hard to find any information on these bands.  I was surprised to see Pytten and Grieghallen show up in so many liner notes.  For example what is clearly Emperor's best work



Thus Spake the Night Spirit.  They don't make them like that anymore.  Sadly neither did Emperor.

I thought Borknagar, aside from having a silly name, had an uneven debut album.



One of the better tracks.

Ain't gonna lie, I never bought into the whole Mayhem mystique.  But you gotta at least respect De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

Freezing Moon, solid

I like that you can even find new things.  File Hades under "it's new to me".



There is definitely a certain pathos in the work that binds them together.

What more can I say?  The work speaks for itself.

Officially sanctioned true Norwegian Black Metal

Apparently the government of Norway is training diplomats to be able to explain to foreign inquiries the nature of true Norwegian black metal.  Please someone Photoshop Fenriz' head onto the body of a diplomat sitting in the UN assembly hall.  Thank you.