Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.02.2016, Blaðsíða 46

14 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 2 — 2016
death will make anyone obsessed with
it, it seems. “Everything is futile when
you look at it from far away enough.
Nothing is of any consequence,” he says
seriously.
Futility is a word that continually
comes up, as is defeat. “Defeat is the
key concept here in Mannveira,” Illugi
tells me. The name literally translates
to “Human Virus.” I ask him to explain
that to me, but he answers with a joke. “I
mean, go to downtown Reykjavík at 6am
and the name will make perfect sense!”
There’s the wall. A short silence follows.
Finally, drummer Jón Arnar steps up.
“Look, the human being on Earth is not
doing anything good. It is a virus.” Axel,
their bassist, nods, then adds, “We are
just a cosmic accident.”
“Iceland is dark, depressing, and
cold.” Hjalti from Auðn tells me, when
I ask what it is that created this scene.
Auðn means “Desolation.” “Desolation
is both a horrible place and a place that
draws you in,” Hjalti tells me. Illugi says
something similar: “We live in a small,
isolated, cold, place. No one speaks our
language. You have to find something to
make meaning of it all.” But make mean-
ing of what? Life? Death? I ask Hafste-
inn. “I avoid death-worship or outright
death-worship,” he says, “but black
metal always reminds you—memento
mori—it screams it.”
Every band, at some point, men-
tions the financial crash. Of course, all
of them were fans of black metal before
the upheaval, but it’s impossible to em-
phasize how much this event affected
everyone, taking these nihilists and
making them even more pessimistic.
“Would it be better for tourism and the
Grapevine if we said yeah, the scene is
inspired by nature and the power of the
geysers?” Mannveira’s Jón Arnar asks
with a smirk. Everyone laughs. “And the
elves!” Axel adds. Tómas is more seri-
ous: “Iceland never knew true poverty
before the crash.” He tells me about how
families were homeless, how lives were
ruined, and how the bankers were bare-
ly even punished. If any event has co-
loured, or perhaps finalised these boys’
perception of their own society, this is it.
“Look, I think some people either get
black metal or they don’t,” Stephen tells
me. “It’s not something that you can pre-
scribe to somebody. It just kind of clicks,
and you either feel it or you don’t.” Þórir
nods at this. “With the risk of sounding
like an exclusionist asshole,” he says, “it
is to a point something which picks you,
and not the other way around.” Garðar
laughs. “You’re right, but this is black
metal,” he smiles. “We’re supposed to be
exclusionist assholes.”
The future
of a scene
Sinmara are currently recording a new
album. “I think it’s just going to get
stronger,” Stephen tells me, discussing
the future of the Icelandic scene. “Peo-
ple keep wanting to do more and they
keep making good music. In terms of
public perception though, I don’t know.”
He pauses and narrows his eyes, as if he
doesn’t know how best to approach this
issue.
“Black metal fans get into fads,” he
says, “and when something is not cool
anymore, they don’t just move on from
it—they hate it.” Any notoriety is like a
double-edged sword. “You can already
find backlash online,” he adds with a
laugh. “People are like ‘I am so sick of
Sinmara already!’ C’mon, we just re-
leased our album last year!” Þórir rolls
his eyes. “‘They’ve got a thousand fans!’”
“‘Yeah! They’ve played to more than six
people!’” Stephen responds. “‘They are
fucking sell-outs.’”
No one can hold their laughter in—
these statements feel a little too lifelike.
Garðar shrugs. “Well, we didn’t start
this to get popular,” he says with a smile,
“so it’s not going to stop the madness.”
Meanwhile, Hafsteinn just finished
his long-awaited new album ‘Hallucino-
genesis’. “Wormlust has changed from
being this cathartic weekend diary,” he
tells me, “to something more like a long-
form novel.” He doesn’t want to make
any predictions about the scene. “Time
is fleeting, of course,” he says, looking
down.
Mannveira just finished a new al-
bum, which should be released soon,
and Auðn is looking for producers and
studios to record their next album. Both
bands hope to soon play outside of Ice-
land.
Sturla is, fittingly, more pessimistic
about the future of Icelandic black met-
al. “It’ll fade into obscurity as soon as the
next big thing happens,” he says with a
smirk. As with most things he says, it’s
hard to tell just how sarcastic he’s is.
When I ask Dagur and Tómas for
predictions, they both shrug. Dagur is
writing new material for Misþyrming.
Tómas hopes that they can begin to re-
lease vinyl on Vánagandr. Naðra just
released a new album, and there are a
few new Vánagandr releases coming
out soon. Tómas finally gives me a small
smile. “I guess we’re just going for world
domination.”
The
Book of
Genesis
Loosely, black metal can be musi-
cally defined as an extreme type
of metal characterised by shriek-
ing vocals, fast tremolo riffs, high
distortion, and low-production
recording. But this description is
vastly insufficient—there’s not only
an aesthetic legacy to the music,
but an infamous history insepa-
rable from the genre itself.
Black metal—as it is known
today—was most prominently de-
fined in Norway in the late 80s and
early 90s, where bands like May-
hem, Darkthrone, and Burzum
started creating low-production,
raw, brutal music with misan-
thropic and anti-Christian themes.
On stage they wore corpse paint
and used satanic imagery. The
whole package is iconic, and this is
evident when I ask Sturla of Svar-
tidauði to define black metal. He
smirks and responds quickly, “‘De
Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’”—the ti-
tle of Mayhem’s first record. Dagur
of Misþyrming and Naðra says the
same thing.
The scene first came into
mainstream media, spreading the
genre’s sound and ideas world-
wide, when these guys began to
burn churches around Norway.
This wasn’t just one or two isolated
events: fifty churches were even-
tually destroyed. So even from the
start, black metal was heavily con-
nected with ideology and action,
giving it a more sinister edge than
the already kind of creepy image
death metal bands had cultivated.
But arson was only the begin-
ning—eventually more extreme
acts occurred. First, Per “Dead”
Ohlin, the singer of Mayhem, shot
himself in the head. The band took
a picture of his corpse and made
it an album cover. It was also ru-
moured that the band took his skull
and made necklaces out of it. Later,
Varg Vikernes, aka Burzum, killed
local scenelord Euronymous, May-
hem’s lead guitarist, stabbing him
23 times. The international news
showed the long-haired 20-year-
old smiling unaffected as they read
out his guilty verdict. On YouTube,
the clip has millions of views.
In the 20 years since, black
metal has continued to hone an ex-
treme reputation, from the pro-sui-
cide messages of bands like Shining
to ideological radicalism to arrests
for grave desecration and murder.
At the same time, the scene has
also continued a legacy of anonym-
ity. Black metal musicians are noto-
riously faceless, using pseudonyms
and obscuring their appearances in
photographs. Many don’t play live.
And, as we’ve confirmed, most re-
fuse to give out their full names in
interviews.
The
Legion
Svartidauði
Translation: Black death
Ideology: “Apocalyptic
nihilism combined with a
certain degree of occult
perspective.”
Listen to: Venus Illegitima
Auðn
Translation: Desolation
Ideology: “Depression. If we
aren’t talking about depres-
sion directly, we are talking
about the destruction of
the world by the hands of
nature.”
Listen to: “Þjáning Heillar
Þjóðar ”
Misþyrm-
ing
Translation: Abuse
Ideology: “Fury, I guess. It’s
visceral fury.”
Listen to: Söngur heiftar
Sinmara
Translation: A female figure
in Norse mythology, who is
the wife of the fire jötunn
Surtr.
Ideology: “Death. A singular
expression of darkness. I
have been trying to aim for
outright death-worship in
many of these lyrics.”
Listen to: “Aphotic Womb”

Naðra
Translation:
Serpent or viper, also a
backstabber
Ideology: “It’s very much
inspired by nature, the high-
lands in particular. It’s about
trauma, loss, the fall from
one’s ivory tower and re-
maining true to your moral
codes, even after it ceases
to matter, because all paths
to oblivion are equal.”
Listen to: “Sár”
Wormlust
Translation: “There was
a Finnish band called
Wolfheart, so I decided to go
a little more underground—
literally from the wolf to the
worm and from the heart to
the lust.”
Ideology: “A lust for the
grave, for the void, for the
afterlife.”
Listen to: “Sex augu, tólf
stjörnur”
Mannveira
Translation: Man virus
Ideology: “Really conflict-
ing ideas about mortal-
ity, death, existence, and
consciousness, mixed in
with some really depressing
nihilism and anger. It’s the
anguish of being. The
torment of consciousness.
There’s some really con-
flicting ideas about being
and not being.”
Listen to: “Von er eitur”
See also: BLACK METAL GUIDE on P: 19 in iNFO