DIMMU BORGIR - FORCES OF THE NORTHERN NIGHT

Dimmu Borgir - Forces Of The Northern Night (HD)

Live At Spektrum, Oslo 2011 [Full Concert]

SETLIST:
01. Intro
02. Xibir
03. Born Treacherous (04:02)
04. Gateways (09:20)
05. Oving Med KORK (Documentary)
06. Dimmu Borgir (20:04)
07. Vredesbyrd (25:45)
08. Rigging av Spektrum (Documentary)
09. Progenies of the Great Apocalypse (33:45)
10. The Serpentine Offering (39:20)
11. fans fra hele verden (Documentary)
12. Puritania (47:30)
13. Mourning Palace (50:30)

VIDEO DETAILS:
Resolution: 1280 x 720
FPS: 30/s

AUDIO DETAILS:
Bit rate: 224Kps
Channels: 2 (stereo)
Sampling rate of audio: 48kHz

SOURCE:
http://youtu.be/-YC4WJcvd7Y

IN MEMORY OF QUORTHON: 1966 - 2004

Source: http://youtu.be/v8UpLL4KWf8

Quorthon (born Thomas Börje Forsberg February 17, 1966, Stockholm, died c. June 7, 2004, Stockholm) was a Swedish musician. He was a multi-instrumentalist and the founder and songwriter of the pioneering Swedish black metal band Bathory. He is also credited with creating the Viking metal genre. He composed the music and wrote the lyrics on all of Bathory's albums.

Quorthon formed Bathory in 1983 when he was 17 years old, after briefly playing in the Oi!-band Stridskuk. He recorded his early albums together with the help of his father, Börje Forsberg, the head of the Swedish record label Tyfon Grammofon, who also released most of his albums on the Tyfon imprint Black Mark. The first album was recorded in the garage of famed schlager writer Peter Himmelstrand, dubbed Studio Heavenshore.

Around this time (in the mid-late 80's) live performances by Bathory were rare. Albums from this period helped the then-burgeoning black metal sub-genre, and rare photographs of the band helped in part to define its image. Quorthon at this time claimed to have stressful experiences dealing with over-zealous fans, receiving letters written in blood and dead/mutilated animals in the post, amongst other things. This behaviour, along with Bathory's image and style of music, cemented Quorthon's unfortunate image, as he put it, as "the baby-eating, blood-drinking God of the bat-cave" in the popular imagination as well as popular metal press, much to Quorthon's disgust and anger.

Beginning in the 1990s, Quorthon took full control of Bathory, choosing to forgo performing live in order to spend time recording music with hired musicians, as well changing style from the black metal of the 80's to a slower, heavier style dubbed "Viking metal", due to its lyrics being focused on Norse mythology. From this point onwards, he also played bass guitar on almost all of his albums, and mostly used a drum machine or a session drummer. Quorthon also personally paid for the production of Bathory's only ever music video, for the song "One Rode to Asa Bay", taken from their second Viking metal album, Hammerheart. The video was shown on MTV's Headbanger's Ball, though Quorthon had not yet seen it at the time he was interviewed for the program.

In 1993 Quorthon set Bathory aside and recorded and released three albums under the name "Quorthon". The first, called Album, was released in 1994, and then in 1996 Quorthon released Blood on Ice, a Viking metal concept album which he began recording in 1989 but did not finish.Then the final two albums which came under the title of Quorthon were released which were Purity of Essence and When Our Day Is Through and both were released in 1997. The albums were more rock oriented than Bathory's black / Viking /Thrash style. While working on these albums he found new inspiration to continue composing music for Bathory. Bathory's next albums were in a retro-thrash metal style, unlike previous releases. His next albums followed in that vein, before he veered towards his Viking metal style once again especially on the Nordland saga. It was planned as a four-album set, but only two were finished. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorthon

BLACK METAL: A DOCUMENTARY

Black Metal: A Documentary

90 Minutes | Bill Zebub Productions | 2007

SYNOPSIS:

Black Metal: A Documentary features interviews with a variety of musicians who helped create and define this subgenre of heavy metal typified by dark subject matter. The program includes contributions from Darkthrone, Gloomy Grim, and Dark Funeral.

Source: http://youtu.be/wZd13-dSrAc

REVIEW:

What is Black Metal? Who started Black Metal? What's with all this talk about Satan? These are the typical questions asked by outsiders to the Black Metal scene. Actually, these are questions asked even by some people in the scene. If you want answers to these and many more questions pertaining to Black Metal this DVD is just about the best resource you're going to find. These questions are discussed, as well as a whole host of other topics pertaining to the music. This is a raw, lower budget video that cuts out all the crap and gets right to the point. One interesting thing is that there is no narrator. It's the bands themselves that do all the talking. The only outsider involved is one subject who asks questions. As the producer states in his brief introduction, this guy is there to basically let the viewer know when they are changing topics. He wants the artists to tell the story of Black Metal, not an outsider.

As far as the bands go, there are some lesser known bands and some real giants of Black Metal. Cronos is interviewed quite a bit, and is very outspoken. Interviews with Abbath in full corpse paint, and Tom Warrior, actually talking about what an abomination Cold Lake was, are simply priceless. Besides Venom, Immortal and Celtic Frost, other bands included are Gorgoroth, Enslaved, Darkthrone, King Diamond/Mercyful Fate, Mortiis, Primordial, and Gloomy Grim, among others. There are a few live clips that are very cool, but that's not really what this DVD is all about.

What's very interesting is how the bands perceive things differently. While obviously all are spoken to at different times in different places, they are asked the same questions and cover the same subject matter. People may be surprised at the differences of opinion on certain subjects. But that's what makes this DVD great. Real artists, talking about something they're passionate about; the creation of the art, as well as the philosophy. At 90 minutes you really get your monies worth. Anyone with any curiosity at all about Black Metal, whether a fan or not should see this DVD. For fans of Black Metal this is a must have for their collection, as a matter of fact, any fan of any genre of Metal should check out this DVD, you will definitely enjoy it and learn a thing or two. - www.seaoftranquility.org

SAGA - by Einherje Film AS, Norway

Saga - a Black Metal Viking Biker-film with Zombies. Starring: Ted Skjellum, legendary famous as Nocturno Culto from the bands Darkthrone, Sarke and Satyricon. 

Ted "Culto" Skjellum teamed up with writer, producer, director and photographer Jorn Steen to make this future cult movie about a Metalmusic videodirector, Culto, who escalades to making a feature Viking-movie based upon the northern classic Eyrbyggja Saga. Actually a Zombie-story, about a dead Viking breaking out of his tomb, terrorizing the locals. Culto rides a Moto Guzzi, and he gets his Bikerfriends to help him as extras in this Metafilm about making a Viking-feature.

We still need some funding before we start shooting. All actors are good to go, all locations are beeing prepared. Jorn has been a proffesional photographer since 1979, he knows his business and we think this will be a future classic. This film contains all the cool stuff in one feature, this can´t be wrong! Please help us!!

We will need to raise the amount of 40.000 Euro before we start shooting in June 2013, please help us achieve this goal.

The film will be recorded in Norwegian with English subtitles or dubbed for local foreign markets.

Source: http://www.newjelly.com/projectdetail.aspx?ProjectId=651

BLACK METAL SATANICA

Black Metal Satanica | 80 Minutes | Doom Films Production | 2008

Black Metal Satanica is a documentary about, well, satanic Black Metal. The focus point is Scandinavian Black Metal, mainly Swedish. It starts with a few musicians giving a brief run through on Norse mythology, the history of the vikings and their uncompromising attitude toward Christianity, which was allegedly the rooting puzzle in answering the question why Black Metal was and still are so popular in Scandinavia.

To be honest, its a little bit cheesy for my liking. Everything in the documentary are nothing new to me. Their hatred towards Christianity, Norse mythology, Satanism, you know, the whole nine yards. I was expecting something different or at least something new.

The production was a bit gloomy and dark. Certain individuals giving interviews in the dark and all, and I was like, come on. Enough with that dark imagery and go straight to the music. Nobody gives a shit about your "darkness". 

Some of the interviewees, like Bjorn Almar, gave decent interviews and some were meh. I believe this was due to the fact that some of the individuals had to answer questions in english, it was a bit difficult to really make out what they were actually saying. 

Being a Swedish produced documentary, the documentary gave emphasis on the influence of Swedish black metal personalities, for example, highlighting Dead and the importance of his recruitment into Mayhem as being the focal point of the wave turning of Black Metal. I would rather have the documentary put more emphasis on Quarthon and Bathory instead, if they really wanted to highlight influential Swedish figures.

The documentary also touched on the evil acts that have been associated with Black Metal in the instance of grave desecration, church burnings and what not. And I was like, come on. And when you thought it would not get more funnier, you will also have a Blair Witch Project like segment where the crew was interviewing this one mysterious figure (so mysterious that they had to distort his voice) about grave desecration and all that pure evil stuff, and then the lights went out, they heard a bang and the mysterious person just vanished into thin air. The crew then went into some jungle to look for him. What the fuck? The comedy just wrote itself.  

The narrators. Oh man, do not get me started with the bloody narrators. They were trying too hard to sound evil and creepy and it ended out being funny as hell. The narratives were poorly written and was clearly written to spook everybody. And Euronymous? The grandfather of Black Metal? Really? It was called the second wave of black metal for a reason, asshole. How can he be a grandfather, if he was not from the first wave of Black Metal? If it were all up to me, that title would go to Quarthon. And Troll metal? What the fuck is a Troll Metal?

Well, this is just a poor poor production. But you can try and watch this video for the Blair Witch part. Hilarious. Sometime, I often wondered why nobody even tried to elaborate the character of its music instead of just focusing on the controversies and image. Why black metal sounded the way in it sounded. Why that particular chords or that particular progression. Anybody up to the challenge?

REVIEW: BENIGN NOR HAFEEZ / THE BULLET BELT PRESS

UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US

Until The Light Takes Us, Audrey Ewell & Aaron Aites.

I have managed to watch this yesterday and as a huge fan of documentary flicks and black metal music in general, I was quite disappointed with how "Until The Light Takes Us" turned out to be. In fact when I first heard the rumors about the making of this documentary a couple of years before its actual production, I was quite reserved as to how they're going to pull this off. Disappointed but I think I kind of saw that was coming.

I must admit that I am not really a big fan of the earlier Norwegian black metal music due to lack of exposure and to the fact that I could not really bring myself to tolerate with the lo-fi sound production, the gritty cold sound opted and championed by most of the bands from that era, although I have to say that I have always been a snotty fan of Immortal and the earlier stuff by Emperor. I have always been fascinated with the controversies though, thus the reason why I’ve made myself endure this time consuming piece of frog crap.

The phase was too sluggish. There were quite a number of scenes which I regard as absolutely unnecessary, absolute waste of time and contributed absolutely nothing to content of the documentary. For example, the part where they filmed the mighty Fenriz in a black metal art exhibition or the part where they filmed Frost doing some silly pantomime while cutting himself open and shocked some Greek teenage emo girls.

Do not miss the part where they found a crazy hobo, dressed that poor fucker with a leather jacket, corpse paint and all, and filmed that buffon doing a tap dance routine to a gothic score, headbang, metal horns and all. What does that got to do with black metal? I have no fucking idea. 

Basically, UTLTU is a documentary about the Norwegian Black Metal music scene, its history and its world renowned notoriety. If you are fascinated with the myriads of myths behind that celebrated scene, you might want to check this out just for fun. But if you are looking for in depth researches and investigations, I would simply recommend you to go and read Lord of Chaos.

Well, for a kick, you will be able to see Abbath and Demonaz, a whole chunk of Fenriz, a whole chunk Varg Vikernes, Some chunk of Frost, Hellhammer, Garm, Faust and some other names you might recognize. Dont forget Tony the tap dancing black metal clown.

REVIEW: BENIGN NOR HAFEEZ / THE BULLET BELT PRESS

ONCE UPON A TIME IN NORWAY

Once Upon A Time In Norway | 6o Minutes | Grenzelos Production | 2007

Once Upon A Time In Norway - The History of Mayhem and the Rise of Norwegian Black Metal, is basically a documentary aiming focus on the most notorious Norwegian black metal band of all time, the self proclaimed leader of the second wave of Scandinavian Black Metal elite, the infamous, the notorious, Mayhem.

This documentary is basically the most comprehensive record on the subject of Mayhem up to the event that made them, their music and their country world famous, straight from the horse’s mouth, from the members and former members of the band. You’ll have in depth interviews with Manheim (drums), Messiah (vocals), Necrobutcher (bass) (all three were from the first line up of the band together with Destructor, later known as Euronymous) and the whole other lots related to the band.

The documentary kicked off with an audio statement made by Count Grishnack justifying his infamous  criminal act of killing Mayhem’s guitarist, Euronymous back in 1993. Basically with that, I have already managed to perceive where would the climax of this documentary be. With Mayhem being the main subject matter, I don’t really blame the producers of this video for this easy let down. It is also funny that with that, I was also able to guess that this documentary would not give length to the post murder Mayhem.

You will be able to learn about the history of the band, through the tongues of Necro, Manheim and the gang as they recounts the idealism and philosophy behind the band and its music back in their early formative years and how they plot for world domination way before they even got a song to their name. A serious marketing strategy there, if you want to learn a thing or two.

It is also revealing to note how Satanism (the idea not really the cult) and politics influenced the development of the band in their earlier years, especially left wing politics in the likes of communism (Leninism and Stalinism) and how Euronymous and Manheim were so into communism. Euro went to the extent of being a card carrying member of a local communist party.

I love the fact that they organized the film into segments. You will have segments in the likes of history, politics, underground, dead, church burnings and so forth depending on the focus of the particular part of the documentary. So the build up was bits by bit which was very good for me. And of course, the main course would be Grishnack, the murders and the existence of the notorious Inner Circle.

I read from the internet that there are a few people out there complaining that this documentary lacked depth for failing to really elaborate on the reason why the Norwegian Black Metal scene existed in the first place, comparing it to Until The Light Take Us. Now, thats too far, blasphemous even. 

Well, I have to disagree. This is a very very good documentary and light years away from UTLTU. UTLTU was a horrendous piece of crap. Information were provided everywhere by everyone. You just need to know how to piece up the puzzles. Well, if that does not convince you, at least this video does not have a tap dancing clown doing head bangs and pumping metal horns, all over the fucking floor.

In all honesty, I love this documentary. It was professionally produced and very well written and organized. If you worship Mayhem and black metal, then you should go out and get (download) this. Oh, one more thing, this documentary is in Norwegian. Unless you are proficient in the language, I would suggest you make sure that the subtitles are available. 

REVIEW: BENIGN NOR HAFEEZ / THE BULLET BELT PRESS