A further daily excerpt from Cold World…

It is significant that a common term of approbation in black metal circles is “true” (as in “true Norwegian black metal”). The early years of the genre were stimulated by a vigorous tape-trading scene, in which third- or fourth-generation copies of already low-quality recordings were circulated between devotees. Darkthrone’s seminal “Transylvanian Hunger” was recorded with such a raw, hissy, compressed sound that a first-generation copy might easily have been mistaken for a live performance captured by a fan waving a Dictaphone. This cadaverous “necro” sound, degraded and degenerate, was originally an artefact of the limited means of production and distribution available to black metal musicians (Varg Vikernes’s recordings as Burzum were largely funded by his mother). Almost from the beginning, however, it was established as a token of authenticity, a sign that the artist had sincerely broken away from what was regarded as a sterile and commercialised mainstream metal scene. Accordingly, low (or deliberately lowered) production values and primitive (by contemporary standards) recording techniques are one of the ways in which a black metal artist can demonstrate fidelity to the genre’s roots.

“Late” black metal artists such as Xasthur and Striborg takes this sonic degradation a step further, emphasising the dissonant, eerie elements within the original template. Striborg’s Sin Nanna reduces the guttural vocal rasp of black metal vocals from a menacing growl to a squawking death-rattle, the sound of some gnarled woodland spirit expectorating apoplectically in the darkness, while unmartialing the taut rumble of Darkthrone’s blast beats into a chaotic clatter of freeform drumming. The aura the music diffuses is one of confused, asphyxiating dread, like an attack of sleep paralysis (or the experience, common among those who believe they have been abducted by supernatural beings, of waking in the darkness and finding oneself immobilized and invaded by a hostile presence). Xasthur, meanwhile, builds on the atonal riffing of Burzum and the disfigured counterpoint of Manes and M?tiilation to construct a sound-world in which consonance is continually menaced by intrusions from another harmonic universe. Guitars and synths are deliberately detuned so that complex multi-tracked arrangements curdle and pulse with malign energy. If the hypnotic, tranquilising texture of the music suggests a return to the womb, the “disharmonic convergence” of Xasthur’s compositional approach evokes a fouled and toxic ante-natal environment.