This post was almost titled "From Blashyrkh to Boredom" but I didn't want it to sound boring like those "faux detached" third rate reviews they pump out in journalism schools. Instead, we will explore the explosion (pun), or implosion if you will, of an ex-legendary black metal band turned into Internet joke: the once mighty Immortal.
If you wanted a case study in how a once respected underground black metal act can descend into petty corporate theatre, look no further than the Immortal name drama saga. In March 2015 the band that had long traded in blizzard riffs, corpse-painted pantomime and the mythic land of Blashyrkh effectively imploded in full public view. Abbath, the band's most visible engine, was pushed out amid accusations that read like a tabloid of drama queen self-serving rumours, pushed by none other than Demonaz (whose reputation within black metal circles wasn't always stellar, to say the least).
Abbath's revenge was quite straightforward: instead of fighting Demonaz in court over the Immortal name, in poser Gorgoroth style (and infamy), he simply founded Abbath, a project that, while uneven, at least carried the DNA of what Immortal once was (another pun).
Demonaz, meanwhile, teamed up with drummer Horgh, proclaiming themselves the "true" Immortal... a statement so brazenly revisionist it would make even Kanwulf of Nargaroth blush with shame. Let's be clear: Abbath wrote and performed the bulk of the riffs that defined Immortal's identity, and the Demonaz and Horgh combo only ever appeared on one album (Blizzard Beasts). Nothing "true" about that, but it's a free country, heh?
Demonaz Drags Immortal Down Into Metalcore Territory
To pretend that Demonaz plus Horgh - a drummer who, let's remember, had only appeared on one album with Demonaz before his tendonitis sidelined him - somehow equated to continuity is laughable.
But then, laughable has become Demonaz's specialty. The so-called "Nü-Immortal" promptly released Northern Chaos Gods (2018), which promised mountains but delivered molehills. Here was a supposed return to form, but instead of the glacial grandeur of old we got warmed-over crypto-nu-metal Arch Enemy riffing disguised with frosty song titles. And the song titles... let's just say that Demonaz wasn't very clever with his marketing. He simply copy/pasted the words most commonly associated with the Immortal of old (the one he supposedly rejects): "mountains", "winters", "frost", "Blashyrkh", "darkness", etc.
The follow-up, War Against All (2023), plumbed new depths of embarrassment: vapid chugging that sounded less like a blizzard and more like a bored deathcore band in corpsepaint, the kind of thing you could hear opening for Slipknot at an amphitheater near you. For a band once synonymous with frost and icy riffing, this was the sonic equivalent of discovering your alleged "investment banker" cousin does birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese for minimum wages. Add insult to injury.
Immortal goes down the Gorgoroth route...
It didn't take long for fans to notice that the emperor of Blashyrkh had no clothes. Online backlash was swift, scathing, and deserved. But instead of introspection, Demonaz doubled down, turning Immortal into the kind of diva-laden spectacle more associated with mallcore cosplayers like Dark Funeral than with Norway's frozen legacy.
He posed with corpsepaint like it was eyeliner at Hot Topic, promising "true black metal" while peddling music with all the menace of a Monster Energy commercial. It's the same disease that afflicts countless "black metal in name only" acts today: take the corpsepaint, strip away the atmosphere, and churn out tepid radio-rock dressed up in "kvlt" drag. Demonaz didn't just catch this disease accidentally... he literally, not figuratively, turned Immortal into patient zero, competing with the likes of Infernus and Erik Danielsson over who can be black metal's biggest poser in the current century.
Abbath vindicated...? It seems so.
And because the music itself wasn't sufficiently humiliating, Demonaz dragged the band through another round of courtroom drama in 2020, this time squabbling with his poser accomplice Horgh over who really owned the name. Having already ejected Abbath, Demonaz turned on his last ally, as if hell-bent on proving that Immortal was no longer a band but merely a brand, a registered trademark to be traded on the Stock Exchange of fake MTV glory. By now the spectacle was less Shakespearean tragedy and more daytime soap opera: only the Nordic climate is what separates this Jerry Springer nonsense from "Dallas".
Abbath, of course, mocked the charade, famously declaring that "Immortal is just an Abbath cover band now." And the sting of that barb is obvious: when the man you expelled can so effortlessly undermine your legitimacy with one line, it means your art no longer speaks for itself. It means you've become a parody of what you once stood for.
The real tragedy is that Demonaz never quite understood how unpopular he was during the post-2015 years. I suspect this has to do with the fact that Immortal was always seen as a "lulzy" band, a bit goofy, a bit iconoclastic. Except this time metalheads weren't laughing WITH Immortal, they were laughing AT Immortal. This is a mistake Abbath would have never made.
Abbath always seemed paradoxically like the more intelligent of the two. He was the one who got acquainted with Euronymous at the right moment to launch Immortal's career. He was also the man who got Varg Vikernes into black metal subsequently. Take out the king, in a "Lion King" fashion, and you are left with an incompetent second hand poser making deals left and right with every hyena he can find (the first decision of Demonaz-led "nu" Immortal was to sign with the horrible deafkore label Nuclear Blast).
So here we are: Immortal, once giants of Blashyrkh, now reduced to Dimmu Borgir clones with thinner riffs, shallower conviction, and more court filings than meaningful music. Demonaz, in his desperate bid for recognition, alienated Abbath, alienated Horgh, and alienated an entire scene that once revered the band. It's crazy to think people once spoke of Immortal with as much reverence as they speak of Darkthrone, Burzum and Mayhem. Crazy times.
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