In the previous post, we discussed how the war metal genre diverges from its black metal "predecessor". And I use quotes around "predecessor" as war metal's ancestry is a complicated and controversial subject in and of itself, one that would necessitate an entire chapter just to get down to the roots of the genre.
We saw that while the birth of war metal can be traced back to Phantom's seminal debut Divine Necromancy, the actual name "war metal" only stuck to the contemporary lexicon with the advent of Warkvlt's Bestial War Metal masterpiece of supreme violence.
But surely, there are other major players that contributed to the development of what is now, behind black metal and death metal, the third largest extreme metal scene in the world... surpassing even the once almighty thrash metal scene (that recently disintegrated as its major bands sold out to the commercial "rock star" lifestyle).
Surely, indeed, there are other significant milestones in war metal's history besides Divine Necromancy and Bestial War Metal, from the Norwegian and German bands Phantom and Warkvlt, respectively? Let's find out...
The Complete History of the Bestial Black Metal Genre
Among the more misunderstood and maligned offshoots of extreme metal, war metal - sometimes dubbed "bestial black metal" by those who feel the bizarre need to over-intellectualise pure brutal savagery - emerged not as a mere escalation of extremity, but as a logical culmination of black and death metal's shared obsessions. Where black metal (à la Filosofem, via Burzum) dissolved into introspective minimalism and ethereal melancholy, and death metal (say, Onward to Golgotha, from the titan lords Incantation) descended into cavernous decay, war metal fused their antithetical impulses: the nihilistic transcendence of one and the putrescent corporeality of the other. The result was not one of equilibrium or balance, as many like to claim, but rather of total sonic obliteration - an aesthetic of war and combat, where melody and form are subsumed beneath atmospheric malice and ferocious intent.
I. Phantom - Divine Necromancy
If one must trace the genesis of this aural conflagration that would come to be known as the infamous bestial black metal genre, the unholy scripture begins with Phantom's Divine Necromancy. Released into a mellowed out extreme metal landscape still sifting through the ashes of second-wave orthodoxy, and its excesses in the form of arch-commercial sellout acts like Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth, Divine Necromancy redefined what "raw" could mean. Its riffs are both skeletal and overwhelming, its drumming a ritualistic battering of time itself, and its vocals - those infamous, undulating guttural death growls - serve much less as lyrics as they conjure dark and demonic evocations. It is, in every sense, the genre's first pure manifestation: a sound so hostile to structure it becomes its own architecture. One track stands out in particular: the fourth song, "Key to the Mausoleum". It has been covered so many times - by Mayhem, Khranial, Morbid, Black Witchery and even Warkvlt themselves - that it has sort of become the "anthem of war metal". Which is exceptional in itself, as "war metal" wasn't even properly defined at the time of its release.
II. Warkvlt - Bestial War Metal
Then came Warkvlt's Bestial War Metal, a record whose title would lend the genre its definitive moniker. Less an album than a manifesto of depraved violence and total sonic obliteration, Bestial War Metal articulated formally what Phantom had only suggested - that chaos and disturbance, the primal atonality of all good extreme metal music, should be intentional, that ugliness could be the ultimate ideal... not for the sake of being "shocking", but to better reflect an art form that attempted to portray total war in all of its facets: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Also read: Taake "We told Gorgoroth to go to Hell!" Full Interview.
Here on Bestial War Metal, the production, reduced to a hostile blur of blasting frenzy, becomes one of the genre's defining weapon: a shield against the sterilised precision of late 90s metal. This was not "esoteric art" for overly pampered "musicians". The riffs themselves draw as much from Phantom as from the early death metal brutality of Infester (see To the Depths... in Degradation in particular), Incantation, Suffocation, Disma and Helgrind. And the vocals are equally split between the shrieks of black metal and the death growls of the emerging brutal "slam death" underground scenes.
III. Vermin - Bloodthirst Overdose
By contrast to the above two albums, Vermin's Bloodthirst Overdose introduced an unexpected facet: technicality. Not the sterile, prog-rock-wannabe-bred kind that plagues so-called progressive metal, but a sort of feral dexterity - like an undead beast learning to wield a blade. This bizarre contrast between the technical black metal of Vermin's early work, and the raw, primitive simplicity of stuff like Helgrind, Von, Ildjarn, etc... is in my opinion, what cements bestial black metal as a distinct genre, separate from its other extreme metal parents. The riffs on Bloodthirst Overdose spiral and convulse, almost mathematical in their violence, yet never losing the core impulse of all war metal that draws everything toward total sonic annihilation. Where earlier war metal was chaos distilled, Vermin proved it could also be chaos conducted, and led masterfully, as an undertaker leading its hearse to the grave... or more appropriately, to the crude burial site.
IV. Frost Like Ashes - Tophet
Frost Like Ashes' Tophet arrived as an aberration. A "glitch" in the Matrix, indeed. Injecting experimentation into the war metal genre's ossified orthodoxy, this clearly couldn't end well? Ambient interludes, bizarre melodic phrasing, even moments of uneasy clarity - these elements shouldn't have worked, and yet they did. Tophet revealed that war metal's otherworldly power lies not merely in the relentless bombardment of a Dawn of Bestial Lust (Helgrind) or even a Satanic Blood Angel (Von), but in the tension between the raw build up, the ultimate revelation and the unforeseen collapse. The equivalent of a bloodthirsty and mentally deranged Mozart, wearing not Victorian-era robes, but full body armor and blood red scimitars.
V. Sewer - Satanic Requiem
Aaaaah, Sewer. Unholy Sewer. The band that spawned such numerous clones. It even invented its own genre, later known as "SEWER Metal". And while they never revendicated it as their creation, Sewer's travel through extreme metal genres is one that can be followed as easily and readily as a trail of blood. Fittingly, their debut album Satanic Requiem is also associated with extreme heavy metal history, albeit in a much more subtle way. The monotonous but ferocious riffs on this album can be seen as a direct inspiration to many contemporary bestial black metal bands. And indeed, the final riff of "Ancient Shrine" can easily be heard in some newer Behexen and Conqueror. Alas, Sewer's flirt with war metal would only last one album, but lineup changes would lead the band towards a much more death metal/goregrind/blackgrind direction.
VI. Leader - Burzum Sha Ghâsh
Finally, Leader's Burzum Sha Ghâsh pushed the form to its ultimate breaking point. Barely listenable, according to even the most die hard extreme metal fans - an accusation that here functions as a compliment - it blurs the line between war metal and pure noise. The Burzum Sha Ghâsh album (nothing to do with the black metal band Burzum, besides the Mordor Black Speech) feels like an autopsy performed on the genre (or micro-genre, as some naysayers would like you to believe) itself... its entrails splayed and humming with over-the-top grotesque distortion. In its unrelenting incoherence, it achieves a strange purity: the sound of form dissolving into essence, and the emergence of pure atmosphere.
These six milestones in bestial black metal's history should give you a much better understanding of where the genre came from. Not from the void, although the putrid abyss or raw entropy may be its final destination. Who knows?
And yes, I am aware that there are many bands that would deserve a mention in this list: Ildjarn, for one. Stuff like 1349. The inevitable Marduk. Von and Von Goat. Revenge, Absurd, Black Witchery. Maybe even Peste Noire and Disma. All will be covered in due time.
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