Mix Cover and Banner Image: Artwork for Bathory’s 4th album ‘Blood Fire Death’. The front cover comes from the painting The Wild Hunt of Odin (1872) by Peter Nicolai Arbo.

Bathory’s ‘Blood Fire Death’, the band’s 4th album released in 1988 turns 35 years this October 2023.

It all starts with a dark folk lullaby, only longer. The continuum of the two first tracks ‘Odens Ride the Nordland’ and ‘A Fine Day To Die’ combining to conjure a vision of Odin ruling over his hall, Valhalla (where slain warriors were chosen to reside). As shown in the lovely, dated artwork – Odin the mighty god of war and death, riding high as the exponent of Norse mythology, sets the tone for what’s coming, as we travel through successive manifestations of Viking lore. This album sets the record straight allowing very little in way of who you’re declaring allegiance to.

The music atomising an immediate reaction to the core elements of the Norse, in the face of an increasingly ruptured universe, that asks metal fans to commit the current mainstream (including, in part, the first wave of black metal) to oblivion, and embrace the gates of Valhalla for all eternity. From this moment on, Quorthon truly embodies Odin’s avatar, becoming the legendary, quasi-mystical spiritual being that he is for many, after his death.

Such a promethean effort from a talented, visionary, multi-instrumentalist was coming but this, already his 4th album at the age of only 22 years old, is such a statement of intent that it lulls you in from the start as you play with the unexpected. Listeners gradually gain release of the corporeal evils of the mundane world (all the beastly dramas experienced in the Trash and Death Metal of the times) and accept both music and aesthetic will – should they wish – change them forever. And so it did, for me.

On this landmark anniversary, I compiled 20 tracks that bring back the spirit of the album, its atmosphere and grandeur. The inclusion of these twenty tracks specifically, and not others, are the result of several factors, stemming naturally from an effortless, immediate selection of dozens of songs, given that I’ve been maintaining a playlist titled “Bathory Universe” for decades, and all the obvious classics – specially pre-millennium releases – claim their place in the all important flashbulb-type memory that is one’s immediate “in my head”. But this automatic roster of highly revered favourites comes with a cost, the cost of falling superfluous and redundant, safe and comfortable in its all encompassing catalogue of hits. Still, classics make up for roughly half of the selection, with the familiar names, from Emperor to Ulver, and the choice of tracks is pulled from albums that are mandatory for a Bathory tribute as they are for the history of Black Metal itself.

The other half of the selection is not so obvious. It derives from personal preference, and the mark left by album or song and how it associates with ‘BFD’. From this moment, I embark in the higher purpose of elevating this exercise from a random playlist-like selection to a personal curation, an inherently intellectual activity, as I feed the process with the thoughtful judgement, the why this and not that, an intrinsic need for the creation of meaning and the development of a narrative.

Its not all (at all) about the head banging when it comes to Bathory, equal parts raw and energetic, dramatic and emotional, the music composition and tone color, and the themes found in the aesthetic and lyrics influenced every angle of the Second Wave of Black Metal, specially the inner-circle of True Norwegian Black Metal (with the early Darkthrone and Mayhem at the start) and offshoots such as Viking, Symphonic and Atmospheric expressions that developed from that initial pool of raw and uncompromising energy but found melody and harmonics that developed a deep sense of bewilderment in the listener, epitomised in works such as Burzum’s early work (right up to 1996’s Filosofem) or Immortal’s Battles in The North.

About the tracklist:

First half features the mandatory pre-millennium, Scandinavian Black Metal Royalty, with the Norwegian ‘brethren’ Emperor, Enslaved, Ulver, Satyricon and Windir delivering some of their strongest. The odd one out falls on Falkenbach, a band that gets as close to Bathory as any German band has ever been, and pretty early on (btw, the other odd German band in this early era has to be the largely unknown Eminenz, who opened for Mayhem (in Annaberg-Buchholz) in a string of shows in East Germany, right after the fall of the wall, in 1990. What a time to be alive. Their album Exorial is one of my favourites). remarks:

Emperor’s inclusion is mandatory and their cover of ‘A Fine Day To Die’ is the quintessential tribute hit. There are so many other tracks that summon the spirit of Bathory but this is a fabulous cover. Its no coincidence Emperor cover ‘A Fine Day To Die’ and play it often. It makes the 1998 tribute album ‘In Conspiracy With Satan: A Tribute to Bathory’ which is a fantastic display of some of the most prolific enforcers of the 90’s scene. I could easily include 10 favourite Emperor tracks that’d fit here but this belongs in every Bathory tribute and Summer festival as a leitmotif of the Bathory’s staying power.

Immortal’s ‘Blizzard Beasts’ was released in 1997 after two very competent albums that introduced Demonaz as the master of the riff (also penned all lyrics), to the point of causing him to abandon his rehearsal and live playing due to a diagnosis of tendinitis in his left arm. This, probably the darkest. most sombre collection of songs the band has ever released, has been laid waste by so many critics but its still a decisive milestone towards the band’s future classics, the trilogy 1999-2002. Finished are the short riff-fest assaults, seldom stretched beyond the 4 minute mark, and before us rises the legendary songwriting of 1999’s ‘At the Heart of Winter’ with its huge, epic sound and radiant acoustic work, a staple of the Viking canon, fast becoming my favourite Immortal album ever, so it features here.

Bal-Sagoth may not be a reference in Viking Metal, their template lies in delivering Epic Dark Fantasies, through a relentless barrage of symphonic blackened war metal. But back in 1997 they were fitting enough to be guests at Emperor’s last show in London at The Astoria (LA2), which was followed by a full European tour in October of the same year. I was living in London for close to one year and this was the first time I witnessed the next in line, legends-in-the-making Norwegian masters Emperor live.

Special mentions that didn’t make the list: Craft, Gorgoroth, Barathrum, Marduk, Helheim, Carpathian Forest.

The second part or post-Y2K, is flush with hymns to ‘BFD’ (and Hammerheart) where the leitmotif of Vikings still reigns. 10 tracks from some hard working bands, bands that stand apart in the increasingly abject assembly line of post-viking, that sits on the wrong side of essential black metal, black metal that is all but a “litter of quotation marks” – of what it once was and signified.

Be it reinvented as overtly atmospheric and emotional, Cascadian, exalting one’s own Folk and Nature (that feels right at home in this day and age) or just paying homage to Bathory’s template of raw style and electroacoustic beauty, I can still hear the mythical aura and the magic touch of Quorthon in most, and amongst the so called hundreds strong ‘Bathory-like playlist’, these are alright.

01/10/2023