Fimbulwinter
Servants of Sorcery

A blaze in the Northern sky and Darkthrone created black metal; sure, Mayhem came first, but in the end, they debuted after, and ultimately, true Norwegian black metal was codified by Fenriz and Nocturno Culto. At that point, many young compatriots decided that black metal was a good and righteous thing, the consequences of all this are well-known, and they started playing, trying to emulate what was done in “A Blaze in the Northern Sky”.

Some of these young men decided to form a band and call it Fimbulwinter, inspired by the long winter that should precede the end of the world in Norse tradition, and one of the members was a certain Stian Tomt Thoresen, a name that obviously doesn't evoke anything, because it is known that true black metallers all have an evil, wicked, and dark pseudonym; so what is Stian Thoresen's pseudonym? Shagrath, yes indeed, the singer of Dimmu Borgir.

And here comes the amazement, at least for me, it came when I discovered it because I didn't expect Shagrath to have played in a truly black metal band, those minimalist ones of the early days with albums randomly recorded in the forests, with some band members making evil faces on the obscure black and white cover photos. Because Dimmu Borgir has never been like that, or maybe only partially during the debut “For All Tid”, and I always thought that if Euronymous hadn’t been killed by Burzum, he would have sent a squad of corpse paint thugs to burn the houses of Shagrath and Silenoz for composing that glossy “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”; after all, at that time, those who listened to death metal were ghettoized, albums like “Spiritual Healing” were considered commercial, let alone releasing an endlessly pompous album for a major label, with the perfectly legible band logo on the CD cover no less! True black metal logos are all illegible, evil, and convoluted, damn it! Maybe Dead actually committed suicide because he listened to “Abrahadabra” early in a premonitory dream.

The fact remains that “Servants of Sorcery,” the only album by Fimbulwinter, is a true album of true black metal, published in 1994 but recorded a full two years earlier, thus part of the first wave hailing from the cold fjords of Norway and faithfully following the path outlined by Darkthrone from their conversion to the black flame in 1991. The important thing, however, is that it is not a derivative and soulless work; in fact, among the scream vocals of the singer and the continuous hum of the guitars, one can sense the inspiration (after all, in the lineup there’s also Skoll, later in Ulver and Arcturus), the kind of inspiration that can make those who appreciate this type of music happy, which, although much has been said about it, remains a genre for the few, enlightened or clueless depending on the point of view.