MZ.412
Burning The Temple Of God

1996. This time MZ. 412 (aka the usual, old, omnipresent, and thank goodness, Nordvargr) come out with this beautiful album of furious and damn black-ambiently-evil ambient-noise-(black)metal. The review is anachronistic, ten years have passed, so everything can be seen in light of past choices and future paths and deviations. Better.

“Deklaration Of Holy War”. The album begins with this track. You can't make out anything beyond the beats of an 8-bit super-amped hammer hitting a pixelated door (evidently a cemetery gate or a cathedral door, also pixelated but with colors decidedly relevant to the pressing-yet-cloudy atmosphere of the album). Two voices. Male and female during what seems to be an exorcism, or a satanic rite. Someone tells me the two things “are the same thing.” I stop for five minutes, go grab a coffee.

The chatter becomes agitated, in the midst of the resulting emphasis even a “black” scream explodes, foreshadowing decidedly nastier developments. Without taking anything away from the track that naturally already maintains its own well-contained, angry, and dark tone. It all ends in a sort of green swamp with putrid branches and fog. A lot of fog. Yet it's an evil, tangible fog. Almost jagged. We keep walking because further ahead there are fires. This time the sound is drumming. From a “warmongering bonfire”. As if a group of fanatics had gathered in a rocky forest to hold an Indian gathering. In fact, towards the end, someone notices our presence and tells the others. A sound of propellers spreads, and it's wise to get out of there quick. But the drums keep drumming. For whom? For Satan, of course.
Third track. A couple of burps blended into the synthesizer introduce us in the middle of a piece of true black metal that will please fans of the old school. “Feasting On Khristian Blood”. The lyrics obviously talk about the importance of destroying symbols of Christianity, gathering a bit of demonic forces to go on a spree blowing up some heads (and skulls) and feasting with the inevitable Christian pig's blood pudding.

Fourth track. Evidently the least happy episode of the album, as it seems to be in a medieval disco. On the decks Merlin (or his evil twin), delighting us with a fairly standard performance of styrofoam grating and propeller unleashing. I fast forward. And indeed the same track turns into a sort of outro for a film about knights who have just returned to the castle devastated by a bunch of stinky trolls. Note the look of the head knight, who, pissed off to the maximum, prepares an attack plan all inside his mind. Meanwhile, the condors know everything. And a nice battle is being prepared because the head knight looked quite pissed. Fifth track. A certain calm returns, but it is an exclusively physical calm. In the sense that we walk again in the mud while just above us some sheets fly, bending as if they were giant wings. A gigantic animal must have awakened. Roars coming from a 16-bit console and passed to the synthesizer foreshadow something terrible. But in reality, everything is terrible. The air we breathe is terrible. We are surrounded by snakes, our friends turn towards us transformed into horrendous monsters. A haunted voice mocks us with a doglike delay. Reminiscences of the medieval disco. But this time it's different. Back then we had just left Satan with the promise to meet him again somewhere just after the banquet of Christian blood; while now we are alone; and the song is over.

Sixth track. A female voice tells us that some people were scandalized hearing her talk about having drunk piss and that some kids had something done to them. All the typical ingredients of the future Nordvargrian are present in this track. Where else could we find ourselves if not “in the dungeons,” and at the psychiatric crossroads represented by the doubt of whether it will be a beast or a beast-prison guard to slaughter us, or our own anxieties and frustrations? I already know what you’re thinking. In fact, a ritual choir reaches us through the cracks in the wall, echoing in the room. Noise, and demonic voices that don't seem to appreciate our presence here. Meanwhile, a tennis ball bounces on a drawbridge (seventh track).
Eighth track. Ecclesiastical organ (about twenty seconds) and black metal outburst of drums and guitar (about a minute). Voices, electromagnetic oscillations, digitronic pulses blended and made unrecognizable. It could seem like equipment setting up its own sound check. Quite unsettling. Someone may have wondered “but in the meantime, where the hell are we?”. Ninth track. Final shake-up with oscillations and distortions, but rather squalid compared to the start of the album; you could see the knight was tired.

Haha... you can't feast forever.