Taake
Noregs Vaapen

Taake, 1999: “Nattestid Ser Ported Vid”

Taake, 2011: “Noregs Vaapen”

I don't know anything else, I don't remember anything else: I only recall that the debut of the then unknown black/dressed and white/painted figure on the cover (as today, as always) I liked a lot. Actually, let's be honest, I literally adored “Nattestid...”, and still adore it, so much so that I consider it (in my very subjective and heretical opinion – following my pathological categorizing instinct) among the three absolute black metal albums of all time, alongside icons like “Transilvanian Hunger” (Darkthrone, 1994) and “Nattens Madrigal (Ulver, 1997): speed, melody, coldness, epicness, raw but distinguishable sounds, inspiration from the first to the last note. And let's remember, my judgment (involuntarily) wasn't that heretical if we consider, in hindsight, that the young Hoest, the undisputed head of the band, was born and artistically formed in Bergen, a hotspot of many historical Norwegian black metal realities in the nineties, and that his Thule, the first embryo of the band to come, took its first steps in distant 1993 and published their first demo in 1994!

But let's leave it, the point is that, despite everything, despite “Nattestid...” hitting me well, back then it didn't even occur to me to delve into the subsequent history of these champions of the most rancid and feral black metal: it was after all 1999, and after more than half a decade of “black militancy” (for clarity: six years of unconditional dependency on everything coming from Scandinavian lands defined by “black” and ending with “metal”), I felt that the genre was basically getting on my nerves and thus I moved on to other musical shores.

But let's get back to 2011: this latest work comes out, I read well about it, so well that I almost feel like buying it, oblivious to what had happened in the meantime (I would later discover that the good Hoest would complete the trilogy with a couple of good albums, “Over Bjoergvin Graater Himmelrik” in 2002 and “Hordalands Doedskvad" in 2005, then disbanded the band and reformed it in 2008 under – they say – a mediocre return, the eponymous “Taake”).

After various reflections on the actual usefulness of such a purchase in the panorama of my current life, gripped more than anything by an inexplicable nostalgia, with trembling hands and a thousand doubts in my head, I finally make the disc mine. With childish trepidation, I thus press the fateful play button: a filthy trickle of grated guitar materializes, the guitars double, the opening of the opener “Far Vadested til Vaandesmed” is a triumph of sizzling guitars, I almost get emotional. A few seconds later, however, the song takes another turn, the drums start galloping in a rather coarse manner and what do I finally find in my hands? A mishmash of riffs of all sorts, punk passages, for instance, black'n'roll in the style of the latest Darkthrone and Satyricon (oh dear), hard-rock whips (???), a bloated drum that reeks of programmed drum machine (not even that bad, for god's sake!), and even the hilarious crackling of a country-style banjo, so much so that it seems like you're watching Benny Hill's comedies (a banjo? A banjo in a Norwegian black metal record????? listen to believe: track 5, minute 3:21).

I tell myself, head in hands: something is really wrong, but where the hell did the icy riffs like snowy landscapes go?, the frantic dynamism of rhythms fired at three thousand an hour? I conclude: the hell with the Motorhead!, the hell with Sodom and the hell with Darkthrone who have started to do the Motorhead and Sodom!

OK, I need to reset my brain, so I set the next listening based on new parameters (and the operation is not to my liking, for the years I carry on my back and especially in front of an album as useless as Taake’s latest: didn’t I perhaps buy “Noregs Vaapen” solely and exclusively to immerse myself in an anachronistic listening dictated by a simple and healthy desire for genuine old school Norwegian black metal?).

I struggle, but as if I were in front of any work by the Carpathian Forest and worse yet by the current Shining (in the more flautulant phases), I try to immerse myself in a context made of physical impact, groove, swagger, and time changes coming in like stabs worthy of the bleakest pseudo-progressive and rocking black of our days. All flavored with the imbecile barking of Hoest himself.

So off we go again: but it's not that bad everything my ears hear. The second listening indeed reveals new details, and in fact, there is a plethora of moments whose 80% we can call engaging. The whole is missing, the idea is missing, the atmosphere is missing, yet the disc flows, the usual shovelful of cheap malice (with a nod to undoubtedly catchier moments, but always traceable, at worst, to thrash, punk, damn rock’n’roll, proto-black of the likes of Hellhammer and Bathory whom inspired the guardian names of the early nineties Norwegian scene); but most importantly, Hoest reconfirms himself as all in all, a guitarist with an easy riff: Hoest put a lot of stuff into this “Noregs Vaapen”, which lacks the rigor and evocative power I might have expected keeping in mind an incomparable masterpiece like “Nattestid...”, but it certainly doesn't lack the want to kick ass, the desire to entertain in every single passage, and, to be honest, it even includes creativity and inspiration.

No need to list how all this unfolds in the forty-six cursed and evil minutes that the good Hoest manages to group in his seven “observations” (the canonical seven pieces with lyrics strictly in Norwegian and strictly printed in runic characters in the booklet), explorations that have no identity, yet on the whole have the merit of not being boring, and regarding this, just think of the first half of the pullulating and evocative “Orkan” (that's how the whole album should have been, damn it!, here it does seem like we're in 1995!) or the load of ideas contained in just the second half of “Du Ville Ville Vestland”!

Among various things, stand out the appearances by illustrious celebrities like Nocturno Culto, Attila Csihar, and Demonaz, who add little to Hoest's tireless work (who here more than ever takes on all the instruments, except for leaving some embellishments here and there to various guests called to give luster to the operation, among whom I mention a certain Nielsen who is responsible for the mellotron inserts present in a couple of pieces, or the fundamental Gjermund on the mandolin or banjo as mentioned above), reconfirming (I mean Hoest) as a prolific and most of the time inspired musician.

All in all, entertaining.