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 IMPIOUS HAVOC - Suffer the Children
By Nathan T. Birk
“’Body’ and ‘mind’ in complete harmony, and with body I mean the music while mind are the lyrics. If you want an example, Darkthrone’s Under a Funeral Moon is a perfect black metal album, in my book. When it comes to Impious Havoc, I think we’re getting closer with every release.”
Humble guy Impious Havoc mainman K is, no? To wit: Two records this past year, the At the Ruins of the Holy Kingdom LP and the Monuments of Suffering MCD, that strike these battle-hardened ears as perfect BM in terms of form, feeling, content, and execution. Not to say they’re fence-riders in the least—c’mon, I wouldn’t do that to you—but Impious Havoc effectively find the elusive (black-metalled) balance between trash and trance, regression and transcendence, murder and melancholy. Even in a country rife with grim competition, these Finns are nearly without equal.
“To me, black metal’s something very personal,” K elaborates on his sentiments above. “I don’t feel like I’m part of anything—a scene, if you will—it’s more like something that’s growing inside. Thus, there can be no strict rules of what is black metal or how it should sound; everybody can and ought to have their own description. Of course, I must point out that there’s no black metal without Satan, but everybody sees Him from his own perspective.”
In more ways than one—and, ever further a’field, in more than one listener—
there's an overt nihilism to all that Impious Havoc do, a fuck-all-rules mentality that spills from the speakers regardless of (perceived) lyrical goals. In a sense, that nihilism manifests itself as a void: Thus, how much does the music strive for mental annihilation vs. physical annihilation?
“‘All is futile,’ comes K’s reply to the admittedly obtuse query. “To me, void has many meanings. It’s my interpretation of death, the absence of all false morals and laws, no absolute Good or Evil. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t call myself a nihilist, as I do in fact have certain values that I want to uphold. Of course, the physical annihilation’s a great source of inspiration for me—I try to keep myself aware of what’s going on around me. War, famine and other forms of human suffering serve as gateways to the microcosm, inside yourself. Why do humans really care for something that happens to other people, people that they don’t have any contact with? And thus, the mental and physical cannot be separated; physical annihilation causes mental annihilation, and visa versa—mental destruction is bound to have physical effects.”
To that end, some might find your lyrics rather “dodgy,” especially on Monuments of Suffering and that title track in particular. But if annihilation is endorsed through them, then do you seek the annihilation of the self, so much so to the point where the soul/spirit takes over and the music ceases to be a physical manifestation? Perhaps I'm being a bit too metaphysical here…
“Maybe a bit,” K aptly surmises. “I see that black metal always has two different aspects, the physical and the spiritual—physical being the sound waves you actually hear and spiritual being the ‘something’ that lies beyond the music and the lyrics, the something that affects you even when you don’t realize it. So, if music ever ceases to be a physical manifestation, it’d be very hard for me to call it music anymore.
“To me, what others do or think matters very little,” the mainman dissects his muse. “I don’t know if that’s my source of inspiration, probably not. But the need to be accepted by others could be defined as humanist acts—I understand their reasons and will therefore have nothing to do with it. I do this completely for myself.”
Of the forthcoming, allegedly 78-minute new album, K reveals, “Manifestations of Plague and War shall be its name. When will it be released, I don’t know—probably no sooner than this summer. Seventy-eight minutes is not far from the truth. It shall be long—we’ve recorded one version of the album, but it seems we’ll do it once more. For sure, it will be our most varied album thus far.
“The birth and death of black metal?” the mainman ponders my ridiculously high expectations for that forthcoming album. “Well, I don’t think so, not even on a personal level. We shall continue on our path, but what shall happen in the future is still undecided—maybe something less monumental, in length at least.”
www.impioushavoc.cjb.net |
