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 MATRICIDE: “Take This Torch”
By Nathan T. Birk
“Black metal is, if you use it well, indeed an extremely strong weapon. Still, as a weapon, it’s but a tool, and a strong hand and mind must be behind it to make it work. So, you cannot sit around thinking black metal’s the base of everything that’s important. It is what lies beyond it that is.”
Indeed, Matricide are a weapon, and the Swedes’ current tool is the Black Mass Gathering debut LP – and, of course, strong hands and minds are behind both. Released earlier in 2004 on cassette by Total Holocaust Records and subsequently onto CD by Meurtre Noir, Black Mass Gathering is a definitive BM record every inch of the way: Musically, lyrically, visually, and every minute space in between, the album is black, bitter blood spilled by Matricide and henceforth gathered into a supernatural sonic force.
And, in every possible way, Black Mass Gathering is a BM record that’s way-fucking-BEYOND. It’s simple, all right, but far from simplistic. It owes a considerable debt to Darkthrone’s estimable ’92-’94 period, but transcends plagiarism by transcending earthly reality in the black, bitter feeling(s) it evokes. Its constituent parts likewise may be estimable – monster-monotone riffery that approximates a yawning abyss, metronome-gone-haywire drumming buttressed by falling-down-stairs fills, scowling snarl-vox that pierce the soul, motorik trance dueling with sensory overload dueling with stark minimalism dueling with some ever-so-subtle time-honored Metal Values, all loose ‘n’ lively yet very much dead – but it’s the black (w)hole that counts. “Feeling” is everything in BM, and this record has it for miles. Some might even say “perfect.”
“In the aspect of today, it’s hard to see that black metal can be ‘perfect’,” responds vocalist/drummer/lyricist Tiburtius, “how to make it perfect is another question. And I’m not going to talk about what’s ‘true’ or not, because that’s pathetic. But as I said earlier, you’ve got to have a strong mind and a strong hand to summon the music and vision that is black metal, and this is something very many people don’t understand when they get together with their friends to start up a ‘cool band’. In Matricide’s case, I would’ve quit the band a long time ago if I didn’t think that we could accomplish things that were supreme and made in true honour of our heritage and in the name of Satan. As a matter of fact, I was really thinking of laying the band to its tomb about a year ago because of this, but I changed my mind when we started to write the new material.”
Despite your humble correspondent’s point of view – refreshing your memory, “perfect” BM – Tiburtius’ feelings on the album are even more humble, rather unfairly: “In my own eyes, Black Mass Gathering is wimp-shit and doesn’t represent the true essence of what Matricide is. It’s good, but not more than that – it just gives you a glimpse of what’s to come. The future of Matricide is reaching deeper and deeper into the pits of hell – the creation that is Matricide will get darker, more repulsive and even more utterly Satanic!”
All that said, presumably, Transilvanian Hunger has had a lasting effect on the band both as musicians and listeners…
“Strange that you would understand this,” comes the drummer’s reply. “Well, the album’s meant a lot to both the band and me personally. Its atmosphere is the most cold and dark feeling I’ve found on a record. It’s maybe not what we try to create, but it’s definitely something that we’re very inspired by. Transilvanian Hunger makes me feel like shit, and that’s always something I enjoy.”
Considering that sizable sonic debt that thousands share, is Darkthrone in fact the “Mother of All (BM) Invention”?
“I don’t know, but they’ve inspired very many bands,” Tiburtius diplomatically states. “It’s boring to listen to those bands who try their most to sound like Darkthrone – I can listen to the old original albums instead, y’know? There are people who might think we are a band like that, after hearing the [preceding] Blasphemic Fire tape, but I don’t think they’ve got the whole point behind it since it’s just a ‘monument’ of praising the old feeling.”
The mainman prophetically signs off, signaling a future undoubtedly more foul: “We’re still walking on the road to hell and will keep on doing that until our music no longer can describe the darkness that lies within the bottomless abyss. I can only say that we and you have not seen anything yet of what’s to come.”
www.matricide.tk
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