Hails! Thank you for taking the time to check this out. I’ll be brief, but I wanted to update my readers and any labels or bands out there who like Extreme Underground Metal. If I haven’t responded to a request you’ve sent for a review, I truly apologize. I am just getting back to business after a long pause to get married, travel a bit with my wife, and move my folks across country to Denver.
I began this site within the first month of lock-down pandemic frenzy in 2020, largely as a creative response to the ending of live music and lack of metal tours for what felt like an eternity. Thankfully, as highlighted by my last post, a review of Psycho Las Vegas 2022 (sadly 2023 has been cancelled), that music is mostly back. Music returning to its live form has enabled a lot of other things to happen as well, such as travel, which has kept me occupied for many months. In traveling through Iceland, Switzerland, and Italy, metal has been on my mind.
In Iceland, I picked up a vinyl copy of Sorgir by Reykjavik-based Viking metal band Skálmöld. A small shop in the heart of the city carried a lot of great music, but I was looking specifically for a local band, and the Reykjavik Record Shop shopkeeper delivered. From the opening thundering notes of “Ljósið” (translation: the light), Skálmöld demonstrates their ferocity and intensity. Melodic leads soar above brutal guttural growls, but every song is well balanced with ethereal chants. With changes in pace and style rendering each track unique, there is something here for everyone. “Mara” is fittingly perhaps the most varied, as the Sorgir‘s closing track and its lengthiest. Beginning with the same punctuated visciousness as others, dually-layered screams closing out verses, and pummeling riffage, it abruptly transitions into gentle acoustics, before yielding into a stunning solo as the listener realizes there’s still 6 minutes to go. I definitely reccomend listing to this album, as well as the rest of Skálmöld‘s discography.
The scene: a quiet alleyway in Bern’s old town, rain drenching Switzerland’s northern capital, and a mid-afternoon coffee in hand. In the streets, underground (literally) shops are starting to swing open shutters for the evening just as a rural farmer would emerge from a basement tornado-shelter after the storm. Strolling into Serge and Peppers Records, I had only one band on my mind: Celtic Frost. 1984’s Morbid Tales sounds like if Metallica‘s Kill ‘Em All was produced by Euronymous, tuned and slowed down, and injected with hatred and misanthropy. This decidedly evil, early-blackened thrash EP laid much of the groundwork for the subsequent waves of black and death metal covered on Extreme Underground Metal. Frontman Thomas Gabriel Fischer called upon the Dark Lord himself to conjure brilliant riffs and brutal growls that were far ahead of their time. Recommended track: “Dethroned Emperor.”
In this past year of travels, I have learned a lot about the world as well as about myself. Most of the bands I have spent time listening to and writing about on this site are small, international groups outside of the United States, who have a unique storytelling style and an immense amount of talent. These are groups who (largely) are not making their music for the money, and many don’t make much money at all, rather they do it because they have a passion and a love for metal. The same is true for many labels and record shops. We’re all in this together, and need the community now more than ever before.
I urge you to continue to support these artists.
Andrew Keene
Founder, Extreme Underground Metal
Stay tuned for a review of Sicilian slaughterers, Dechristianized and their newest EP Litanies of Iconoclasm!