“Rock and roll don’t come from your brain, it comes from your crotch.” Thus spake James Franco’s Daniel Desario on Freaks and Geeks, and though I might disagree with the universality of that sentiment, there’s no denying that rock and roll emanates from a primitive place deep inside of us (how else do you explain the success of Limp Bizkit?).
While there’s no shortage of subgenres taking themselves too seriously, perhaps the biggest offender is black metal. Through all the corpse paint, church burning, and inter-band homicide, it often seems like there’s no room for levity in the scene. Even in the less purist offshoots like blackgaze, everything is delivered with complete sincerity.
Then there’s Kvelertak. Dubbing themselves “black ‘n’ roll,” the Norwegian sextet takes the blistering sonic assault of black metal and injects it with a heaping dose of crotch-thrusting rock and roll.
You might as well call it Blue Öyster Kvlt. And if there’s any question, it rules.
“Ecstatic black metal” seems a bit like an oxymoron. If you were to ask someone to describe black metal in one word, “ecstatic” might not come up very often. In fact, if you were to create a relevant Family Feud category, guessing it would land you a big fat X and a Steve Harvey overreaction.
If there’s one thing the metal community loves, it’s hyperbole. There are thousands of metal records that come out a year, and they are all described with superlatives.
I’m not sure exactly who it was that drew such rigid lines around metal. While pioneers like Sabbath and Maiden were wide open to other influences, somewhere along the lines, metal shored itself up and went to war with other music. It’s not just softer styles either—metal fans and hardcore fans often come to blows with one another. Even subgenres within metal itself have split into warring factions.
Mount Eerie is one of those bands that I’ve mostly known just by reputation. For years, I’ve heard the name of Phil Elverum’s project thrown around alongside acts like Bon Iver, The Antlers, Sun Kil Moon, and other songwriters offering emotional devastation to hushed instrumentation.
Even legends have to start somewhere. Through years of bouncing around the European black metal scene, Neige was dissatisfied with the ability of the kvlt to properly express what he had to say. Between other projects, he spent his time crafting otherworldly overtures that transcended the narrow confines of traditional black metal. In 2005, he released a 