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SVARTTJERN
Ultimatum Necrophilia

NoiseArt (2014)
Rating: 8/10

Nothing beats a dose of impure black metal to blot out the sun. Svarttjern is a Norwegian band who, like so many others, likes to dabble in a bit of hateful witchery and misanthropic menace. The quintet have been spreading their hate since 2003.

Ultimatum Necrophilia is their third opus, emerging three years after the rather average Towards The Ultimate (2011) which for me suffered in so many departments, and came across as a rather banal affair. However, this time round it seems that the painted combo have addressed their issues, injecting further arrogance into their icy brand of blackest metal.

Ultimatum Necrophilia boasts 11 solid hate-filled anthems which are given extra spike by bassist Sgt. V, while Ragnarok frontman HansFyrste is still providing those wintry yelps. The album opens with ‘Shallow Preacher’, a weighty piece of blasphemy which introduces itself via some arrogant clanking before the guitars of HaaN and Fjellnord kick in, the leads of the former weaving their way through the scathing haze of Fjellnord’s rhythms.

Svarttjern combine chilly pace with slower, mid-tempo blasts of hate; this makes for an interesting listen, even if it’s not the most exciting black metal noise you’ll hear this side of the early to mid 90s wave. Even so, the album is strong enough to make itself heard, mainly in the drumming department where Grimmdun excels with his anarchistic kicks.

The title track is a beast of a number; featuring chugging guitars and quick-fire drums, it’s proof that not all black metal has to be regressive, remote and lo-fi. HansFyrste is certainly one the genre’s most potent of frontmen as he rasps in typical Norwegian style over the twisted concoction of drum, bass and guitar. The track features a killer riff a quarter of the way through before the band speed things up once again for another taste of the thorny and blood-curdling.

Elsewhere, we have the despicable gurgles of ‘Where There Is Lust’ with its introductory militant charge of cold lead and raging drum, while ‘Fierce Fires’ ups the tempo once again and features the rather dismal gleams of black metal banality in those grating guitars and trigger drums.

However, when the band slows there is an element of groove, giving the track a really meaty and communicable feel – a quality lost on many a black metal band who feels it is their way of life to batter the listener with unintelligible codswallop.

As black metal albums go, I’m pretty sure that this will be one of 2014’s finest. It’s a real grower once you emerge past the more barbed moments which tend to snag on the ears, but it’s also an album that revels in its own perverse content. With tracks such as ‘Aroused Self-Extinction Pt. II’ (which closes the record), the band rise head and shoulders above the mediocre hordes, completing a platter that I’d highly recommend to anyone who likes catchy yet unhinged Norwegian black metal.

Neil Arnold

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