Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur - Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time

True to the statement above, in humility i apologize for not updating my blog in aeons. The lack of a stimulus compounded with the new phenomenon known as Facebook has led to my blog deteriorating like timber in a tropical climate infested with termites, almost beyond recognition.

I always took pride in the fact that people visit blogs to gain insight into the lives of others, and it is many forms that this insight is sought.

Some choose to blog about their new clothes, cars, pets, friends, ex's, spouses, trials, tribulations.

I blog on my thoughts. Dark, disturbed, warped, intelligent, logic-defying, passionate, whichever rules the day. thoughts are like the shirts you pull out of your cupboard. unless you've actually made a conscious decision to yank a shirt out from the middle, chances are the same ones will be lingering around for quite a bit.

Wafi, my housemate walked into my room and convinced me to blog about concept albums.

A dying breed, the last well known concept album to me was Cruelity and the Beast, by Cradle of Filth, an extreme metal band apparently according to Wikipedia although i'll argue they were more a Symphonic Black Metal band.

What constitutes the Black Metal sound is a question I am familiar with. A famous remark constantly made is 'WHY DOES HE SING IN SUCH A SCREECHY VOICE!??'

I share your views as the symphonic nature of the songs is more ubiquitously enjoyed in comparison to the acquired taste that is Black Metal.

Black Metal is a form of music that ranks under the Heading of Extreme Metal, which consists of Death, Doom, Black and Trash Metal.

A common denominator is the fact that the vocals are not exactly crystal clear as one would expect to find compared to - Power Metal or Heavy Metal where voice projection is a major asset.

Black metal relies on an eerie mythical mysterious nature that is often themed by tragedies, epics or most commonly satanism. As with most forms of metal, there grew a need to be 'more metal' than the predecessor and hence you have crappy bands that delve into realms that even the most liberal metalhead finds to be crap. It would be like getting Vanilla Ice to sing 'Across 110th street' by Bob Womack and expecting a better outcome. In moderation, the darker forms of metal is best described as hazelnut flavoured coffee syrup, striking a balance between symphony and screeching is the key. The actual screech itself is the hallmark of Black Metal and why it is present is not well understood. However my personal postulations are because Black metal is often described as the inner soul that needs to break away from the shackles of the material world and screeching is its way of just popping its head outside for a moment. Notice that screeching is an art and that is near impossible to replicate unlike growling and guttural vocals that originate from the back of the oropharynx, screeching according to the purists originate from the navel, where the umbilical cord once served as the only supply route for all forms of nutrition to a fetus. Hence the added obsession with unborn fetuses in the realms of black metal.

the true legionnaires of black metal however are the scandinavian bands, ie Mayhem, Emporer, Burzum, and my personal favourite - Immortal.

Back to my point about concept albums, a true masterpiece indeed. A whole album consisting of songs that resemble chapters of a complete story, such as Seventh Son of a Seventh Son by Iron Maiden, Tunes Of War by Gravedigger and Cruelty and the beast.

The pick of the bunch here under the heading of black metal would be cruelty and the beast - with the song that probably vies for my award for top 100 best written lyrics ever.

the songs are written in stanzas with chapter headings - which tend to also be the last line uttered for the song.

this Song was dedicated to the Countess Bathory, who if you have no clue about, i recommend a quick visit to wikipedia or the library. Her vampiric addiction possible led to the common notion that all vampires hail from Eastern Europe.

Bathory Aria

[I. Benighted Like Usher]

Snuffed tapers sighed
As Death left impressing
His crest of cold tears on the Countess

Benighted like ill-fated Usher
The House of Bathory shrouded
'Neath griefs dark facade

If only I could have wept
In mourning by Her side
I would have clasped Her so tight
Like storm-beached Aphrodite
Drowned on Kytherean tides

(*Kytherea/Cytherea- Greek Goddess of Fertility and Love - the non sexually charged version of Aphrodite)

And Kissed Her
For from Her alone
My lips would have known
Enigmas of shadowy vistas

Where pleasures took flesh
And pain, remorseless
Came freezing the breath
Of raucous life hushed unto whispers

Benighted.

Inhaling the pale waning moonlight that crept
Through the crypt of Her Lord who so lucidly slept

Benighted.

Exhaling the wail of black widowhood's toll
Waxing eternal night entered Her soul

Summary - chapter 1 - Bathory mourns the loss of her husband - cursed to die by a witch apparently although the less eccentric version states he dies from injuries sustained at war.
[II. A Murder of Ravens in Fugue]

Now haranguing grey skies
With revenge upon life
Gnathic (is a term used medically meaning mandible) and Sapphic (in this context refers to female homosexuality)
Needs begged gendercide

Delusions of Grandier denounced the revolt
Of descrying cursed glass, disenchanted in vaults
Encircled by glyphs midst Her sin-sistered cult

With hangman's abandon She plied spirit worlds
To Archangels in bondage
From light to night hurled
Cast down to the earth where torment would unfurl.......
- Summary - Her bloodlust and fetish for more extreme versions of sexual pleasures are luridly described.
But soon,
Her tarot proved
Hybrid rumours spread like tumours
Would accrue
And blight Her stars
To better bitter truths
Of cold bloodbaths
- Summary - the church found out of her ways
As bodies rose
In rigid droves
To haunt Her from their
Shallow burials imposed
When wolves exhumed
Their carthen wombs
Where heavy frosts had laboured long
To bare their wounds
summary - the bodies were found
To the depths of Her soul they pursued
Wielding their poison they flew
Like a murder of ravens in fugue

And knowing their raptures
Would shatter Her dreams
She clawed blackened books for damnation's reprieve
Baneful cawed canons on amassed enemies

So Hallow's Eve
As She received
Like Bellona to the ball
Those enemies
Fell-sisters heaved
Her torturies
Cross stained flagstones
To Her carriage reined to flee

But She knew She must brave the night through
Though fear crept a deathshead o'er the moon
Like a murder of ravens in Fugue

For each masked, jewelled gaze held dread purpose
Horror froze painted eyes to cold stares
And even Her dance
In the vast mirrors cast
Looked the ill of Her future
If fate feasted there....
summary = she is imprisoned in her castle as the punishment for her alleged killings.
[III. Eyes That Witnessed Madness]

In an age crucified by the nails of faith
When rank scarecrows of christ blighted lands
An aloof Countess born an obsidian wraith
Dared the abyss knowing well She was damned
Her life whispered grief like a funeral march
Twisted and yearning, obsessed an entranced
With those succumbing to cruelty
Crushed 'neath the gait(pattern of walking) of Her dance
A whirlwind of fire that swept through the briers
Of sweet rose Her thickets of black thorn had grasped...

She demanded the Heavens and forever to glean
The elixir of Youth from the pure
Whilst Her lesbian fantasies
Reamed to extremes
O'er decades unleashed
Came for blood's silken cure

But Her reign ended swiftly
For Dark Gods dreamt too deep
To heed Her pleas

When Her gaolers were assailed
With condemnations from a priest
Who'd stammered rites
In the dead of night
For maidens staining winding sheets

And She postured proud
When Her crimes were trowelled
And jezebelled to peasant lips
Though She smelt the fires
That licked limbs higher
To the tortured cunts of accomplices

So ends this twisted fable's worth
And though spared the pyre's bite
By dint of nobled bloodlined birth
Her sins (crimes) garnered Her no respite

Forever severed from the thrill of coming night
Where slow Death alone could grant Her flight

"The Spirits have all but fled judgement
I rot, alone, insane,
Where the forest whispers puce laments for me
From amidst the pine and wreathed wolfsbane
Beyond these walls, wherein condemned
To the gloom of an austere tomb
I pace with feral madness sent
Through the pale beams of a guiltless moon
Who, bereft of necrologies, thus
Commands creation over the earth
Whilst I resign my lips to death
A slow cold kiss that chides rebirth
Though one last wish is bequathed by fate
My beauty shalt wilt, unseen
Save for twin black eyes that shalt come to take
My soul to peace or Hell for company"

My soul to Hell for company

- she spends the rest of her life away from the public all alone in her castle sanctuary.

epic.... truly an epic.

I guess I'll end my post here for today, with the notion that Black metal is a form of music that may be hard to accept even for metalheads who aren't big fans, but given a chance, it can be quite refreshing. Sadly, the conquests of bands like Mayhem and Burzum, both of whom are relatively better known for constantly giving churches 3rd degree burns rather than producing any decent form of music will forever be remembered as the biggest black metal bands alive.

Having said that, Immortal, a band that has stuck true to its roots of Black Metal without delving into the need to be satanists or to condemn religions and burn churches, is possibly the longest surviving band, that has not undergone revamps after every album. They're true pioneers of Norwegian black metal and my personal favourite black metal band.

until the next time, the guardian of metal stands tall, ensuring the safekeeping of the highest order of music - metal.

next week we may choose to do something proper extraordinary, like review Manowar... lol!

this goes out to the legend that wrote this to the papers yesterday. may your awesomeness never ever be forgotten