Bvrning down the Christmas tree: Combating Christmas music, No. 3

December 5, 2014

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Allow me to apologize for my lengthy absence. Two weeks ago I overheard a grown-ass man singing and dancing along to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and immediately tried to kill myself. I woke up in the ICU just a few days ago. Evidently I didn’t kill myself hard enough; a mistake I do not intend to make again. [W. – Next time you try to kill yourself, make a noose from razor wire, tie it around your neck, super glue your hands to your head, then leap from a balcony. People will be super impressed that you managed to rip off your own head mid-fall.]

We’re well into December now, which means I’ll have to force myself to turn a blind eye to vehicles with those stupid felt antlers attached to them and repress the urge to take them down with me in a firestorm of burning car wreckage. That shit does not turn your vehicle into a reindeer, guys. It just turns you into an asshole.

“But Masterlord, isn’t it all in good fun? Why are you so grouchy? Did you forget to take your mood stabilizers again? What’s wrong with enjoying the holidays?”

Let me answer your questions with another question: Fuck you.

Luckily, the ghost of James Hetfield came to me in my coma-dreams and gave me an idea. He didn’t really say anything of importance (all I could really make out was “yeah”), but the visitation reminded me of something he said years before he tragically died in 1991: “fight fire with fire” or something. Thus, I have decided to meet the onslaught of awful winter music with an onslaught of my own awful winter music. And you’re going to help me maybe. Join me, and let us stop the flow of happiness on our black metal swords.

I: GRAUPEL – AM PRANGER… (2010)

What’s graupel? It’s precipitation that forms when supercooled water droplets freeze on a snowflake. “But Masterlord, isn’t that just hail?” No, you fool. According to the World Meteorological Organization (of which I am the President), graupel is distinct from hail, small hail, and ice pellets. Lest you think there’s a single obscure cold-weather-related term not used by an equally obscure black metal band for their name, here’s Graupel; a German black metal band named after graupel.

Graupel specialize in raw black metal, but with even more teeth than is usual. And those teeth also have teeth. And mounted Maschinengewehr 42’s that shoot teeth. As men after my own black heart, they released Am Pranger… on Christmas Eve of 2010. Blast this and pillory all patrons of Christmas music.

Graupel – Am Pranger… | Listen | Buy | Facebook

II: FOREST SILENCE – WINTER CIRCLE (2000) / THE ETERNAL WINTER (2002)

Inverting the typical metal-to-ambient evolution of so many black metal bands, the predictably-named Forest Silence started off crafting dark ambient, wintry soundscapes in their 1997 and 2000 demos (The Third Winter and Winter Circle, respectively), and moved on to mid-paced atmospheric black metal in 2002’s The Eternal Winter. All three prove efficacious in evoking the cold dark of winter, but one is best for actually ruining Christmas. The ambient is for engineering your evil stratagem; the metal is for dragging Christmas by the neck into remote reaches of the midnightforest, shattering its frozen legs over jagged stones, and leaving it to slowly freeze to death under the winter moon. Thus Nature exacts its slow and torturous revenge upon the thief that stole Winter from her bosom and then made it majorly suck.

Forest Silence – Winter Circle / The Eternal Winter | Facebook

III: ALGOR – ÚDER POHANSKEHO HNEVU (2003)

Algor

Yet another group of corpsepainted dinguses (dingi?) making music so good that you have to forgive them for being corpsepainted dinguses, Algor — not to be confused with Al Gore — hail from Slovakia and sound like they hail from Slovakia. Drawing influence from their Czech neighbors Master’s Hammer and the ever-pervasive Darkthrone, Úder Pohanského Hnevu is fast-pissed and paced-off. Mr. Aldaron has mastered the art of the black metal riff, and consequently nails the thin, freezing atmosphere that so many bedroom self-proclaimed-kvlt black metal acts fall short of. Honestly, I’m surprised that the the riff at 3:48 in “Vládca zimnej krajiny” hasn’t killed Christmas a hundred times over by virtue of its mere existence. That shit is evil. Legend has it that every time it’s played, a caroler bleeds out from the ears.