{"id":22293,"date":"2015-03-12T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=22293"},"modified":"2015-03-11T20:55:40","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T01:55:40","slug":"tech-blackdeath-thursday-part-ii-drottnar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/tech-blackdeath-thursday-part-ii-drottnar\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Black\/Death Thursday Part II: Drottnar"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>A few months back our good friend Jack was forced to take a break from giving you losers your weekly lessons in sweep-picking and blast beats. Comrade Dean filled in admirably with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/tech-blackdeath-thursday\/\">a journey into the discography of the venerable<\/a> <strong>Deathspell Omega<\/strong>. This week I&#8217;m here to continue what he started with a look at Norway&#8217;s <strong>Drottnar<\/strong>.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But first, the week in tech death, courtesy of Mssr. Bauer himself:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Indiana&#8217;s <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DawnOfDementia\">Dawn of Dementia<\/a><\/strong> have released <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NKvfb417iP0\">a lyric video for &#8220;A Subterranean Exposure,&#8221;<\/a> the first single off their upcoming debut <em>Immolation of Avernis<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nocleansinging.com\/2015\/03\/09\/an-ncs-premiere-animality-bloodspatter-brainmatter\/\">No Clean Singing premiered &#8220;Bloodspatter Brainmatter,&#8221;<\/a> the first single from a forthcoming EP by Tennessee&#8217;s <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Animalityband\">Animality<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IrreversibleMechanism\"><strong>Irreversible Mechanism<\/strong><\/a> (featuring Lyle Cooper of <strong>The Faceless<\/strong> and the vastly superior <strong>Absvrdist<\/strong>) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YuJbRew2Mx8\">released the title track<\/a> from their debut album <em>Infinite Fields<\/em>, coming March 31st on Blood Music. Jack says this &#8220;<span class=\"_5yl5\">album is sounding better and better with each new song that they drop<\/span>.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BeyondCreationOfficial\">Beyond Creation<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ALTERBEASTofficial\">Alterbeast<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Abioticfl\">Abiotic<\/a> all put out playthrough videos of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3mWg7qhHN6w\">old<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QrGrdtE2d5A\">songs<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kuzsD_ptmBw\">new<\/a> for all the nerds out there.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/eschatonmetal\"><strong>Eschaton<\/strong><\/a> (no, not the Austrian one) and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theritualaura\">Ritual Aura<\/a><\/strong> both announced new albums, which are available for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_O97fOZNOS0\">preview<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/theritualaura.bandcamp.com\/album\/laniakea-pre-orders-august-27th-release-date\">pre-order<\/a>, respectively.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, in a dramatic turn of events, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pyrrhonband\"><strong>Pyrrhon<\/strong><\/a> announced yesterday they are no longer signed to Relapse Records because their critically-acclaimed 2014 album &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pyrrhonband\/photos\/a.10150996581732151.413749.48145607150\/10152752257557151\/?type=1\"><em>The Mother of Virtues<\/em> has not proven commercially successful<\/a>.&#8221; We here at the Toilet believe in finding the good in the bad, a sentiment apparently shared by the band, who announced in the same message that they &#8220;will release <em>Growth Without End<\/em>, a new EP, on June 2, 201<span class=\"text_exposed_show\">5<\/span>&#8221; through Handshake, Inc., current and former home of <strong>Couch Slut<\/strong>, <strong>Gridlink<\/strong>, <strong>Sulaco<\/strong>, <strong>Rwake<\/strong>, <strong>Blurring<\/strong> and more.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, onto Drottnar.<\/p>\n<p>Drottnar first formed in 1996 as a death metal band called <strong>Vitality<\/strong>. We&#8217;re not going to talk about that. On <em>A White Realm<\/em> and <em>Spiritual Battle<\/em>, they played Viking black metal band. We&#8217;re not going to talk about that either.<\/p>\n<p>For me, Drottnar&#8217;s real discography begins with 2003&#8217;s <em>Anamorphis<\/em> EP. After the intro track &#8220;Morphosis,&#8221; the quintet spend the next eighteen minutes showing off their new style. From the first note of &#8220;The Individual Complex,&#8221; it&#8217;s clear Drottnar have abandoned their past brand of simplistic Christian Viking metal (<em>oof<\/em>), charging forward with a sound all their own. Dissonant, distorted guitars reminiscent of <strong>Abigor <\/strong>ring out over a spastic rhythm section straight out of <em>Calculating Infinity<\/em>-era <strong>Dillinger Escape Plan<\/strong>. The bizarre, <strong>Mayhem<\/strong>-esque song structures were kept grounded by the massive rhythm section of Glenn-David Lind and Bjarne Pecer Lind. Step aside, <strong>Imperial Triumphant<\/strong>; you were bested twelve years ago.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_29652\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2xQmCeeAiq8?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But Drottnar weren&#8217;t about to allow some pathetic metal blogger to categorize and forget them. 2006&#8217;s <em>Welterwerk<\/em> made sure of that. The start-stop riffs of <em>Anamorphis <\/em>are choppier and tighter than before, and Sven-Erik Lind screams with a newfound venom and conviction. The biggest change between <em>Anamorphis<\/em> and <em>Welterwerk<\/em> is one almost impossible to describe: the atmosphere. Aside from the vastly more sophisticated songwriting and much clearer production, <em>Welterwerk<\/em> is characterized by its deep, nigh-impenetrable walls of layered guitars and vocals and more progressive song structures. Were Drottnar to have continued on this path there is no doubt in my mind they would experience a new level of renown in the underground alongside dissonant metal titans like Deathspell Omega, <strong>Gorguts<\/strong> or Pyrrhon.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_81243\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1Zf06zLdXX0?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, it was not to last. <em>Stratum<\/em>, released in 2012, was hardly a bad album, but its simplified riffs and songwriting were, frankly, a step down. After a six year wait, it simply didn&#8217;t hold a candle to <em>Welterwerk<\/em>. Perhaps it was this musical step backward, or their ghetto-ization as &#8220;a Christian band,&#8221; much like their countrymen <strong>Extol<\/strong>, or even their visual presentation that prevented Drottnar from reaching the acclaim they were due on the backs of both a stellar EP and a pair of solid and near-perfect albums.<\/p>\n<p>It was around the release of <em>Welterwerk<\/em> that Drottnar first adopted a neo-Soviet\/DDR aesthetic, costuming themselves in militaristic uniforms when performing live and utilizing megaphones, sirens and vintage radio communiqu\u00e9s in their music to create a wartime atmosphere. Nowhere is this more apparent than the video for <em>Stratum<\/em>&#8216;s opening track, &#8220;We March.&#8221; In all honesty, I find this kind of thing unbearably cheesy, but <a title=\"Kommandant: The Toilet ov Hell Interview\" href=\"https:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/kommandant-the-toilet-ov-hell-interview-2\/\">fans of <strong>Kommandant<\/strong><\/a> may find something to love.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_37285\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5uqVJ4bRTFo?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And that is Drottnar&#8217;s discography thus far: a solid EP and album and one near-flawless album of math-y black-ish death-ish metal. The band has teased new material in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/video.php?v=10153144046778631\">a video on their Facebook page<\/a>, but when it will be released is anyone&#8217;s guess. Other than that, the band has been silent, with the only activity on their <a href=\"http:\/\/drottnar.com\/\">official site<\/a> (still <em>Stratum<\/em>-era, obviously) the announcement of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=tM-XFrM5LTQ\">a new lyric video<\/a> for &#8220;Cul-de-sac&#8221; over a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>On that note, I leave you with &#8220;Ad Hoc Revolt,&#8221; the opening track from the masterful <em>Welterwerk. <\/em>I can only hope that whatever the band does next manages to stand next to this album as the work of art it is (and doesn&#8217;t take another three years to come out).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_32852\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KnuRo970h2U?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few months back our good friend Jack was forced to take a break from giving you losers your weekly lessons in sweep-picking and blast beats. Comrade Dean filled in admirably with a journey into the discography of the venerable Deathspell Omega. This week I&#8217;m here to continue what he started with a look at Norway&#8217;s Drottnar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":22295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1310,12,640],"tags":[1954,2853,1303,258,1165,860,3076,1348,2138,306,3065,3072,1888,531,1202,2792,2778,2816,1754,507,3073,3075,3074,1684,742,3066],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/drottnar-band.jpg?fit=960%2C639&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}