Last Thursday night was a black-metal triple bill down at the Underworld, with Norwegian notables Carpathian Forest, last seen by me at last year’s Incineration Fest, returned to the Big Smoke for a fully fledged headline show, bringing along London-based Polish occultists Black Altar, and fellow badger-painted Norwegian perverts Svarttjern along for the ride.
The latter stepped up first with an impressive, high-energy set to get the night off to a strong start. Frontman HansFyrste had a decent line in risqué raconteurage, dedicating the viscerally monikered, razor-guitared’Chop, Slit, Fray’ to “the little babies sacrificed”, describing odes to decadence and debasement such as ‘Aluminum bat Domina’ and ‘Hymns for the Molested’ as the “love songs” of the set, and, of course, inviting the audience to pay homage to His Infernal Majesty with ‘Hail Satan’.
It helps that his vocals during the songs are up to snuff too, matching the aggression and bite of his instrumental section, three of whom (drummer Andun, lead guitarist HaaN, and bassist Malphas) pulled, and pull, double duty in the headline band. The From the opener ‘Prince of Disgust’ to the closing ‘Code Human’, their setlist proved consistently impressive enough, on record and in person, for me to order up their back catalogue, so result!
Where Svarttjern impressed sonically, Black Altar did so visually, donning robes, cloaks, and, in the case of main vocalist Kruhl, skull masks, all whilst performing round a makeshift, erm, black altar adorned with skulls and Baphomet sculpts.
Twas quite the sight and the perfect accompaniment to ‘Path of Death’, which had Kruhl clasping one of the skulls, and the anthemic distinctiveness of ‘Ancient Warlust’, my favourite song of theirs, performed with a ritualistic yet rousing fanfare. Would watch again.
Carpathian Forest brought things back to the realms of grime and sleaze, their blend of rock ‘n’ roll black metal setting off the hitherto anticipatory audience. As at Incineration, Nattefrost and co put on a strong, solid, and (by black-metal standards) no-frills performance, grabbing, and holding onto, audience attention with fast-driving openers ‘Vi åpner porten til helvete…’ and ‘Skjend hans lik’.
Other highlights of the set included a rather ripping rendition of ‘The Swordsmen’, a crowdsurfer-inducing ‘The Beast in Man (The Origin of Sin)’ Nattefrost’s dedication of ‘Death Triumphant’ to his 22-years-deceased old man, which I didn’t know whether to process as sincere or as a stab at humour as black as the metal, and the band’s cover of The Cure’s ‘A Forest’, which, given its post-punk origins, allowed Malphas to shine as a (this time) bass-guitar hero. ‘Spill the Blood of the Lamb’ and ‘Mask of the Slave’ also made an impression as strong setlist moments, and hearing ‘Bloody Fucking Nekro Hell’ as part of the encore didn’t hurt either. Shame they left ‘Submit to Satan’ on the bench this time, though.
In any case, a nice ‘n’ nasty showcase of bilous black-metal belligerence, both old and new.
~MRDA~
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