Black Forest Magazine

Art in its Blackest form

Never again

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Today is a day of mourning here in Norway.

It’s been 5 years since our government quarter was bombed. 5 years since the Utøya massacre, where a right-wing extremist executed 69 people – most of them teenagers – at the Norwegian Labour party’s summer camp for youths. It’s our 9/11. It is almost impossible to imagine the horror these youths and children experienced, trapped on an island with a terrorist and his semi-automatic weapons and expandable ammunition. He laughed as he walked around, shouting “you are going to die today, marxists!”. They had nowhere to hide.

77 people died that day. Hundreds were injured and traumatized. And the terrorist was one of us.

Today Utøya is a memorial and a center for learning about what happened there on 22nd July 2011. The Labour youth party still arranges summer camps on the tiny island, shaped as a heart.

I’m writing this as I’m listening to Harakiri for the Sky and their heartbreaking song ’69 Dead Birds for Utøya’. You should to.

 

Is it true, that we are nothing but handprints on a misty pane?
How can we fall asleep while the world is still burning?
How shall I sleep, when I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders?
How shall I sleep?
How shall I sleep?

Everytime you think the most stupefying incident in this world already happened,
there comes one more.

 

If you want to learn more about what happened, I recommend reading these:

Extract of ‘One of Us’ by Åsne Seierstad (you should read the whole book)

“Is he coming? Is he? Oh God, I think he is.” by GQ

2011 Norway attacks – Wikipedia

Harakiri for the Sky – III: Trauma

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Harakiri for the Sky has been around since 2011, and for those into post-black and depressive black metal, this Austrian duo is probably not unknown.

Already from their first album, I’ve admired their visual and lyrical expression. Their artworks are simply beautiful, and their depressive lyrics has a really poetic touch to them. And for each album they have crafted their style more and more, and their upcoming album ‘III: Trauma’ stands out as a unique performance of grandiose hoplessness. Listen to their full album below.

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Mesarthim – Isolate

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The Australian black metal scene has been on a rise the last ten years or so with high ranked bands such as Austere, Woods of Desolation, and Nazxul amongst others. Mesarthim is a worthy addition with their debut album ‘Isolate’.

Mesarthim - Isolate

Mesarthim sounds somewhat like a sci-fi version of Summoning, with slow hypnotic atmosphere that creates an impression of being completely alone in the desolate space. If you have seen the movie Gravity, you know what I’m talking about. That hopeless claustrophobic feeling of being lost in an endless void. So as you already may have thought, this release delivers an atmosphere that is pretty close to the depressive black metal sound that you may know from the mentioned Australian acts. The sound is so close to Nazxul, that you may even suspect they share some members, as the two members of Mesarthim go by the cryptic names . and ..

If you’re a fan of sci-fi and black metal, this is definitely a band to look out for. Start with checking their debut album in the Bandcamp link below, and get lost in space.

‘Isolate’ tracklisting:

1. Osteopenia
2. Declaration
3. Interstellar
4. Abyss
5. Floating
6. Isolate

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New song from Grave Pleasures’ upcoming album

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Cover artwork for "Dreamcrash"

Cover artwork for “Dreamcrash”

Earlier this year Beastmilk announced that they had parted ways with their founding member and guitarist Johan “goatspeed” Snell. They changed their band name to Grave Pleasures and has since recruited Linnea Olsson (The Oath, Sonic Ritual) and Juho Vanhanen (Oranssi Pazuzu) on guitars, and Uno Bruniusson (ex-In Solitude, Procession) on drums. The release of their album “Dreamcrash” has been set to September 4th, 2015, and has made public a song called “Crying wolves”, which can be heard below.

The band describes the album as a complex and feverish set of modern rock songs. Urban tribal rhythms; potent melancholia; raw pop sensibility; irreverent ferociousness – “Dreamcrash” is seductive in its surrealism one minute, and a cold shower of harsh reality the next.

“I am concerned with a total collapse of our dreams”, says their vocalist Mat McNerney. “Hacking out this feverish, frantic and very uninhibited music, it exposes and lays raw some intense emotions. As we get deeper and closer to capturing the spirit of what we set out for this band to be, we are touching some vital nerves. It’s getting under the skin, under the flesh.”

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Papa jr. in new video from Ghost

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Ghost just released a video for their song “Cirice”, that will feature on their upcoming album “Meliora”. The album will be released August 23rd, 2015.

ghost-melioraTracklist:
01. Spirit
02. From The Pinnacle To The Pit
03. Cirice
04. Spöksonat
05. He Is
06. Mummy Dust
07. Majesty
08. Devil Church
09. Absolution
10. Deus In Absentia

Germ Bomb – Under a Fading Sun

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This spring swedish crossover thrashers Germ Bomb releases their 3rd full length ‘Under a Fading Sun’. My first encounter with them was with their debut album back in 2010, when they made me sing ‘Infected! Infected!’ all summer.

Allthough I know the band is not found of being categorized, they still play powerful crossover thrash with hints of both heavy metal, black’n’roll and doom. To me, ‘Under a Fading Sun’ feels alot darker and dirtier than their previous material. In ‘Funeral Blues’ for instance, the riffs are slower and doomier, matching it’s title perfectly. ‘Endless Thirst’ has more melodic vocals, sending me to heavy metal land. Last track on the album, called ‘Religious Vomit’ has a perfect groovy black’n’roll riff in the middle, making my nose wrinkle (in that good metal way).

Germ Bomb - Under a Fading Sun

Germ Bomb – Under a Fading Sun

So, to sum it up, I think ‘Under a Fading Sun’ is both darker and more diverse than Germ Bombs previous releases. It’s reflected on the album cover which is inspired by polish surrealist Zdzisław Beksiński (who by the way is one of my favourite artists – you should google him!).

‘Under a Fading Sun’ will be released later this spring, in CD, vinyl and tape edition.
The album was recorded in Welfare Sounds Studio in Gothenburg (Bombus, Bombs of Hades) in october 2014 with Per Stålberg and Olle Björk behind the knobs and as producers, mastered by Daniel Johansson and artwork created by Lenore Ani.
‘Under A Fading Sun’ tracklisting:
 
1. Abomination
2. Black Mass
3. Funeral Blues
4. Stench
5. Endless Thirst
6. Under A Fading Sun
7. 1000 Suns
8. Religious Vomit

Don’t forget to read our interview with them here, and watch their music video ‘1000 suns’ . You’ll find the band and more information about where to buy here:

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VIDEO PREMIERE: Germ Bomb – 1000 Suns!

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Black Forest Magazine are proud to present the world premiere of Germ Bombs brand new video ‘1000 Suns’!

Vocalist and guitarist Hampus tells us that the video ‘1000 Suns’ was shot in Gothenburg Sweden in march/april this year and are produced by Die on the Kitchen Floor Productions.
– The lyrics in the song which reflects the video are issues about how we treat this planet and how we more or less will destroy ourselves with greed. We wanted to do something different and not just capture a band playing a song straight up and down because its boring and done a million times before!

Enjoy Germ Bombs brand new music video below:

Don’t forget to read our review of their upcoming album ‘Under a Fading Sun’, and our interview with bandmember Hampus.

Germ Bomb to release their 3rd full length ‘Under a Fading Sun’

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Swedish punk thrasher duo Germ Bomb is releasing their 3rd full length this spring, titeled ‘Under a Fading Sun’. In that regard we had a little chat with Hampus, wanting to know more about the band and their plans for the future.

Germ Bomb! Photo courtesy of the band.

Germ Bomb! Photo courtesy of the band.

First off, could you tell us a bit about Germ Bomb? I know you are two swedish guys playing thrash, and I’ve heard rumours that you found your band name listening to Dead Kennedys?

Yeah, it’s true we came up with the name while listening to a Dead Kennedys song titled “Kinky sex makes the world go round”. ‘Germ bomb’ is in the lyric somewhere and we thought it sounded cool.

Me (Hampus) and Pierre started Germ Bomb when our former band Hathor split up, we were playing some kind of punkrock at that time and felt we had to change direction. I had just dicovered bands like Toxic Holocaust, Bastardator and Children Of Technology so we started writing songs that was harder and darker than before. We have always listened to all kinds of music. 80’s thrash, punk, 82punk and metal so it came natural for us to create a blend of all that. Germ Bomb was born! Maybe it’s thrash metal, we really dont care as long as it feels right!

We were bored with almost all metal at that time, perfect produced radiometal or melodic shit which we both hated.

It was liberating to listen to all those metalpunk bands and all of a sudden we were part of some kind of metalpunk movement. One thing led to another and we discovered 100 more bands and metal was fun again!

Germ Bomb - Under a Fading Sun

Germ Bomb – Under a Fading Sun

This is your 3rd full length album, and while your cover art in the past has been pretty stereotypical for the thrash genre, the new album seems to be alot darker visually and not so caricatured as the previous ones?

You are right, we wanted something different for this album cover, as you said it’s darker and not so stereotyped as for lot of thrash metal bands. We don’t consider us as a thrash metal band, we don’t want a label but we know people tend to place bands. We are big fans of polish artist Beksinski so we searched the net for artists influenced by him and we found Lenore Ani.  She got some instructons, “keep it dark and gloomy” and she nailed it, we think it’s killer!

It’s not only the album cover that has darkened. In my opinion some of the material on ‘Under A Fading Sun’ leans more over to Black’n’roll, sounding heavier and slower. Is this Germ Bomb evolving, or moving away from the thrash genre?

I think you have to evolve and not create the same album over and over, so it came naturally. We are big fans of Midnight and Celtic Frost and we wanted it to sound more dirty and raw. We have been into doom bands a lot recently and I think you can hear that in the music as well.. We also changed studio for this album, it’s recorded in Welfare Sounds Studio (Bombs of Hades, Bombus) with Per Stålberg and Olle Björk behind the knobs. And they created that raw soundscape that we were looking for.

I’m always curious about where artists find their inspiration. Could you tell us something about what and who has inspired you along your way?

Germ Bomb. Photo courtesy of the band.

Germ Bomb. Photo courtesy of the band.

Everything from movies, books, music or whatever that comes in your way can inspire to a song. We always try to be open for all kinds of music.

Obviously Motörhead has been a big inspiration for us together with Slayer, Celtic Frost and a lot of punk bands like Exploited and GBH.

Nowadays bands like Saint Vitus, Electric Wizard, Einsturzende Neubauten, Of The Wand And Moon or Velvet Underground can inspire us. We have to mention Satyricon as a big influence and especially Frost and his drumming. It’s awesome!

So what is in the future for Germ Bomb? Are you planning any touring after the release of ‘Under a Fading Sun’?

We will soon premiere our first official video “1000 Suns” from the upcoming album. We would like to thank Black Forest Mag for the interview and hopefully we will hit the stage and create some chaos.

See you soon!

You can find more information and updates from the band here:

https://www.facebook.com/germbomb
https://germbomb.bandcamp.com/

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Black Forest Magazine is a Norwegian, digital magazine dedicated to dark arts and artisans.