Bathory

A necessary introduction: cover art

Sometimes the excitement begins with the album cover itself... Anyone lucky enough to have held a vinyl copy of "Blood Fire Death" will have spent time admiring the painting "Asgardsreien" by Peter Nicolai Arbo, a magnificent depiction of a "wild hunt" of the Norse gods, savouring in advance what lay in the grooves. It wasn't the first time a cover had raised the buyer's expectations of being transported into a past tied to fantasy sagas or Norse legends. Most of the time, at least within heavy metal, those expectations were dashed! "Hard Attack" by Dust (with a cover by Frank Frazetta, among the finest ever painted), as well as the Heavy Load albums or "Borrowed Time" by Diamond Head, for all their excellence, conjure up in their songs atmospheres that are unmistakably modern and urban. To find an album that lives up to its cover, you have to wait for the ridiculous outfits of Manowar on "Into The Glory Ride" and their "Hyborian" metal. It's no coincidence that this very second album by Joey DeMaio and co., together with other, darker works of the epic movement such as "King Of The Dead" by Cirith Ungol, would become the main influence behind the making of "Blood Fire Death". And from then on, covers featuring swords, helmets and Viking beards would finally start doing proper justice to the sound contained within.

A boundless progeny

There have been few artists capable of creating masterpieces across different musical genres. But finding one who, within a handful of years, actually codified two of them (one of which practically out of nothing) is a riddle that can only be solved with the name of Quorthon and his Bathory. While the first three albums define, with steadily rising quality, the first form of black metal (a genre that can be said to reach full realisation with the splendid "Under The Sign Of The Black Mark", even though the mastermind would for years deny paternity of the genre, probably to avoid being associated with the excesses of the Norwegian scene) building on the foundations laid by the early Venom records, the leap made with opus no. 4 in 1988 marked the start of a new, epoch-making revolution in the world of heavy metal, one that, over a quarter of a century later, continues to influence an inordinate number of artists.

Everything now labelled "viking", "pagan" and, in part, even "folk metal" is born here. And, as every fan well knows, we're not talking about a niche, but about what today is, perhaps, the most widely embraced subgenre of what is, undoubtedly, one of the most widely embraced genres in music.

It would therefore not be a stretch to call Bathory the most influential rock band ever within metal, if one looks at all the output that, in one way or another, owes something to Quorthon's insights. Venom were responsible for the call to arms, but it was the Swedish one-man band that pointed the way for the front lines. And, 25 years on, the assault still isn't over...

Form and substance

In short, goats, pentagrams and eternal flames vanish from the covers and the lyrics (well... at least largely from the lyrics). And the music follows suit. The album is no longer opened by a dark ambient piece, as the first three records were, but by a grandiose orchestral track accompanied by whinnying horses, gathering clouds and blowing winds. The title says it all: "Odens Ride Over Nordland". A prelude to war, just like the arpeggio that opens "A Fine Day To Die". Quorthon's voice marks a second novelty: the frontman abandons the shrill scream he had always used up to that point, venturing into clean singing that is unsteady, certainly, and technically questionable, but undeniably suited to the new atmospheres. The hesitation is soon swept away by thunderous distortion that turns the song into an epic march, accompanied now by the declamatory vocals, now by a basic but terribly effective lead guitar - with a breathtaking melodic break in the middle, like a ray of sunlight suddenly appearing over the battlefield.

The Nordic revolution has begun! And the mad ride picks up speed with a series of ferocious tracks, hysterical to the point of paroxysm: "The Golden Walls Of Heaven", "Pace 'til Death" and, above all, "Holocaust", ostensibly tied to the band's past but actually far more structured and technically ambitious than the filthy black-thrash of their beginnings. Viking atmospheres take over again on the mid-tempo "For All Those Who Died", with bone-crushing riffs and a rhythm section that, while never overdoing the patterns, is a constant assault on the nerves, like a spring coiling for the new, terrifying onslaught of "Dies Irae". All fantastic, and already more than enough to go down in history.

But "Blood Fire Death" secures its definitive immortality with the monumental title track, an ode to the fallen awaiting the final battle in Valhalla. Opened by an arpeggio of mysterious, evocative charm, accompanied by keyboards and a female choir, the song takes flight when Quorthon's guitar becomes charged with electricity to tear open the sky with one of the finest riffs ever unleashed in extreme metal. From there it's superb storytelling, at a measured but relentless pace, played with an intensity that pierces the soul and blessed by the (Norse) gods of rock 'n' roll. Right up to the final destruction that leaves neither gods nor men alive.

Quorthon's legacy

Last June marked ten years since the death of Thomas Forsberg, aka Quorthon. Almost no one, even within the heavy metal world, seems to have noticed. Which, in the end, is almost fitting: for years, he was a figure who, if not overlooked, was at least taken for granted. And yet, a large part of the music that I and countless metalheads love (starting precisely with the Bathory albums) would not exist without him.

"Blood Fire Death" would be followed by other works, arguably even a touch better in formal terms (the subsequent "Hammerheart", the melancholic "Twilight Of The Gods", or the two volumes of "Nordland") that would consolidate the Viking turn. But the sense of wonder that must have struck listeners back in 1988 on hearing tracks like "A Fine Day To Die" or "Blood Fire Death" was hard to surpass, even for Quorthon himself. Yet he had managed to perfectly translate Arbo's painting into music. That alone would be enough to certify the album's sheer magnificence.

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28/09/2014