The Icelandic wolves are hungry

Musically speaking, there's always a good reason to bring up Iceland: because if you're not into Björk, you might always warm to Sigur Rós, or failing that, the soundtracks of the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, who passed away in 2018. And if you're after something trendy, you can always get hooked on new sensation Hatari, a rather offbeat outfit peddling electro-punk paired with a fetish/sadomaso aesthetic. The list could go on for a while yet, even though the subject at hand is an island stuck between Greenland and the UK, one that's often far from the media spotlight: just over three hundred thousand inhabitants, a climate that's anything but hospitable, and a landscape dotted with volcanoes and deep fjords. Perhaps precisely for this reason, a particular affinity for black metal has taken root here, currently played by a striking number of bands relative to the island's tiny population.

Primordial nature, the icy wind, the ancestral call of the past: there's a magical alchemy running through the current Icelandic black metal scene, a formula nonetheless set within a dark, claustrophobic mood, because beyond the borders of that sliver of land lies an insurmountable expanse of stormy sea that crushes and oppresses anyone who dares look past the horizon.

Before the big explosion of the second wave in the Nineties, we obviously have to talk about proto-black metal: it's 1987, and in Iceland there's a band called Flames Of Hell who record just one album, titled "Fire And Steel" — a flash in the pan, but one destined to leave a small mark nonetheless. Imagine if this trio had been born in the heart of Europe, say in Germany or in the Scandinavian cradle of the genre: someone might well have crowned them a fully respectable cult band. "Fire And Steel" is certainly no masterpiece, but it's as raw a record as Mayhem's "Deathcrush" could be, with the added bonus of a thoroughly over-the-top vocal performance from Steinþór Nicolaison, given over to noisy shrieking that's as ambiguous as it is fascinating.

Technique is next to nonexistent, but no matter: Flames Of Hell love Venom, Hellhammer and the earliest Bathory, and in some sense anticipate what we'd soon hear from the likes of Tormentor or Master's Hammer in Eastern Europe. Seeds that failed to take root, though, since 1987 was dominated by thrash metal, and death metal shortly after, both in America and on our own continent. And once black metal started claiming its victims (in every sense of the word!), attention shifted to Norway and then to other underground scenes with huge potential (think of the Greek scene, still fundamental to the genre's development today).

So we have to wait until the mid-Nineties for a notable Icelandic release, and this time it's the turn of Sólstafir and their four-track EP titled "Til Valhallar" (1996). The Norwegian influences are obvious, and here and there the band opens up into a few epic, viking-tinged roars, while still holding on to that icy approach that had by then become a Scandinavian trademark. But once again continuity is lacking, since Sólstafir's first true full-length wouldn't arrive until six years later ("Í Blóði Og Anda"), and it didn't leave much of an impression: which is also why we only really came to appreciate this band later on, thanks to the post-rock/post-metal turn that launched Sólstafir into the winning orbit of a label like Season of Mist.

Towards the end of the Nineties, when many of the earliest black metallers began showing signs of impatience with the genre's supposed commercialization, Iceland played an unexpected trump card: it's 1999, and out comes an album destined to mark the history of Icelandic black metal, "Bálsýn" by Potentiam. A pitch-black album, at times solemn, even dark in certain respects (the arpeggio of "Álfablóð" brings to mind "Charlotte Sometimes" by The Cure!), a gem destined to make waves even beyond the country's borders. This marks the first genuine turning point, as people began to notice that Iceland too had quality black metal to offer (after all, the label that released the record was the thoroughly Italian Wounded Love Records). "Balsyn" proves to be a groundbreaking work, born (though with absolute personality of its own) from the lessons of Mayhem and Enslaved. Still active today, Potentiam have never managed to replicate the achievement of their essential debut.

Alongside Potentiam were Curse, formed in 1995 under the moniker Thule. Only in the 2000s did the band manage to release their raw first effort ("Dead Sun Rise"), followed by two more decent but not essential works ("Slaughter Of The Star" and "Void Above, Abyss Below"). Curse's sound is fairly elaborate, featuring symphonic incursions, thrash digressions and more atmospheric passages that highlight the project's eclectic spirit — one worth reassessing today mainly from a historical standpoint.

We can, however, speak of a genuine Icelandic black metal scene only when considering what happened around a dozen years ago, with the arrival of numerous internationally renowned names (though always proudly confined to the underground) capable of shaping this ever-evolving sound as they saw fit. A tight-knit group of musicians, several of them involved in multiple projects, all united by a very dark, brutal and oppressive approach to the genre: we're talking about the now-disbanded Svartidauði (don't miss either "Flesh Cathedral" or the more recent "Revelations Of The Red Sword"), Sinmara (who returned in 2019 with the seething magma of "Hvísl Stjarnanna") or the experimental, cosmic Almyrkvi ("Umbra" dates back to 2017) — three names united by the same label, the highly active Ván Records.

The fact that Reykjavík is the only meeting point for these scenes also allows for lively collaboration between them. Some acts began as side projects (Almyrkvi consists of two members of Sinmara), but it's not unusual to find musicians splitting their time to play in several bands at once: while drummer Bjarni Einarsson divides his time between Sinmara, Almyrkvi, the Irish acts Slidhr and Wormlust, three members of Misþyrming (whom we'll get to shortly) recorded, in 2016, under the name Naðra, a savage album titled "Allir Vegir Til Glötunar". A short-lived outfit that nonetheless landed, just a few months later, on the prestigious stage of Roadburn in the Netherlands.

Wormlust is another entity worth highlighting in bold: essentially a one-man band led by multi-instrumentalist H.V Lyngdal (occasionally joined by the aforementioned Einarsson), who in 2013 unleashed the cryptic and hallucinatory "The Feral Wisdom", a compendium of (post-)black metal, ambient music and annihilating psychedelic ravings. Around the same time, Carpe Noctem released the interesting "In Terra Profugus", followed in 2018 by the excellent "Vitrun". Meanwhile, two of their members (Helgi and Tómas) released, under the moniker Misþyrming, another milestone of Icelandic black metal, "Söngvar Elds Og Óreiðu" (2015).

Misþyrming is by far the name that has achieved the most success outside Iceland's borders, having played the prestigious Inferno Festival in Oslo alongside the likes of Taake, Batushka and 1349 (among many others). Their "Söngvar Elds Og Óreiðu" (2015) is a record that exudes primal chaos from every pore, injecting further lifeblood into a sound that has by now become instantly recognizable. As if that weren't enough, Misþyrming's music is loaded with hatred, despair and a sense of suffering that seems to foreshadow some apocalyptic, ill-fated event. A small, dark and obsessive masterpiece, a lava flow that sweeps everything away.

It would take four years, however, for the follow-up, "Algleymi" (2019), this time presented with cold-toned artwork depicting Iceland's grim sky meeting a menacing sea. The music, too, proves complementary to the debut, moving between more epic, sumptuous passages and a far more pronounced melodic sensibility. Those impressions were later confirmed by the recent "Með Harmi" (2022), yet another gem from a band that's deadly serious about what it does, especially live (we recently caught them even at Frantic Fest, in Abruzzo).

Of course, the black metal offerings don't end here: worth mentioning are the excellent Árstíðir Lífsins (Árni of Carpe Noctem alongside two German musicians, with lyrics in Icelandic), the pagan-folk side of the local black metal scene. A trio that has grown enormously with its recent output, starting with the (excellent) 2023 EP "Hermalausaz". Then there are Draugsól (now rebranded as Kaleikr, purveyors of a twisted black metal with strong progressive-death overtones), the atmospheric, melancholic Auðn, the decent but non-essential Nyrst, and the promising Úlfúð (poised between black and death metal), as well as the now-disbanded Dysthymia ("The Shivering Opus", from 2008, blends black metal elements, orchestral keyboards and a thoroughly respectable doom-depressive undercurrent). Digging even deeper, one shouldn't overlook Vosbúð, already responsible for two albums as intense as they are evocative.

The scene's vitality is such that Iceland keeps generating new discoveries waiting to be explored, not to mention the growth of an important festival like Ascension (held every year just outside Reykjavik) and a decent string of past and present names left out here purely for reasons of space. One thing is certain: at underground level, Iceland offers excellent prospects for the genre, readable too through the lens of post-black metal crossovers. A living scene, currently among the most interesting around (on a par with Québec's francophone scene or other notable musical clusters found in former Soviet-bloc countries) — as attested even by a wonderful photo book released a few years back titled "Svartmálmur", which collects many key images of this dark side of the island.

We live on this isle like hungry wolves, with perpetual darkness or light in our eyes. Silent like this desolate horizon, violent like the incessant waves of the never-sleeping sea. If only we could rise into the air, dissolve into the wind, melt through the ground to the dephts of this world, like the Gods of our ancestors. But we are real, as real as you are.

These are the words that open the aforementioned book, and it's precisely within these lines that the most intimate secrets of Icelandic black metal lie hidden. The wolves are hungry.

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