DISCOGRAPHY DEEP DIVE: Dødheimsgard
Living on the edge of genres and scenes since 1994 - we dive deep into the 30 years of one of the most beautifully disruptive anomalies metal has ever produced.
DØDHEIMSGARD
We haven’t done one of these in a while, so I could make it easier for myself and allow a gentle transition, like pick a simple death metal band where I’d just have to explain how crushing and super dark it all is, or a fun indie rock band where I’d just mention some hooks and the catchiness and how you’ll sing it in the shower for weeks, and that’d be it. Let’s face it, while it doesn’t, by any means, necessarily speak of any kind of inherent quality to the bands/genres in question, there is some music that is easier to talk about than some other. And picking a weird Norwegian band that has put out six records in 30 years, most of them wildly different from each other, whose only real genre association is black metal and only because of the first few years and the people involved, isn’t really making it easy. But what the hell, Dødheimsgard are and have always been one of my favourites, so I’ll try in some way to convey what their entire catalogue means to me, probably resorting sometimes to vague gestures you won’t be able to see and frustrated invented words, and hopefully help turn some of the uninitiated into one of the most exciting kinds of strangeness the metal scene has ever spat out. So, first things first…
KRONET TIL KONGE
(1995, Malicious Records)
Technically there was a demo before this, but whatever. This feature is only meant to focus on the full-lengths, and the occasional smaller release if I feel it’s important - and they do actually have one of those, but a little further ahead. No, this was my first contact with Dødheimsgard, and in a funny way too. Still on the latter stages of tape-trading, I got it from some guy in Sweden, of whose listing I had asked for the Ved Buens Ende demo, ‘Those Who Caress The Pale’. I had seen a review in a zine that naturally made me go nuts for it, and I had been trying to get it for months. I believe ‘Written In Waters’ was already out when I finally managed to get it from this dude, but since it was only 29 minutes long, he thought he’d actually tack it at the end of side B of a 90m tape that had ‘Kronet Til Konge’ recorded first. I’ll never forget what the note said, and how it said it: “Since you like that Ved Bons End [sic - I kid you not] shit, you’ll probably like this, it’s the same guy or something”. I fully appreciate the good-natured passive-aggressiveness of the idea, the here’s-some-real-music-for-you-you-fucking-weirdo, and while yeah, it was “the same guy or something” in a way, I’m sure you can appreciate how different the two fields were that Vicotnik was operating in at the time. While “Ved Bons End” was and remained revolutionary and peculiarly unique to this day, Dødheimsgard, of whom more or less the exact description could be applied years after, wasn’t that, yet, at this point. I did like ‘Kronet Til Konge’, and if you listen closely, within the dark and claustrophobic halls of its very typical grim-1995 lo-fi black metal, there were already some seeds of what was to come. While never veering into “melodic” territory, there was a curious atonality to the riffs, a certain murky, labyrinthine way that they enveloped themselves around you, while Aldrahn’s vocals were already out of this world, a stupendous performance that ended up as one of the highlights, even in the more oddball sounding, uncomfortable spoken parts like the beginning of ‘Midnattskogens Sorte Kjerne’, for instance. While not a masterpiece of the kind of alien world the band would conquer in the future, this does remain like a fantastic piece of 90s Norwegian BM that has aged particularly well. Oh, and speaking of the lineup, it’s worth mentioning that it’s a mad one - Aldrahn, as we mentioned, was on vocals as well as guitars, Vicotnik was the drummer (!) and backing vocalist, and the bass was played by none other than Fenriz himself who also added some vocals. Note for an “additional songwriting” credit on one of the best songs on the album, closer ‘When Heavens End’, attributed to Ulver founding member Sigmund “Grellmund” Løkken, who sadly took his own life shortly after the release of the album, on New Year's Day 1996, at the age of 19.
MONUMENTAL POSSESSION
(1996, Malicious Records)
While still far from the out-there Dødheimsgard that we know and (hopefully) love today, ‘Monumental Possession’ did indeed push much further than ‘Kronet Til Konge’, and in more directions than one. The presence of Aura Noir’s (also with stints in Immortal, Cadaver, Lamented Souls, nowadays in Coffin Storm, etc) Apollyon on guitars (future Emperor bassist Alver completed the lineup around the Aldrahn/Vicotnik - still on drums - core duo) probably helps understanding the thrashier, angrier, looser vibe of the songs, some of them very Aura Noir-y indeed, and the delightfully simple caveman approach to some of the songwriting makes it feel even rawer than its predecessor. All in all, it’s still very much a mid-90s Norwegian black metal album, but the strangeness, or the “avant-garde” elements as we all liked calling it in that time, unaware of how slightly silly that was, are also much more noticeable and fearless when they appear. While not necessarily the best example of Dødheimsgard-ness you can give someone, it’s hard to argue with the massive groove of songs like ‘Angel Death’ or the title-track. The uneven vocal approach, with Aldrahn, Vicotnik and Apollyon all contributing lead vocals to some of the tracks, was questionable, but if you can get past that, ‘Monumental Possession’ is a neat little gem that is often overlooked but that has, once again, aged particularly well, if you’re not necessarily looking for the latter day complex transcendence this band would offer and just want to rock out a bit.
SATANIC ART
(1998, Moonfog)
Ah, but this, see, this is where it really started to change. The ‘Satanic Art’ EP is the only non-album release of this list (to be fair, apart from a couple of demos and singles, the only one in their career as well), and it makes the cut because it is the quitessential “transition" record that ends the relatively straightforward black metal section of Dødheimsgard’s career and opens the door for all the wonderfully misshapen creatures that would stumble through it over the following years. It was even released on Moonfog, which for a few years seemed like the home for the future of black metal, with everyone from Satyricon themselves to Khold or Gehenna adopting a little left-field industrial vibe in their works during this period. Wisely, Dødheimsgard finally made some lineup switches for it, with Vicotnik (or, erm, Mr. Fantastic Deceptionist) finally picking up the guitar, Cerberus (or Mr. Dead Meat Smelly Feet) joining on bass (he’s now back together with Vicotnik in Dold Vorde Ens Navn) and Apollyon (or Mr. Nebulous Secrets - they had fun doing this little record, didn’t they?) switching to drums. Fleurety’s Svein Egil Hatlevik (or, once again, Mr. Dingy Sweet Talker Women Stalker, the one “funny nickname” that didn’t age all that well) joined them on keyboards and effects and a certain Mr. Anti Evolution Human Deviation contributed guitars on his only appearance with the band, and you might know him better as Galder from Old Man’s Child and Dimmu Borgir. Bit of an all-star cast, for sure, but the three proper songs, intros and outros aside, do sound like a tight, adventurous, forward-thinking titanium ball of destruction and weirdness. Funnily enough, the piano notes on the outro, ‘Wrapped In Plastic’, are actually the very same ones that introduce the madness of ‘Shiva-Interfere’, the opening song from…
666 INTERNATIONAL
(1999, Moonfog)
Here we are, then. This is what people really mean when they say they are Dødheimsgard fans. No disrespect or taking anything away from the quality of those records that make up the first period of the band that we just covered, but ‘666 International’ is the one that twisted our heads around in ways we didn’t know they could twist back then, a whole 25 years ago. It was actually that recent, and frankly unbelievable, round anniversary that prompted me to dive into the full catalogue of this remarkable band and remember all the reasons why they rule. In a way, they are all present already within the nine minutes of that mentioned opener, ‘Shiva-Interfere’. Unexpected rhythm changes, razor-sharp, throat-slicing industrial guitars shooting off half-riffs (Vicotnik, aka Mr. Fixit on this one, finally in full mad scientist creative mode), beats and feedback and tons of layers of effects still courtesy of Svein (now Mr. Magic Logic), Aldrahn losing his mind and delivering one of the most affirming, menacing, unhinged performances in extreme metal history. The now full-on Aura Noir rhythm section (Apollyon on bass and Czral/Aggressor/Carl-Michael Eide on drums) is colossal and holds up everything else, and all this is just on the first song. ‘Ion Storm’ comes right up to answer the question that no one asked but that needed to be asked nevertheless, “what if we fucked up a song that could otherwise be on ‘Kronet Til Konge’ with this crazy electro-noise-BM format?”, topped off by a little uneasy piano interlude (‘Carpet Bombing’) that sets up the apocalyptic ten minutes of ‘Regno Potiri’. I’m not doing a full track-by-track, don’t worry, I’m not a Geocities webzine trying to review an album they don’t understand, but it’s important to note just how much is crammed into the first four/three-plus-interlude tracks of this album, how much fearless inventiveness, how much unbound rage but also devilish playfulness, only on fucking side A of the whole thing. Of course the otherworldly delights of ‘Final Conquest’, ‘Sonar Bliss’ or ‘Completion’ just add insult to injury, and to be honest, that’s really how I remember side B feeling to me at the time - overwhelming, as if we had already taken such a beating that more just felt unnecessary, in the best possible way. Once you’ve been in the pouring rain for an hour, just how much more drenched can you be? Turns out quite a bit more, yeah. Though naturally parts of it do feel like 1999, as a whole, the fact is that even for today’s heard-it-all-before jaded standards ‘666 International’ still sounds fresh, unusual, and like an ‘Into The Pandemonium’-like cry of freedom and rebellion from any implicit, established rules. You might musically classify this album as you like, but in terms of left-field wildness of spirit, it doesn’t get much more black metal than that.
SUPERVILLAIN OUTCAST
(2007, Moonfog)
But then, instead of becoming the international superstar leaders of experimental metal they should have by their own artistic merits, Dødheimsgard largely disappeared in the wake of ‘666 International’. Not only a certain more orthodox section of the black metal world did not understand the genius of that album, but most of all, truth is, they never seemed to be much of a full-dedication kind of band, the kind that takes over the lives of its members and becomes its own thing, with endless tours and public appearances and media obligations and all that shit that “big” bands, for better or worse, have to deal with. In a sense, it’s somehow appropriate that these people remain lurking in the underground, a bright gem for those who know, and a puzzling enigma for those who don’t. Yeah, we could do with a more regular pace of releases than the one established with the eight years that took them to follow up ‘666…’ and still seems to be more or less their M.O. these days, but fuck it, right? Good things take time, and a thing like ‘Supervillain Outcast’ doesn’t pop up from one month to the next - and particularly not when you pretty much lose your whole band. While Aldrahn still featured as a guest on two songs and Czral laid down drums as a session musician (could this have been his last drum performance before his unfortunate accident?), the core of the band was now essentially Vicotnik and his new “frontman”, joined by two former Paradigma musicians, Tom Kvålsvoll aka Thrawn Hellspawn and Christian Eidskrem aka Clandestine (who was also in Strid with Vicotnik). Said frontman was, crucially, Mat McNerney aka Kvohst, and he would be one of the very few people able to effortlessly fill in Aldrahn’s sizeable shoes at this time. Besides making DHG’s (the abbreviation that they mainly started to use as the actual band name since this release) interludes finally unskippable with some brilliant a capella singing on them, his shouty vocals, which are his main means of expression throughout the album, are full of bile as well as, dare we say it, even melody, infusing the songs with a lot of personality and vibrancy, though with less of that on-the-edge-of-madness quality that Aldrahn brought to the table. Which was okay, because it wasn’t that kind of album either. I remember being slightly disappointed for some time with ‘Supervillain…’, because while ‘666…’ was the sound of just-released, hungry, young madness, this seemed to be… controlled, calculating madness, madness that has been out for a while and knows how to pace itself. Just like the used name for the band, so the songs became shorter, simpler, more to the point. Even if the electronics are much more to the forefront and the industrial dissonance is more than ever at the basis of how the songs sound, it’s less like rabid unknown creatures clanging things on pipes below you and more like post-apocalyptic clowns dancing in front of you with chainsaws - it leaves less to the imagination, and while it’s still menacing and terrifying, you ultimately kinda want to just join in the dancing yourself. It takes a while (and maybe some maturing) to really appreciate this album, and perhaps it will always feel like an anomaly bleep on the DHG radar, but nevertheless a very welcome one once everything is said and done.
A UMBRA OMEGA
(2015, Peaceville)
Yeah, and then eight more years of waiting. I told you it had become an M.O., right? Fortunately, if even the slightly divisive ‘Supervillain Outcast’ felt like it had been worth it, then ‘A Umbra Omega’ was definitely worth it. Here’s something curious - back in 2015, when we were still much happier than we knew and the world didn’t feel like being nearly on the brink of fucking exploding as it does now, the great Terrorizer magazine still existed, and I actually wrote the little descriptive blurb for ‘A Umbra Omega’ when it was selected as one of the albums of the year (always the best taste, that lovely rag, right?), and it read thusly: “Years ahead of its time, we'll still be figuring out 'A Umbra Omega's idiosyncrasies years from now, but all while having enormous fun navigating its darkened mazes of dizzying, sinister experimentation.“ First of all, note the use of the word “idiosyncrasies”, which means that this was serious business journalism shit and also that this is a band that I feel is worthy of digging out my thickest thesaurus for. And you know what? It’s also true, what I wrote there. All through the writing of this thing that you’re reading right now, this is the one that I’ve been dreading, as I still feel, nine years onwards, that I’m not really ready to convey what it means, what it transmits, what it is. I probably never will, as every time I play the wretched thing it seems to suffer the Mandela effect and twist itself into something I haven’t heard before. For once, now long-removed from those naive, internet-ess days of the 90s where we used terms to describe bands and weren’t judged by it, it now feels appropriate to dig out the old “avant-garde” chestnut to throw at Dødheimsgard again, because there really isn’t a better way to talk about it, even in an age when we already have the likes of Oranssi Pazuzu navigating a similar kind of murky headspace. ‘A Umbra Omega’ is that dreaded thing, a “mature” album, that while unpredictable and constantly surprising, while making you feel all the things that ‘666…’ did in its best parts, doesn’t need to rage all the time, doesn’t need those gremlins running around the basement. No, now the thing terrifying you is wearing a suit and having some wine while being quiet and maybe playing a piano note or two in your living room, and you’re as scared shitless as endlessly fascinated by it, like you’ve never been before. I think the best way to put it is that, crucially, Dødheimsgard finally became bigger than the sum of its parts with these six long, slowly-developing songs. Sure, Aldrahn returned to the vocal post, but that almost doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things - not to diminish anything from yet another fantastic performance, but unlike what you can say of previous records, for this one, Vicotnik (who also contributes vocals, by the way) or Kvohst or anyone else with some proper understanding of the workings of DHG could easily have done it too. It’s not about who’s in the band, it’s about this strangely earthen, organic, all too human contemplation of space that can be either outer or inner, offering the same kind of ocean of sombre infinity in either case. I could go on throwing flowery bullshit at it, but you get the drift. All in all, one of the most quietly challenging, constantly interesting albums of this century, and despite the adolescent, nostalgic love and historical importance of ‘666…’, this is by far the band’s best.
BLACK MEDIUM CURRENT
(2023, Peaceville)
You know what, I’ve already written about ‘Black Medium Current’ twice on TDM, first when I picked them for April 2023’s The Devil’s Month feature, and then at the end of that year, when they came in 8th on my albums of the year list. So there’s no wait I’ll talk about a Dødheimsgard album three times in just over a year, as I fear my brain might explode. We’re still on year one of probably another eight (1999-2007-2015-2023, I’m afraid that progression is pretty much set in stone by now) of waiting for the next one, so there’ll be time. We’re just starting to enjoy it, in that alien measuring system that is DHG-years. To be honest, I kinda really like what I wrote about it on that end of the year list, after I had lived with it for a few months, so allow me the laziness of leaving you with that bit. I still agree with pretty much everything, so it counts as July 2024 opinion too:
In a way (there are many, and I hasted to add, none of them are right or wrong, better or worse), the epitome of experimentation is when the stuff you do doesn’t really feel “experimental” as such. When complexity, depth and innovation are performed and presented in such a way that the listener assimilates it emotionally, even internalises it, and only really understands how outside the box the piece is when, for instance, they are forced to explain it in more detail. Such is the case with this unbelievably stunning new Dødheimsgard record. That this is a top-10 album and that it was going to be awesome is no surprise at all, anyone who’s followed them or even related projects (such as the remarkable Dold Vorde Ens Navn) knows how consistently amazing they are, even in their current one-album-per-decade steady pace. That ‘Black Medium Current’ would feature gentle choruses (try to resist swooning to the various Vicotnik proclamations of “beneath your shadow / I’m under your skin” during ‘Interstellar Nexus’, at least until you’re rudely interrupted by a harsh electronic part right after!), a sort of outer space lounge music vibe (‘It Does Not Follow’) or, generally speaking, some of the mellower and most misleadingly accessible music of their discography. It’s only when you start to piece together the whole thing in your mind after a few listens that the real dimension of it starts to assault you. The cohabitation of dissonance, clarity, piano, electronics, blastbeats, crooning, growls, beauty, sadness… none of it makes sense in theory, and yet the flow of the entire record is entirely seamless, as if you are listening to three-minute pop songs. It’s like even the disruption and the tension usually caused by Dødheimsgard’s music has gone to the next step, and they are now feelings of a more subversive, subtle but deeper lasting kind. Less screaming at you and making themselves known right now, but whispering perniciously in your ear all the time until you wake up one day and can’t think of anything else.
You can find Dødheimsgard on Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and YouTube.
While you’re at it, check out Vicotnik’s other active band, the amazing Dold Vorde Ens Navn, also featuring current DHG drummer Myrvoll and former bassist Cerberus, as well as the genius of former Ulver guitarist Håvard Jørgensen.
