Black Hateful Metal

Black metal is a European affair. Yes, Norway may boast the biggest sales, the most intriguing backstory, and a dearth of talented artists, but the Greek scene is just as old, the Austrian scene just as vital, the French just as extreme, and the Polish scene just as questionably racist. Let’s take a look at some choice artists from the latter two scenes for a taste of what European black metal was doing in the mid to late 1990s.

Polish black metal artists, although mildly less abrasive than their French counterparts, was still pretty obscure (and racist). Away from the polished behemoth that was Behemoth (chortle) lies the likes of Graveland and Veles, whose work in the mid-1990s was an infectious mix of lo-fi black metal, pagan aesthetics, synth and folk influences worthy of any epic film score. Indeed, Rob Darken of Graveland provided all keyboard sections for Veles on a session basis, and he simply cannot be bettered for his subtle use of this much maligned tool.

Their debut LP ‘Night on a Bare Mountain’ (1995) was an exercise in aggressive yet melodic pagan black metal, rich in dark atmosphere. Follow up, ‘Black Hateful Metal’ (1997), cranked up the aggressive aspects of Veles, but with a cleaner, thinner production. I cannot overstate just how thin this guitar tone is. The result is an album that sounds like the ghost of metal. The shrieks heard in the distant dark woods. The listener can tell that this music is ‘there’, but on the very edge of the psyche.

This is offset by tappy drums which are played with enthusiasm certainly, but really serve to prop up the flagging guitar tone. Vocals dominate the sound when present, which are an aggressive black metal rasping with minimal reverb that completely overpower the sound at times. Guitars are surprisingly varied. They work their way through a series of minimal but creative tremolo strummed riffs made up of simple minor chord progressions. As mentioned, greater depth to the sound is achieved through Darken’s flawless keyboard interludes that open this music to wider spaces than would otherwise be possible.

One must also mention the contrast of this minimalist aggressive black metal broken up by quite beautifully simple acoustic folk passages. Along with the keyboard interludes it really serves to open this music up. I would not go as far as to say that it makes the album, or holds up it, but it would certainly be a much harder work to get into without it. It makes it feel more like a dark celebration of nature, of the past, of trees, and sadly of so called ‘white European values’, but let’s ignore that bit (this is extreme metal in every sense of the word).

I would sincerely recommend this album. But with a few caveats. This ain’t entry level black metal. And not because it’s ‘heavier’. But because it is more abrasive in every way. The shitty production, the odd compositional choices, the overbearing vocals. It is not simply harder to get into, it is harder to take seriously. But if you look past this (and Veles being Nazis), you will be richly rewarded.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

Oh man, is this a patience-tester. The production and mixing are probably the most glaring flaws about this, but they work like holes in soggy drywall to expose all of the other flaws contained this thing extremely well. It's extremely tinny, paper-thin, and weak. If this is trying to create some kind of air of desolation, it doesn't really work since very little is done to immerse you or get you to go along with this music and any riffs or rhythms that come out of that wimpy guitar are simple to the point of not even trying. There are often times when the drugged-up jackass playing this guitar flubs the rhythm and ends up playing out of time. I know it's common practice to leave some mistakes in when you play black metal for the sake of raw grit, but come on! You can not sound this out of practice especially with such simple riffs! You need only listen to the intro of "Broken Cross" to get an idea of how inept the guitars can sound on here and it sounds positively dreadful, and not in the way Veles wanted it to be. A lot of the time it just feel like I'm listening to a kid fiddle around with a guitar while some guy at the bottom of a well who thinks he's a sewer monster snarls at me. The darkness on this album is so paper thin and weak that it ruins what these men were trying to achieve.

There are some good parts that do end up showing up and are worth commenting on. The dungeon synth songs that begin and end this are extremely moody and captivating. They actually succeed at building up some manner of darkness which is more than what I can say for the electric guitars which are just limp and powerless. I don't mind the dungeon synth bits at all. There's even some bits of the more regular black metal that do manage to shake off the normal motif of barely trying to play and actually have some regard for the hateful atmosphere they're trying to create. "The Spirit of Ancient Europe" is about as close as this comes to actually having a good song and is composed with a nice first half full of enchanting dungeon synth and a latter part where the black metal actually feels ripping and chaotic, the production sullies that a bit, but it actually feels like we were getting to some real fury. Unfortunately that's a pretty rare occurrence on this album because it can't decide whether to be barren, spaciously dark and atmospheric, or a noisy, hateful assault of blackened spite, so it ends up being a sorry compromise between the two.

Between the weak riffs, weak production, weak hateful mood, weak atmosphere, and the weak feeling of darkness there really isn't much going on here. The parts where keyboards were brought in were kind of cool with their mystic aura and dark reserve, and I guess the vocals are on point with how dry and animalistic they sound. The rest does not have me very hopeful about this album that some people consider a classic. The simplistic and error-riddled guitars along with lazy songwriting make for an album where not much exciting happens and it pretty much relies on you getting immersed into such a brittle soundscape that it's hard to feel much in the way of fear, hate, or longing like these guys wanted you to. It's the sonic immersion equivalent of dipping your feet in a dirty puddle. It's just amateurish and boring with very little in the way of riffing, atmospheric power, or even just raw necro ugliness. This is just limp garbage.

Aside from a few redeeming factors with the vocals and some synth-dominated passages, Black Hateful Metal provides just about nothing of worth. It's a wimpy-sounding album with bad instrumentation, simple riffs with little coherence or impact, boring and passionless composition, and the darkness of this album is about as thin as a sheet of black wrapping paper. It's odd that this thing is considered a classic by some since it just reeks of laziness and a severe lack of skill almost completely throughout to the point where it cannot even get its own "bleak, hateful" outlook across without sounding weak and hokey. Black Hateful Metal has earned my hate, this album sucks.

Two decades later and Black Hateful Metal is still the farthest anyone has taken black metal. Not farthest up or down, not the most progressive nor primitive, but simply the purest statement of black metal's spirit. "Black metal art" is a phrase that has been used for other things, but this LP is black metal art more than it is simply an album of songs.

The first Veles LP could have been released as Graveland or Infernum and nobody would have questioned it, but Veles were as influential in establishing the Polish sound as either of those bands. Graveland continued to evolve around that iconic sound for a few more years and other Polish bands had their own interpretations, but Veles made their statement on the demo and first LP before abruptly shifting for the second LP. Black Hateful Metal has all of the markings of psychosis, a degenerating mind still trying to preach its beliefs but finding a loss for words and instead lashing out in fragmented keywords and violent actions. Some of this is because of changing musicians in the band, but Black Hateful Metal is not simply the result of personnel changes. It could have only come from the perfect storm of circumstance and uninhibited expression.

I don't enjoy reviews that analyze each instrument and song, and it is difficult to find value in any reviews these days. However, this is an LP that commands me to think, and it is one of the rare albums that forces me to consider each element that makes the record.

Wire-thin guitar creates constant patterns of tension that occasionally ring out in shining "Jesus' Tod" streaks that show how deliberate this music is. As animalistic and unconventional as it is, there is a total awareness to the playing that goes beyond accidental genius. It is a unique tone that has removed everything accessible about heavy metal guitar, but unlike the flowing static common to this style, you can hear physicality of each movement. It is limited and one-dimensional but contrarily dynamic and textural, the product of the mind as much as the hands. The only other time I have heard this guitar style or even a similar tension is in the guitarist's own band Gromowladny, but it is brought to another level for Veles.

The drums are the spiritual twin of the guitar. Lightly played and quick, they are the violent backbone of the release. Again, there is a deliberateness to the recording that speaks beyond the primitive reactive sound. Structure and chaos hold hands for a result that is never confused nor awkward, simply an intuitive melee.

The first album had the dry croaks and snarls shared by most of classic Poland, but Black Hateful Metal uses harsh open-throated screams. They are high-pitched but not shrieked, more like steam escaping through a vent. Absolute blackness of human spirit releasing the pain of Europe. This is the vocalist's band and despite the importance of drums and guitar, they are the vessel for this man's vision. In a genre where musicians strive to sound inhuman, the vocals of Black Hateful Metal are terrifyingly HUMAN. Both the most human and anti-human black metal I've heard, with the narrator sitting atop the peak. Among the greatest vocals ever recorded in the name of black metal.

In another category are the clean interludes and keys. These are the most obvious connection between the first LP and this one, but like everything on Black Hateful Metal they are warped. Possibly improvised, these interludes are not typical moments of pagan reflection, but instead like trying to look into a mirror in a dark room. Familiar but confusing and while they may offer a moment to breathe, they offer no true relief. Using a few loosely connected notes, they rely more on space and psychedelic logic to keep the atmosphere unsettled before returning to the storm of hate.

If "raw black metal" still has any meaning, this is the rawest. Where "raw black metal" often rests on distorted tape production, Black Hateful Metal is a clean recording but with no professional standards. Vocal reverb at times eclipses the rest of the recording. Background vocals emerge in a couple of rare moments with repetitive shouts, creating an even more disorienting magic. Orchestral keyboard hits cut through guitar and drums. Everything shines despite itself.

With the album being as it is, it is easy to forget that Veles have thematic messages to communicate. The content of the album is fervently pagan and NS. Where NS and pagan black metal usually try to achieve sounds of pride and triumph, Black Hateful Metal covers the unexplored spiritual core of hate itself while dancing in a tornado of symbols.

It would be another seven years before another Veles album would be released after this second LP, and that third one sounds like something the band from the first LP would have eventually made just to stay active. "Black Hateful Metal" is its own entity, a sound impossible to reproduce given the circumstances that led to its creation and the situation these men were in at the time. With all of the secrecy and mythology of 90s black metal, it is hard to know who Veles truly were as people and what surrounded this record. We know that they were a key part of the young Temple of Fullmoon crew in which the best Polish black metal bands mingled with local skinheads to promote NS beliefs and spread pagan propaganda, and that this group ran into legal and internal problems in the time leading up to Black Hateful Metal. I would imagine this factored into the release.

Veles is also one of the few pagan European bands to admit drug use in interviews. I can't recall who it was exactly or if it is representative of the whole band, but one member discussed experimenting with psychedelics. Black Hateful Metal does not sound like an experiment in psychedelics and I hate when naive people attribute "weirdness" to drugs, but given the nature of Black Hateful Metal I can't help but feel there is a certain hallucinogenic presence to the music.

A friend of mine once referred to this record as a hate crime. He is right, but this is not a "hate crime" in the legal sense it is used in America. It is not an angry, aggro "hatecore" album. It is a Black Hateful Crime against everything that forces us to compromise in this embarrassing, soft, and artificial world. It is not enough to think of Black Hateful Metal as an album title, but as an entire genre that began and ended with this release. Hail Veles.