Mass Burial: Immortal, Northern Chaos Gods

Following All Shall Fall in 2009, Immortal once more went on a hiatus, with Abbath releasing another solo album in 2015. Again embroiled in legal matters, the band name would end up with Demonaz, who along with steady drummer Horgh, released what is probably the most Black Metal Immortal album since Pure Holocaust.

Mass Burial: Immortal, All Shall Fall

Following the hiatus which would result in both of the bands’ major figures solo albums, 2009’s All Shall Fall is the follow-up to Sons of Northern Darkness, and is an album that treads very, very much the same path. But, while Sons mimicked the best parts of its predecessor, Damned In Black, to marvelous results, All Shall Fall is a little too much of the same to competently stand on its own.

Mass Burial: Immortal, The Seventh Date of Blashrykh

Ah, the live album. An opportunity to relive a concert, or to experience one vicariously. A chance to assemble a “greatest hits” type package including all of the intensity and spectacle of the live setting. Usually, live albums are very hit-or-miss, dependent on ones’ enthusiasm for a band and the selectin of songs being performed. Personally, I like live albums quite a bit, although my hunger for them ebbs and flows. The Seventh Date of Blashrykh should have been a hit, as it depicts Immortal playing a true selection of hits with an emphasis on tunes from Sons of Northern Darkness, which I would argue is the bands’ high water point. But man, I really hate this album.

Mass Burial: I, Between Two Worlds

The real shame of Demonaz’ March of the Norse solo album is that it isn’t very memorable or strong aside from it being a Demonaz solo album. The real shame of Abbath’s first solo salvo is that I was a one-off project.

Between Two Worlds is not going to try to be an Immortal record, or even a Black Metal one, really. This is more of an open road driving kind of album, I guess more Black n’ Roll than anything, but it is a great and tragically underappreciated release.

Mass Burial: Demonaz, March of the Norse

Demonaz’ solo album is more Black Metal, or more Immortal, if you will, than Abbath’s of the same general time, but it is also more of a by-the-numbers affair. That shouldn’t be misread as a knock, only as a primer statement.

Mass Burial: Immortal, Sons of Northern Darkness

Chicago spent the last few days in the grips of the polar vortex, and what better time to take in some more of Immortal’s brand of frosty, frigid Black Metal? Why not make that an extra shot of what is probably Immortal’s most “Immortal” record, Sons of Northern Darkness?

Mass Burial: Immortal, Damned in Black

Here’s a hot take for a cold January morning: Damned in Black is the album where Immortal really started being Immortal. Following the truly different At the Heart of Winter, Damned returns to shorter songs that chug along with a feeling of canned ferocity that is clearly trying to capture the actual ferocity of other Black Metal bands and records, resulting in something that feels like prefabricated, check the boxes Black Metal that is never the less totally satisfying and enjoyable.

Mass Burial: Immortal, At the Heart of Winter

Considered by many to be Immortal’s finest work, for some reason, At the Heart of Winter is an album that nevertheless signals a fairly large shift in the Immortal trajectory, trading the short and sharp Black metal attacks for longer and more plodding fare. That adjective choice is not intended to be a slight or signal of disapproval; it just so happens to be accurate. I have personally always fought the notion that this record is an outlier in the catalog, or the “different one,” as future Immortal records will lean heavily on things learned from At the Heart of Winter, but it certainly is the one album that marks a transitional stage in the band.

Mass Burial: Immortal, Blizzard Beasts

Blizzard Beasts is another somewhat strange entry in the Immortal discography. The follow up to Battles in the North, Blizzard Beasts is an almost identical listening experience that cleans up that maddening issue its predecessor had with just cutting songs off after three minutes. That adds a whole lot to Blizzard Beasts in terms of listenability, but the album suffers from a different issue.

Mass Burial: Immortal, Battles in the North

The third Immortal album, Battles in the North may contain some of the bands’ best songs in the title track and “Cursed Realms of the Winterdemons,” but it suffers from one incredible and persistent flaw. And no, it’s not the cover photo.

Or any of the terrible photos in the liner notes, either.

Mass Burial: Immortal, Pure Holocaust

Pure Holocaust is where Immortal really got started. Solid in their version of Norwegian Black Metal and ready to pursue it, Abbath and Daemonez here took full control of their direction and charged forward with confidence and resolve, crafting what is an absolutely criminally underrated album, a crime which besmirches the entire genre. The result is one of the best offerings of the Norwegian scene, a Black Metal classic, and still one of Immortals’ top three records.

Mass Burial: Immortal, Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism

Immortal is a name that is surprisingly polarizing in the Black metal scene. Formed in 1991 as part of the blossoming Second Wave of Black metal, and absolutely one of the Norwegian scenes’ mainstays, Immortal developed its own lyrical direction around fantasy and mythology, somewhat akin to a band like Enslaved, as opposed to religion and Satan, akin to practically everyone else. Immortal’s members also managed to stay relatively out of trouble, putting them on a different plane of ‘realness’ than guys like Vikernes, and then later being viewed by some as something of a novelty, like a band playing Black metal instead of being a Black metal band. I imagine that that concept will be clarified as this Mass Burial rolls onward. Long, long, long a foundational band in the whole Norwegian/90’s Black metal evolution, a deep dive into the Immortal catalogue is certainly a task, the band having ten proper records, one official live record, and then three Immortal-adjacent albums that are mostly Immortal albums released under different names. (see here –mr).

Grave Considerations/Coffin Shaker/Mass Burial: Coal Chamber

This piece sorta just happened out of the blue, inspired by a story I read yesterday online wherein Dez Farfara, vocalist of the generally meh DevilDriver and formerly of the generally rad Coal Chamber, has publicly stated, again, that Coal Chamber is forever broken up, and is not coming back. Apparently, the greater purpose of this interview was to announce that DevilDriver is going to start playing Coal Chamber songs live, which is sort of an interesting possibility, and that this was preceded by another round of Dez calling the old band members and everyone swearing at each other. I kinda just wanted to take a few minutes and talk about this. Part thinkpiece, part album review, part discography dive, it’s hard to really say where this fits, but here it is regardless.

Coffin Shakers: W.A.S.P., Reidolized (The Soundtrack to the Crimson Idol)

It’s been awhile since we’ve talked about music around here. The last Mass Burial wrapped up in December, and I was hoping to get another one together during my move, thinking that would allow me to keep blogging without the ancillary components of action figures and pictures and time. Well, that didn’t pan out, as I couldn’t decide on a band to examine. But now it is spring, and the weather is finally starting to change for the spring-like, at the end of April. Spring always brings a young mans’ heart back to rock and roll.

Mass Burial: Squalus, The Great Fish

I don’t remember when, because Life often moves too fast for my mind to grasp the good parts tightly enough to crystallize them into memories these years. There was an announcement that some of the members of the great Giant Squid were putting together a project that would use samples from the 1975 meisterwerk Jaws, the movie that invented the concept of the summer blockbuster, as well as a movie that has clearly been an enormous inspiration for the members of Giant Squid. The initial announcement made it seem that this new band, dubbed Squalus, was going to use sample, samples, like they did on “Eating Machine” from Metridium Fields. So, my understanding of this new project was a bunch of songs like “Eating Machine”. And while “Eating Machine” does appear in altered form on The Great Fish, I was totally unprepared for what this record really was.

Mass Burial: Giant Squid, Minoans

Minoans is the last Giant Squid record, in that it is the last record these musicians would release under this name. This is a good combination of the song composition and content that the band has always offered, but largely loses the sludgy lurch of their earlier works.

And that is a quality of this band that I have always really, really appreciated, so to have it mostly disappear is a little bit of a personal let down. Not to say that the band has lost its magic, as that is something that was always provided by the compositions and their atmospheric moments; but the Giant Squid of Metridium Fields and the heavier moments of The Ichthyologist will always be preferable to me to the cleaner, more polished Giant Squid of Cenotes and Minoans. But enough, lest I become That Guy, eager to disparage the modern output in favor of toasting unnecessarily again the old. It is the absence of sonic density that causes the musical density to be somewhat overlooked, at least by myself somewhat regularly.

Mass Burial: Giant Squid, Cenotes

Cenotes is an EP that showcases one particular thing that has been part of the Giant Squid repertoire from the beginning, but given the sheer amount of things happening musically, can often be overlooked. From the opening seconds of the record, a strong Middle Eastern influence can be heard. And, it has been there all along, not a thing that has just surfaced for these five songs.

Mass Burial: Giant Squid, The Ichthyologist

The Ichthyologist picks up exactly where Metridium Field leaves off, with a slower, hypnotic track in “Panthalassa”. And what a way to start their second full length. An album that holds a special place in my heart, although a different one from the spot occupied by Metridium Field, The Ichthyologist has a dense and unsettling atmosphere about it that can, at certain times, be downright suffocating.

Mass Burial: Giant Squid, Metridium Fields

Metridium Fields is the first full length record from the outstanding Giant Squid, and it is an absolute titan of an album. This album has an interesting and somewhat tragic history, having been the band’s debut prior to Monster in the Creek, but then being rerecorded and rereleased after that EP. I’m not going to get into the bizarre story here, but I suppose if you’re interested in a band that wasn’t going to let life get in the way of them releasing their vision, it’s worth looking into.

The record is eight total tracks, with one being a sub-one minute interlude (“Eating Machine”), one being an eerie intro piece (“Megaptera in the Delta”) , and six pretty lengthy masterworks. I kind of don’t want to just go track to track, because I feel that wouldn’t be very interesting to read; but if there was an album that really warranted that type of scrutiny, it would certainly be this one. So, let’s do it, I guess. I have already realized that this is going to be the album that I will gush about most over the course of this Mass Burial, so I might as well not try to restrain myself when I know it is futile.

Mass Burial: Giant Squid, Monster in the Creek

So, I got a request for this Mass Burial. Maybe a suggestion would be more accurate. My ten year anniversary of my relationship with my wife is rapidly approaching, and in the time leading up to our dating, I had been investing a lot of time in the band Giant Squid, a now defunct progressive sludge outfit from California. Not entirely defunct, so much as they have morphed into an incredibly similar “new” band with a different name: Squalus.