Hole #16
Tormentor - Anno Domini (1989)
While I will always have a soft spot for stoner and doom metal (being the genres that got me into metal in the first place), in the past year or so I have found most of my metal listening to be of the black variety. This band comes from fairly early on in the genre’s conception, which started in the ‘80s and derived from death and thrash metal. Black metal is organised chaos. As opposed to the solid, linear riffs of stoner/doom, the riffs are obscured by the overall wall-of-sound effect it creates. Black metal also has an emphasis on atmosphere-creation. To me the combination of its grainy sheets of guitar feedback, echoing vocals, and deliberate lo fi production gives the impression of wandering through a leafless and snowy forest at night. The image makes sense seeing as the genre’s heritage is Scandinavian, but I feel there is an effect embedded within the genre of wandering through an inhabited space, catching glimpses of melody and rhythm before it fades into background as one walking the forest might catch sight of a deer moving between the trees. There is a coldness in the genre reflective of cold winters, and also the stoic acceptance of pain. It is no surprise then that many of the bands come from cold (climatically speaking) countries that suffered the horrors of the 20th Century. Tormentor themselves came from soviet-era Hungary, and had to wait until the fall of communism before they were able to release this album.
Listening to a good BM album is like viewing a Francis Bacon painting, it’s messy and slightly discomforting at first, as it sincerely attempts to deal with a very deep part of the human experience. Their methods may seem crude but once you have an eye/ear for it it can be quite enjoyable and even beautiful. Before listening to the below recommendation I encourage the reader to skim their eyes over its chilling subject, Elizabeth Báthory, who like the band, was also Hungarian. A noblewoman alleged to have tortured and murdered several hundred woman and girls while using her political power and connections to cover it up. A seemingly perfect topic for BM? Listen and see what you think.
The Tune of Highlight: Elizabeth Bathory
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