BATHORY: DESTROYER OF WORLDS (2001)
1) Lake Of Fire; 2) Destroyer
Of Worlds; 3) Ode; 4) Bleeding; 5) Pestilence; 6) 109; 7) Death From Above; 8)
Krom; 9) Liberty & Justice; 10) Kill Kill Kill; 11) Sudden Death; 12) White
Bones; 13) Day Of Wrath.
For all those torn between the «epic-Viking»
personality of Hammerheart-era
Quorthon and the «thrash-hammer» style of his Requiem/Octagon period, here is the ultimate in gift-showering: a
65 minute-long package that gives you the best of both worlds! Bombastic
Scandinavian epics and mosh heaven at
(almost) the same time — could anything be better in this world for an
open-minded heavy metal admirer?
Now, considering that both the latest
Viking-style and the latest
thrash-style offerings from Bathory were, at best, questionable (Blood On Ice was somewhat dull, and Octagon was somewhat horrendous), even
a very open-minded metal admirer would probably think twice before putting his
trust into Destroyer Of Worlds. And,
sure enough, some of the problems are carried over: the «epic» compositions are
long-winded and repetitive, while the thrash stuff is marred by the same old
stupid vocals that are stuck somewhere in the gutter that separates «singing»
from «growling» and are more likely to irritate and offend rather than impress
and entertain. This I have to say: Quorthon is always Quorthon, despite his
seemingly many faces, and, although you can look to Hammerheart for near-perfection, it is more typical of the guy to
stick to his formulaic guns than to try and make them look more and more
refined over time.
That said, with all the disclaimers in place, Destroyer Of Worlds is a surprisingly
good record. We start out with three songs that could have very easily fit on Twilight Of The Gods, and with a little
more squirming, even on Hammerheart,
although the subject matters are a mixed bag — Quorthon seems to be jumping
from his favorite Satanism schtick (ʽLake Of Fireʼ) to images of nuclear
apocalypse (title track) and then to Scandinavian pagan anthems (ʽOdeʼ). This
means there is no and there will be no further conceptual unity to the album,
but that's okay — it was clearly designed that way, as a diverse series of
vignettes, and who really cares as long as the vignettes in question work as
planned? ʽLake Of Fireʼ adds little of interest to the Bathory canon, stately
and threateningly creeping along like all those medieval procession-type songs
on Twilight, but it forms a good
contrast with the ensuing sturm-und-drang of the title track — and then ʽOdeʼ
comes on and blows both of them away with another medieval procession, but this
time set to a belligerent, muscular, angular riff.
Then we start moving into true thrash and speed
metal territory — ʽBleedingʼ («anatomy metal» with all the expected lyrical
imagery), ʽ109ʼ / ʽDeath From Aboveʼ (a nice double tribute to the powers of
the Luftwaffe), ʽKromʼ (a somewhat pathetic anthem to the biker tribe), ʽKill
Kill Killʼ (yoohoo, anti-establishment!), ʽSudden Deathʼ... wait, is this about
somebody getting clubbed to death during a frickin' hockey match? See how this guy Quorthon is dying to show you how versatile and unpredictable he can be if he
puts his mind to it? Vikings, Satanists, necrophiliacs, nuclear holocausts,
WWII air raiders, bikers, hockey players — suddenly, the Bathory world has
stretched out to an almost ridiculously huge size, sucking in almost everything
in sight, like the Vacuum Cleaner Beast in Yellow
Submarine.
But do we get decent music to go with all that?
I'd say, rather yes than no, and that covers even the thrash numbers —
suddenly, many of them turn out to be endowed with riffs far more expressive
and colorful than anything on Octagon.
ʽKromʼ, for instance, does its best to mimic a bike engine roar, turning the
steel machine into an animated Godzilla. ʽ109ʼ does the same from the
perspective of a Messerschmitt fighter. And ʽSudden Deathʼ does honestly try to
imitate the hustle and bustle of a hockey game gone wild — okay, so it does
sound a bit like an imaginary soundtrack to WrestleMania or something, but
Quorthon manages to make it fun anyway.
As the album ends with two more long
compositions (ʽWhite Bonesʼ starts out in generic slow-thrash mode, then
suddenly becomes a bluesy / artsy instrumental epic midway through, with
Quorthon picking up a psychedelic guitar tone that he never used before; ʽDay
Of Wrathʼ returns us to medieval procession mode), it sort of begins to dawn on
you that more work must have gone into the construction of this whole thing
than on most Bathory albums put together — all the more impressive considering
that the entire record was done by Quorthon alone: he is credited for everything,
including the rhythm session. At the very least, Destroyer Of Worlds may be counted as the most bizarre and baffling
of all Bathory oeuvres — considering that Quorthon had always been a weird
person, this judgement is not to be taken lightly.
Sure enough, from a purely formal / technical
point of view, other than the completely unpredictable lyrical topics, there
is not much new here — but what matters is that, for the first time ever,
Quorthon has really sewn all of his ends together, and it works much better than
anybody could have expected, and in much stranger ways: for instance, it took
me my third listen to actually get that something was «really happening» here,
so to speak — but once it did, the intrigue never went away again. It's still
there with me, so a quick thumbs up here before the enthusiasm wanes and I
start getting angry at those dumb vocals once again (or at the lyrics, which
could be even worse — other than the Viking epics, most of these verses do
suck).
Check "Destroyer Of Worlds" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Destroyer Of Worlds" (MP3) on Amazon
I searched for "lake of fire" on youtube and the first page of results was all based on the Meat Puppets song, with (fortunately!) no Bathory in sight.
ReplyDeleteIf you search for "wild horses" you get the Natasha Bedingfield song as first hit, which has nothing to do with the Rolling Stones song and is also offensively bad.