I am the Black Wizards

 

After years of dwelling in this genre of metal, I have always believed that black metal would sound awesome if orchestrated, played on violin or even piano. An example in mind would be Emperor's I am the Black Wizards, the live rendition is attached above.

I am therefore very glad to have come across this piano cover by Catherine Fearns & you could understand, after watching this clip, what I was talking about. The note choices, arrangement & progression are simply suitable for an orchestrated interpretation. So the next time you come across an opinion saying black metal is trash, it's not music, then you know this is a foolish comment.

Live listening

For the entire week, I've been listening to live albums. I've limited liking for live releases because the tracks are re-hashing what was recorded before but with a perspective of that 'raw' take from live feeds. 

Slayer's Decade of Aggression was my first live purchase & it was overplayed & both the cassette tapes died. That's right, they were on cassette tape version. In my opinion, this was the standard to beat in terms of live releases as the production was clear, all instruments could be heard distinctly. 

Then came Emperor's Emperial Live Ceremony which was bought because I wanted to hear more bass from the Emperor tracks. Tyr played bass on this one & the production did justice to his efforts. Also, I wanted to hear how Ihsan's Rob Halford-esque shrieks fare in live situations & it was beyond doubt, top notch. 

Mayhem's live albums are gems. You can really hear the horror from each track's delivery because Maniac's vocals were uncompromising. The live tracks also made me listen to Blasphemer's guitar tracks closely as the studio versions were full of overdubbed fills so in live applications, one got to hear what Blasphemer chose to play so that the tracks would not sound empty.

In The night side reunion

It's not a permanent reunion but it matters (to me, at least). Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse is approaching it's decade of impact (& importance) come February 2014 hence the 'reunion' featuring core Nightside members: Ihsahn/ Bard Eithun/ Samoth. Hope there's a post-performance DVD as well.

Samoth- full circle

Still pertaining to ESP- I recently searched for old Emperor pictures hoping to see them in their face paints or maybe a glimpse of how Ihsahn looked like with longer hair, he, he... Yes, I found them but I also found out they started with ESP guitars. In the collage above, you'd see Samoth wielding a black M-series type ESP, we know these are the early ESP models because the headstock was the Jackson type design. He then embraced a BC Rich, mostly seen during the IX Equilibrium era, moved on to Jackson & finally back to the ESP.

Lessons in black

There's so much to learn just by watching these gentlemen play; in fact, they'd taught me much about riffs variation & harmony incorporation. Samoth & Ihsahn took time to pen down thoughtful riffing, just listen to any Emperor releases & you'd hear two guitars doing justice to a great black metal tune. This is quite the opposite of many black metal acts with two guitar players but very little variety in hand; what you'd hear is two guitars playing the same tune more than half the time.

The Wretched End: Ominous

L-R: Cosmo/ Samoth/ Nils Fjellstrom

When Emperor split up, Samoth remained on the aggressive turf with the formation of Zyklon while ex-band mate, Ihsahn, moved on with his brand of progression. It seems that Samoth's flavour of the moment had not digressed with The Wretched End, but this time with lesser black metal additives.

Ominous offers 12 tracks (less the 33s atmospheric intro) of death-thrash, relentless aggression if you are not sure what to expect. The drumming here is one of the best in terms of  precision but I wish there were more marked solos to complement the music in whole.

Tyr's bass

Jan Erik Tiwaz is better known in the black metal circle as Tyr. He is an accomplished musician, choosing the bass as his instrument of choice. I first heard him play in Borknagar's Empiricism, I clearly heard a fretless bass being used & thought the guy employing it in this musical context must be someone to be reckoned with, music-wise, that is. He also did a live session for Emperor's Emperial Live Ceremony. In the DVD footage of this 1999 London performance, Tyr played through the set pick-less; it was his right hand keeping up with Trym's endless drum attack as well as Samoth/ Ihsahn's furious guitar domination. I was very impressed to say the least. Recently, Tyr has rejoined Borknagar as a full-time member & endorsed by the Norwegian master luthier, Listerud, which brings us to...

...the bass you see above. I was browsing the 'net for bass players embracing more than 6 strings & Tyr was on the list. It's one of his new custom made 8-string models featuring a fretless fingerboard & everything monsterous. Our hindsight tells us a musician's accomplishments through the instrument he embraces.

Goodbye Jackson

Ex-Emperor mainman, Ihsahn, is auctioning off his Jackson- reason being: His guitar collection is growing since he's in the Ibanez camp...

Emperor: Live at Wacken 2006 (Part 2)

If you still recall the Emperor LIVE DVD featured here not too long ago, it also features the clips Samoth & Ihsahn did for Guitar World magazine. The were playing ESP & Ibanez respectively.

It's interesting to note the Ibanez Ihsahn played in those clips; it's a custom made RG 6-string conceived by the manufacturer for him.

Apparently, he also owns a custom RG 8-string...

Emperor: Live at Wacken 2006

Emperor fans (or should I say, cult followers) would jump at every chance in owning the band's post-humous materials & I've gotten myself here the live coverage of the band's 2006 performance at Wacken.

Samoth was still toting his Jackson RR-V, if you need to hear how good the Duncan JB pickup is for distortion work, all you have to do is acquire any post-IX Equilibrium material to hear the tone in action. This also includes Samoth's coverage with Zyklon.

Back then, Ihsahn had already gotten his Ibanez endorsement, in this footage, he's seen playing his Prestige RGT model. I'm still amazed at his ability to sing & grind out the songs' riffs which were not elementary to say the least.