There are a lot of good reasons to attend the Blackenedfest tour. Openers Withered take black metal and thrash into some dark new places, while Cattle Decapitation and Cephalic Carnage turn grindcore and death metal into politically engaged, jazzy, even psychedelic art. And if Marduk ever manages to enter the country (they’ve missed a bunch of tour dates due to visa problems), ticket buyers will get a heavy dose of old-fashioned Swedish black-metal nihilism. But for now, the biggest attraction is the headlining band, Mayhem, touring the U.S. for the first time in 10 years.
One of the earliest Norwegian black-metal bands (and the first to
release a record — 1987’s Deathcrush EP), Mayhem formed in
1984, following on the heels of pioneers like Venom and Bathory. But
they didn’t get famous until almost a decade later — for all the
wrong reasons. During the recording of their first album, De
Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, guitarist Euronymous was murdered by
bassist Varg Vikernes, who was subsequently sent to prison (he was
released earlier this year). The album became a sensation, its buzzsaw
guitar riffs and blasting drums inspiring literally hundreds of bands
to this day. The vocalist on De Mysteriis, replacing Per Yngve
“Dead” Ohlin (who’d lived up to his nickname by committing suicide in
the band’s communal house), was a Hungarian named Attila Csihar.
Csihar, who left Mayhem after the De Mysteriis sessions and
rejoined in 2006, doesn’t sound like any other singer on the
extreme-metal scene. His range is almost operatic, extending from a
high-pitched screech reminiscent of Einstürzende Neubauten’s Blixa
Bargeld to a guttural growl. He also divides his time between the
high-speed blasts of Mayhem and the ultra-slow, ultra-low doom drones
of Sunn O))). His voice can be heard on three of the four tracks on the
brand new Sunn O))) disc, Monoliths & Dimensions. On opening
cut “Aghartha,” he intones lyrics about the hidden world that, legend
has it, exists within the hollow Earth. His roar and thick Eastern
European accent bring to mind Milan Fras, the frontman for Slovenian
industrial-rock art troupe Laibach.
“I was inspired by Laibach while I did those vocal lines,” he
says. “I didn’t know that it was that obvious, but that’s great. I was
always amazed by Milan’s voice, how he could go that deep down, and it
took me many years of practicing to be able to do that. Laibach was one
of my biggest inspirations back in the ’80s, besides Current 93, Skinny
Puppy, Front Line Assembly, etc. And of course, some extreme
underground metal bands like Celtic Frost.”
Skinny Puppy doesn’t seem to have been just a sonic influence on
Csihar, but a visual one as well. They famously dressed in elaborate
costumes and used props in a highly theatrical manner onstage,
something Csihar does with both Mayhem and Sunn O))). At a 2007 Sunn
O))) show, while other group members wore the hooded monk’s robes
they’re famous for, Csihar was dressed as some kind of tree/zombie,
with branches jabbing in all directions from his head and arms. At the
New York opening gig of the Blackenedfest tour, he was flanked onstage
by two severed heads on spikes and masked like a demon, with a hood,
armored bracelets from wrist to elbow and an upside-down cross holding
a four-armed Christ on his chest. He brings a theatricality to black
metal that’s sorely lacking in most music these days.
Between tours, Csihar travels the world, gaining inspiration for
lyrics from the sights and sounds. “I wrote the lyrics of [the 2007
Sunn O))) EP] Oracle in Tokyo, just under the gates of the
Emperor’s castle,” he recalls. “I like to involve real atmosphere into
Sunn O)))’s music and lyrics, and I really felt the presence of some
strange energies in that historical place.”
The title of the latest Sunn O))) disc was inspired by a monument
known as the Trilithon, a Stonehenge-like set of three stones found
underneath a Roman temple in Baalbek, Lebanon. “I traveled there with
my friend, straight to the land controlled by Hezbollah,” he says.
“I’ve always been interested by ancient civilizations. That’s my hobby
to travel to these places. I’ve been to Egypt a couple of times, also
the ancient structures of Mexico, or the mystical perfect rock-spheres
in Costa Rica. But the monoliths of Baalbeck are the supreme ones, and
still on the top of my list.”
What do his Mayhem bandmates think of Csihar’s artier work with Sunn
O)))? “Well, it’s not really their kind of music, but of course, they
respect it,” he says. “Especially Rune Erickson, a.k.a. Blasphemer,
Mayhem’s ex-guitarist.”
The last Mayhem studio recording, 2007’s Ordo Ad Chao, is
deliberately primitive-sounding but surprisingly fierce. It’s a heavy
album that marked Csihar’s return to the group by honoring the spirit
of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. What does the future hold?
“I really hope that one day there will be a new Mayhem album, but it
will take some time,” says Csihar. “In our case, it’s normal, since
Mayhem celebrates 25 years of existence this year and has only released
four full-lengths in that quarter of a century.”
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2009.