Satyricon

Black-metal bands are good at a lot of things — burning churches, scaring Grandma, frowning — but rocking out has never been one of them. Now don’t get us wrong; such scene forebears as Emperor, Immortal, and Bathory have dropped some gripping, essential, extreme releases, but the genre has always been defined by a very deliberate stiffness marked by stentorian growls, terminal velocity, and stares as chilly as the genre’s Scandinavian homeland.

Norway’s Satyricon was among the first black-metal bands to break the ice and bring a bit of groove to the form. The band’s latest, Volcano, is rife with many of black metal’s trademarks — frostbitten shrieks, diesel-fueled guitar, a palpable contempt for mankind — but there are also near-danceable rhythms pulsing in songs like “Angstridden” and “Fueled by Hatred,” making this bunch palatable to more than just dudes with pentagrams tattooed on their necks.

On the band’s latest tour, Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison will join Satyricon behind the kit — the troupe’s full-time drummer, Frost, has been denied entry into the country — which is sure to further intensify the band’s rhythmic thrust. Finally, black metal has a band capable of enjoining headbangers to shake their hips along with their fists.

This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2004.