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It’s Metal Monday again… Vol. 10! Today it’s back to black (metal) I guess. I’ve emailed the seller on this one to get the matrix etching for this record, and they are:

vile 28 a1 black fukkin metallllllllllllllllll

vile 28 b1 the return…

Leading me to believe this is a legit test pressing of Darkthrone’s beloved (or reviled) “A Blaze In The Northern Sky”. I remember when Lords of Chaos originally hit bookstores. I had no interest in metal music whatsoever but I picked up this book like so many other people, and was first introduced to the ridiculous world of Norwegian black metal. Obviously I’m a Pozer as I was not handed a Bathory lp somewhere in a foggy Fjord in 1984, but regardless there it was. I’d now heard of all these crazy freaks running around burning down sacred buildings and making this esoteric hell-noize, more or less for a living, and while I wasn’t interested at the time, it was still interesting, and I didn’t forget it. When I first heard “A Blaze…” (much later on) it was just a mess of treble and screeching, and echo, but there was something compelling about it, maybe the utter despair the music could convey even if it was pretty much all fantasy.

In the last couple years it seems like everyone has been bitten by the Black Metal bug again. You can’t walk ten feet without tripping over some skinny blond American Apparel looking female in a Burzum t-shirt reading a Xasthur review at pitchforkmedia.com on their sidekick. The amount of myspace pages that exist for one-man, Garageband-created BM projects by ex-hardcore kids and general interest indie rockers, is on its own, enough proof of this, and the gradual acknowledgement of at least the bigger genre names, by “reputable” (used loosely) music publications seems to say that people are willing to take Black Metal seriously, at least sonically, if nothing else. It makes it sort of weirder to look back on an album like this, all the more so when you see what a cartoon and self parody Darkthrone has consciously become. In the end it’s probably best to just view it in as much of a vacuum as possible. A heavy, harsh, Black Metal album, still with some Death Metal in the sound. Like a good Death Metal record it piles on riff after riff like a boxer who pounds his opponent ten different ways before achieving victory. But it’s the atmosphere and dank analog buzz that sets it apart as a trend setter for, what was then, a new genre (well sort of new). It’s always tough to choose your words about these milestone type records so I’m going to leave it at that. But before I go…

I’m gonna try a little Metal Monday sub-feature. Thrash Metal Sleepers. I feel like Thrash Metal has maybe come of age again with Earache and Relapse signing Municipal Waste, Toxic Holocaust, and a dozen other bands that aren’t very interesting to me either that all kind of sound like Exodus and Kreator in a round about way. Thrash Metal was so big in the mid-80s though that there’s tons of cheap, but overlooked goodies that are worth at least a tip of the hat, and there’s hardly any demand for them in the ebay world, although I feel that time is going to pass sooner, rather than later. Thrash Metal on the whole is kind of comparable (as any micro genre in music could be) to Slasher Movies in the Horror movie scene. They all follow a formula, and the ones that are lesser known are never going to top the defining classics like Psycho and Halloween, but it doesn’t make say… Sleepaway Camp, any less enjoyable if you just want a few cheap scares and dead camp councilors. Catching my drift here?

So for volume one, take note of Holy Terror, a real treat of a band, that managed two full lengths, Terror and Submission (1987), and Mind Wars (1989) in the late 80’s before fading into obscurity. I also found a second copy of the first lp with a 12.99 buy-it-now; a nice deal for sure. What makes Holy Terror so enjoyable is that while they can speed-shred with the best of them, they are not afraid at all to bring in some more classic heavy metal flavor along the lines of Judas Priest and Merciful Fate. At the core they’re still a thrash band, but they’re a thrash band with real hooks, and some song craft to spare. The vocal delivery alternates between screamed and sung style depending on which part of their sound the band is working, but it all feels very natural and seamless.