Back in the days…
(Quelle: halifaxcollect)
Beyond black metal - first steps on the roadside of Norwegian heavy music
I could spend a beautiful week in Oslo and get to know the city a little. I also have been immediately interested in browsing record shops and getting to know details about the local hardcore and heavy music scene. Of course some days are never enough to be able to deep-dive into all the bands, venues, shops and people that are around, however I at least could scratch the surface of it and would like to share a little of things I got to know.
My impression for now is that Norwegian hardcore always has suffered a bit being shown as the little brother of the huge scene in Sweden having developed in the early 90s. Therefore only few bands ever made it to release in Germany. Or: As Norway is pretty small, there has never been the amount of bands around as it was in Sweden, so there were only JR Ewing and Amulet pretty much well known to me before. The truth may be somewhere in between, I guess.
Both bands play kind of progressive, modern and rocking hardcore / punk, reminding me especially of later swedish records like Refused’s “shape of punk to come” and Abhinanda’s “rumble”.
My friend told me, that one center of the Oslo hardcore scene for a long time now has been an occupied house right in the city center, called Blitz. It is and has been also used as a concert venue and I was pretty happy to find out, that the guys managing its website have compiled a bunch of MP3s documenting the history of Norwegian hardcore punk music from the beginnings in the late 80s. You can get the music here. Also check out one of the legendary early bands called So Much Hate on the sampler:
Many of the early records of this era (The SO MUCH HATE record as well) have been repressed not long ago on a sublabel of German Heartfirst records: Norwegian Leather. They are are available for fair prices on good vinyl and with adequate covers, booklets, inlays etc. Have a look at mine here:
I got this and a couple of other records in one of the coolest record shops I have been to so far, Neseblod Records in Rathkes Gate 7. The place is a true treasury for music, packed to the ceiling with records, CDs, tapes and merch, everything piled up in the most awesome creative chaos. Also you can see tons of rare black metal memorabilia, starting from rare records and tapes to original interior of infamous Helvete store. To get an impression have a look at this cool feature article with lots of photos by US metal blogger Stefan Raduta, it gets the atmosphere of that place quite well and also tells the story.
A bit more downtown I was told to find another cools store, TIGER. More on the indie and alternative side of music than on black metal (though with the obligatory Mayhem records in place, you can actually find everywhere), I also did some cool discoveries there, my favorite so far is DEATH IS NOT GLAMOROUS from Oslo. The band is around since 2004 and has been touring all over Europe a lot since then, though I unfortunately have never managed to see them. To be honest this record is spinning on my stereo for almost two weeks no without a break.
The Tiger store is also connected to one of nowaday Norway’s most important labels for heavy music, Fysisk Format. They have a pretty large catalogue by now, most stuff between metal, experimental, noise and electronica. To drop some names: KILLL, ÅRABROT and OKKULTOKRATI. There is a nice CD / DVD package by KILLL having been released in september 2011, of which you can get an excerpt here.
So after all, I had a pretty good start in discovering music from Norway besides the famous and infamous Black metal classics and have been listening to many interesting sounds the last days even after my return.
As this list definitely is incomplete and I may have spared many great bands yet, please drop me a line here or on Facebook! I am very curious about your recommendations!
Top 10 of 2011
I took some time to collect my top ten albums of 2011. What do you think of it?
1. Thrice - Major / Minor
2. Rival Schools - Pedals
3. Fucked Up - David’s Town
4. Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestial Lineage
5. Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
6. Radiohead - King of Limbs
7. KIZ - Urlaub fürs Gehirn
8. Fucked Up - David comes to Life
9. Cave In - White Silence
10. J Mascis - Several Shades of Why
COALESCE Re-Release Debut Stream
If anyone remembers COALESCE, who were one of most important bands that coined mathcore in the 90s - here is the proof that their tons-heavy, nervous and complex sound is still hard-hitting today.
You can stream the whole debut-album of theirs, as it is being re-released these days. Check “Give them rope” here.
