Review Summary: So cold, so pure...
Contemporary popular music has brought about a rather strange development in artistic creation, mainly that it has become the norm for it to be collaborative or at least semi-collaborative. This has of course led to eclectic experiments and some major creative triumphs. Yet I believe that something is lost in this collective approach, perhaps a bit of coherence, clearness in vision and direction. But most importantly some truth is lost, because the only time any of us is truly honest is when we are all by our lonesome. Even with our closest friends we change, however slightly; the purity of our thoughts is lost, truth is sacrificed.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, and that is all ye need to know”
-John Keats
Da Vinci could have never painted the Mona Lisa with a friend. Miguel Angel demanded to be left alone as he toiled for years painting the walls of the Sistine Chapel. Beethoven’s 9th was a product of his continuing isolation, his accumulating grief, his increasing solitude. Similarly, Fenriz could not possibly have written this album in any other manner rather than in complete solitude.
“But wait Tony” black metal history buffs will cry, “Varg wrote the lyrics to most of the songs! And Nocturno Culto recorded the vocals! You’re an imbecile!” While these facts are certainly true (save the last one) let us look at them more carefully. Varg wrote the lyrics to most songs, sure, but I can bet my ass that none of you understand the lyrics he wrote for the album (in fact less than 1% of the world’s population could, assuming they could decipher the shrieking) and the only ones you do understand are those written by Fenriz, and they are thus the only ones that add to your experience of the album. As for Nocturno, sure, he contributes vocals, but he had no creative input into the album.
And it is thus that we can state once more, with confidence, that this album is all Fenriz’s. So ***ing what? Well, what differentiates Transilvanian Hunger from most other black metal albums is a feeling of purity, of authenticity, of honesty. The riffs are jam-packed with brutally real desperation and anger, not an ounce sounds faked or forced. The relentless and shameless repetition and monotony (the first four songs are all in the exact same tempo and have the exact same beat throughout) are evidence of how self-indulgent the album truly is: Fenriz doesn’t need to make compromises for anyone or anything, bandmates, producers, all these superfluous elements of the process are eradicated and Fenriz is left to pour himself out on the music.
So why then is not every single one man-band this ***ing good? Firstly because Fenriz is a good musician, one who understood his genre and expanded upon the best characteristics of his influences to create a masterpiece. From Bathory he took the widespread use of shifting intervals, from Von the unrelenting blasts and the guitar sound. But perhaps far more important than this is the fact that Fenriz was going through a very troubled and confusing period of his life at the time of the recording, and thus every note is vibrant with sincere darkness, anger, hatred and sorrow. To capture raw emotion and then filter it through knowledge and skill in a particular craft is the making of all lasting and influential art, and thus is Transilvanian Hunger.
This album could not have been made by a group, be it a duo or an octet. This album could not have been discussed and analyzed even with a producer. That’s because this album is pure, honest, raw emotion. That’s because this album is ***ing trve.
