Talie Helene

ZERO TOLERANCE

ISSUE 029 – MAY / JUN 2009

“Black metal is not something you can invent: it is natural. Either you got it or you don’t.” Ravn, 1349.

As Norwegian black metallers 1349 prepare to release their new album, Revelations Of The Black Flame, frontman / vocalist Ravn has been sharing his thoughts on black metal’s visual aesthetics. Speaking to the UK’s Zero Tolerance Magazine, he said, “Well, there is corpsepaint and then there’s wannabe corpsepaint… Some metal people seem to think that if they put on corpsepaint, the music turns into black metal when it is performed. For us it is kind of the other way around. We first and foremost make black metal and then the corpsepaint is the ritual added to the whole package so to speak, so when you see 1349 live you will hear the music and see the performance. Of course it all has to make sense and for us the only way that it makes sense is to use corpsepaint. It is a ritual to put it on and so you get into the mood and everything, of course you can say that it’s a lot of hassle and everything – put on the corpsepaint, put on the spikes. But it’s all a ritual before the concert that makes you get into the mood. When it’s all on, you’re ready to go on and you look in the mirror and it’s kind of the inside coming out. At least that’s how it feels for us. I definitely see the point of it. People see it as a cliché, but it’s only because it has been used and overused by so many people that totally misunderstand it. And of course posers you get in every scene and genre. It’s an easy trap to fall into, ‘We made music which is like black metal. Oh fuck, we need to get some corpsepaint to put on, oh yeah, that would be great’, and then they just smear something on. It needs to be right and needs to come from inside and black metal is about the feeling of the music and black metal is not something you can invent: it is natural. Either you got it or you don’t, that’s the way I see it.”

1349 are joined by a host of black metal luminaries in the new issue of Zero Tolerance Magazine, each sharing their thoughts on the aesthetics of black metal. As well as lengthy contribution from Nuclear Holocausto of the returning Finnish BM cult legends Beherit, the likes of Impiety, Old Man’s Child, Altar Of Plagues and Absentia Lunae also enter the debate. Zero Tolerance editor, Calum Harvie, commented, “What makes black metal so compelling, to me at least, is that it’s a heavily stratified genre: take two bands like 1349 and Beherit and you’ll find as many differences as you will similarities. So what is it that makes something ‘black metal’? That’s the question we put to the bands featured in this final instalment of our Sounds & Visionaries series, as black metal’s grim aesthetics are laid bare.”

ZERO TOLERANCE ISSUE 028, MAY / JUN 2009.

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Since its inception in 2004, Zero Tolerance has set the agenda for extreme music, representing the sonically unacceptable without compromise, exposing the darkest, most obscure recesses of the musical imagination and celebrating its diversity. From black, death and folk metal through to industrial, noise, power electronics and neofolk, Zero Tolerance has consistently covered the music that other publications simply don’t even know about – and while they play catch-up, ZT remains several steps ahead.

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