Getting black metal cred in Norway means two things: Growling about the dark abyss of your soul and burning some churches.
Lock up your temples because, in February, the band which kicked off the church vs. black metal wars is storming into Bangkok with his pioneering band Mayhem. That includes its last original member, bassist Jorn “Necrobutcher” Stubberud, pretty much the only not to be convicted of first-degree murder, arson, or being a racist fuckhead.
The band is bringing its Thalassic Ritual tour to Thailand on Feb. 5 and will play Mr.Fox Live House in the Town in Town community just northeast of downtown. Opening black metal acts Amorphous Dominion and Pure Wrath will help bring the doom.
Thailand marks the final stop of the tour following shows in Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong.
Tickets are THB1,800 via Ticketmelon.
Formed in 1984, the group are highly influential within the black metal genre, with their debut album, 1994’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, considered by fans as one of the quintessential black metal albums.
While their music has been praised, its members have gotten mixed up not only in burning churches but also killing people and fronting racist nationalism.
Founding member, guitarist Oystein “Euronymous” Aarseth, started a cult-like group known as The Black Circle which plotted to burn churches as a symbolic act of retaliation against Christianity.
In 1991, the band’s lead vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin, known by his stage name “Dead,” committed suicide with a shotgun blast to his face.
Euronymous reportedly found Dead’s body moments later and took pictures of his corpse. He used his late bandmate’s suicide to foster the band’s “evil” image and claimed that the suicide was an act to show that black metal had become too commercial.
One of his pictures became the cover of their bootleg album The Dawn of the Black Hearts.
Euronymous was murdered two years later in 1993 by Varg Vikernes, who worked on De Mysteriis. Vikernes also burned the 800-year-old Fantoft Stave Church in Bergen, Norway and served 15 years in prison.
The band released a new EP Atavistic Black Disorder / Kommando last year.
