Bathory - Blood Fire Death

For Viking metal the future was set in ancient stone with 1988’s release of Blood Fire Death by seminal master Quorthon and his Bathory project. It is an album that stands the test of time in more ways than one, and Quorthon is a true legend in his field.

From the opening track “Oden’s Ride Over Nordland,” we hear a sincerely haunting track that sets perfectly the musical venture to unfold before us in forty-five minutes of black/Viking metal. Complete with horses crying out, the mood is being set for the battle to come; when “A Fine Day to Die” blasts into your ears like a catapult rock hitting your wall you understand then what is happening to you - you’re being indoctrinated into the fray as both warrior and witness. You become combatant in Quorthon’s army and witness to history being forever changed for our black metal scene.

Quorthon’s usual breathy screams are seemingly more controlled here, clearly not over-the-top like 1985’s “The Return” where everything vocal on that album made Varg Vikernes look like Freddie Mercury. Decipherable and immensely fitting, Quorthon relays a genuine disdain for convention and offers a slower, more intelligent record with Blood Fire Death both in design and lyrical prowess. More or less leaving the full-on satanic imagery behind to concentrate more on the beauty and culture of his native lands, Quorthon decidedly invites the listener to his party as a courtesy since his vision was obviously more than what 1987’s Under the Sign of the Black Mark left in our psyches. Once “The Golden Walls of Heaven” carries into the ears the setting changes irrevocably with what can only be described as a template for all black metal that would follow in years to come. For my taste, this is the quintessential black metal song; it allows for interpretation and imitation, as evidenced by everyone from Watain to Dissection, through Emperor into Frosthammer; every band in this genre, past and present, is represented within this track.

This album encompasses all that is pure and real in the black metal movement in that it showcases all of the nuances and stylistic antibodies that mainstream metal attempted to commercialize in the late 80’s. What was the underground movement is made all the more resonating in tracks like “Pace ‘til Death,” Blood Fire Death” and the utterly insane “Holocaust.” When Quorthon created this album he struck literal gold be not only reinventing the current black metal genre made popular by Venom or Hellhammer, but by bringing true Viking flavor to heavy metal, the likes of which Manowar had in formula, but lacked in genuine surroundings. While Quorthon himself noted the strong influence of Manowar within his not-so-dramatic switch from black to Viking metal, it can’t be denied that he took the idea to absolute heights no other band could ever hope to attain void of outright copyright infringement.

Production-wise this album is leaps over The Return or Bathory from ’84, but it still retains that raw, unpolished feel throughout that many bands have imitated to lesser degrees. The guitar solos are haphazard, even pedestrian, yet the lack of style and finesse offers no quarter when laying claim that this album is one of the finer highlights in a genre so rife with phonies. For what it’s worth, I feel this album is Quorthon’s finest moment in straddling that very fine line between two genres that would ultimately define underground extreme music for years to come. Hammerheart, the follow-up to this record, may well be his best work under the Bathory name, but Blood Fire Death is the album that serves as blueprint and historical document.    

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It’s not easy to actually pinpoint a particular album or song that truly captures a proverbial changing of the guard in style, genre, or popularity. For me, as a black metal fan from the first wave up through the second and into this bastard child third, fourth, fifth…whatever, it is relatively easy for me to identify just what album changed the face of black metal as we know it today.

Blood Fire Death was the most incredible thing I’d heard when I grabbed this the week of its release back in 1988. I was expecting the successor to the previous year’s Under the Sign of the Black Mark, but instead I got a piece of musical magic that took me only one listen to understand and appreciate. I staunchly recall my friend Kurt (RIP) looking at me with a look of distaste while it played in my bedroom. I asked him what he thought and he said, “The dude’s fuckin’ crazy, selling out.” After I laughed at him like a lunatic on cheap drugs, forcing him to leave my house in a proverbial huff, I was left once more to ingest the wondrousness that was filling the small air. Up to the last day he and I spoke as friends I could never understand Kurt’s statement about Quorthon selling out, nor would he bother to explain it, but he eventually got into dance music and mixes so the stage was small for his opinions at that point., Maybe there wasn’t enough scratching or “pop-and-lock” grooves. Who knows?

To each his own.

What I see and hear on Blood Fire Death is the absolute epitome of guard-changing and ground-breaking that has ever been put to tape. I make the grandest statement when I say this, and I will intelligently engage anyone who cares to ask me why I state it, but every single band in the black metal movement owes its sound and successes to this album. You literally have everything here: the harsh vocals that are still clear, yet frightening and horrific, the speedy tremolo picking that Euronymous often gets credit for is evident, and the raw production that is both a charm and necessity. Even the background music in the title track sets the scope for a similar pattern of peripheral scene-setting that everyone from Emperor to Burzum has used and abused over the years. When you think ambient and ethereal additives you need look no further back than 1988 and this release. 

Every time I play this album I am taken back to my 17^th year on this planet and how exciting this slower style was, and it still holds perfectly today because every damn band on earth is still using this style to varying degrees. I also boldly state that every single black metal band owes a debt of allegiance and gratitude to Quorthon for his contributions to our scene. Yes, Venom created the term with its album of the same title in ’82, but as far as parody took them on their respective laurels Bathory advanced to the point of awe. Venom was black thrash at its earliest peak while Bathory was underachieving black speed that relied more on essence and aura than shock and disguise. I love Venom dearly and it is one of my favorite bands, but none can deny the true majesty and vision Quorthon had within nine brilliant tracks. I still maintain that “The Golden Walls of Heaven” is the one track in a million that you can see so intently the switching of styles. It is thrash, speed, black, death and NWOBHM all rolled into one, and that’s a fact! “A Fine Day to Die” might also serve as perfection for the current trend of Viking metal, and it is an amazing track that has been covered so often it should rank right up there with any Sabbath tune and be outlawed for anyone to ever cover again! However, Watain’s version of it at this year’s Sweden Fest was nothing short of criminally amazing. The influence and love of Bathory will forever be felt within the confines of a very sinister sub-genre.

I make no secret of my love for Bathory, and while there have been some missteps and flat-out clunkers in Quorthon’s storied existence, the Swedish mastermind has been dead for six years now and his lack of presence is sorely missed and felt globally by millions of fans. I know how he felt about the events in Norway and his disdain for those bands settling on the wrong message in his music, but you have to wonder if he’s looking down from that great golden palace in the sky and smiling at how much pride we have in him and his efforts over the years. While not as commercially acceptable as Mr. Ronnie James Dio, Mr. Tomas Forsberg was just as important for metal, and his loss is certainly as heartbreaking all these years later. Blood Fire Death will forever serve as the staple of the black/Viking community and every damn band out there should bow in reverence to this man for what he gave us.

Most of these bands have careers because of Quorthon, good or bad, and while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery perfection is usually one-and-done. Along with Mayhem’s De Mysteriis dom Sathanas and Vinterland’s Welcome My Last Chapter, Blood Fire Death is utter perfection from start to finish.

Thank you, Mister Forsberg.                                

Release Date: October 8, 1988
Label: Under One Flag/Black Mark

TRACK LISTING

1.  Odens Ride Over Nordland
2.  A Fine Day to Die
3.  The Golden Walls of Heaven
4.  Pace 'till Death
5.  Holocaust
6.  For All Those Who Die
7.  Dies Irae
8.  Blood Fire Death
9.  Outro

Total playing time:  45:43

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Classic Review

November 4, 2010

Reviewer: Chris