As I review bands and their albums, a couple of questions I occasionally get asked is “am I going to review more black and death metal bands?” And “am I going to review the Beatles?” Well to answer both of those questions is yes and hell to the no. So on this page, you will find reviews on the more extreme side of things hence why I am calling this section Blackened With Spicy Seasoning. Let’s take a look…..
If you’re a fan of black metal, what’s the first country that you think of? Norway right?? While you have bands like Emperor, Mayhem, Immortal, and Satyricon which are all great btw, my favorite black metal bands come from Sweden. One such band that comes to mind is a band called Nifelheim. I first heard of this band through MySpace. I was friends with someone who lived in Sweden and they had posted a bunch of pictures from this band playing around the country. Their stage show looked pretty bad ass. It had candles, real goat heads, pentagrams, upside down crosses, everything that you could think of for a black metal band was there and I thought it was absolutely bad ass. Of course it’s no surprise that their songs are about Satan and other anti-Christian themes, which is some of my favorite subject matter.
Nifelheim was formed in 1990 and actually recorded their self titled debut album at Studio Fredman which was known for producing albums from bands like Dimmu Borgir, Soilwork, In Flames, and The Haunted. During this time they not only fired their original guitar player for having a girlfriend but were also banned from Studio Fredman. One thing to note about this band is that they actually had Jon Nödtveidt and John Zwetsloot of Dissection on guitars. Now they only have four full length albums, which is sort of surprising given that they’ve been around since 1990. However, they have done several EP’s as well as appearing on tribute albums to bands like Bathory and Slayer. The name Nifelheim comes from ancient Norse religion and it represents the icy realm of the world in the north. It is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to the underworld.
One of the things that separates this band from traditional black metal band is that you can very much hear influences like Iron Maiden. In fact, I would say that’s true about most black metal bands from Sweden. If you are looking to get into black metal, this might be a good place to start.
Sinister Reviews 