Dissection

When news spread this past August that Jon Nödtveidt—infamous leader of the legendary Swedish blackened death metal band Dissection, avowed Satanist, and convicted murderer—had stepped into a ring of lit candles and blown his brains out in what seemed to be a ritual suicide, well, it was hard to shed any tears. Here was someone who, as a card-carrying member of a group called the Misanthropic Luciferian Order, had long talked the talk and now seemed to be walking the creepy walk. Let’s put it this way: He was no weekend fire-and-brimstone warrior.

The response by the online metal community was swift and characteristically blunt: “He must have heard his new album!” “What an idiot, good riddance!” “Hey, I like Dissection, this is, um, almost sad?” It was a mixed-emotions affair. There were people, like me, who swear by Dissection’s second full-length album, 1995’s Storm of the Light’s Bane and consider it one of the truly great melodic blackened death metal albums of all time, and who could ignore the extra-musical gunk that Nödtveidt trafficked in. Then there were those who could never get past his role in the murder of a young Algerian immigrant, brought about either by the man’s nationality or by his sexual orientation or possibly both depending on who you believe. (It’s easy to understand that position—Nödtveidt took part in some odious stuff.)

And there are still more people who couldn’t forgive him for finally getting out of the pokey after seven years, recruiting a pick-up band of grizzled metal vets, and releasing ReinkaΩs, an ultra-melodic and simplistic affair that never reached the heights (depths?) of his past work. It was panned almost universally. Metal fans can forgive murder or a church-burning or two, but not a weak album.

I actually liked ReinkaΩs. It was catchy! And its dirt-simple riffs spoke to my hard-rock heart even if lyrics like “Zazas zazas nasatanada zazas!” didn’t. Having said that, I wouldn’t recommend that anyone run out and buy it. It’s clearly the work of someone who wasn’t around metal for most of the ’90s, and, as a result, it has a strange time-capsule feel to it.

This can’t be said about Dissection’s 1993 debut, The Somberlain, or Storm of the Light’s Bane, two albums that were very much of their time and would prove to be hugely influential among death and black metal bands around the globe for years to come. They were also the work of an actual band that worked and practiced together to hone a sound that managed the tricky feat of combining harmonious melodies with the speed and aggression of death and black metal to stunning effect. The End Records recently reissued both albums with more bonus demo/live/EP action than you could shake a Satanic stick at, and all of it together provides a fascinating glimpse at one band’s creative process and growth as a unit.

Look, here’s the thing: Suicidal Swedish Satanist meatheadisms aside, art can be messy. The people who make art can be even messier. In my perfect world, all art is confined to the fantasy realm of album, book, canvas, and people who are interested in them can talk about ideas rationally. Harm is never visited upon anyone in the name of proving anything about anything. Leave people the fuck alone. That’s my motto. Most metalheads would agree. Most people would agree. Scribble and scream your guts out all you want, though. There’s all the room in the world for that.

And in that spirit, Storm of the Light’s Bane is a true work of art. The Somberlain is a solid and entertaining work made by a young band just getting a handle on what it can achieve and put to tape; it’s a truly impressive debut. But Storm is something else. If you’re going to sell your soul, sell it to make something like Storm. It’s a hypnotic, dense, heavy, evil record with an aura that can be hard to describe in earthly terms. It has melodies that soar high above on zombie angel’s wings and undercurrents that exist somewhere below the river Styx, which just sounds ridiculous. But it’s that kind of record. Dissection’s use of black metal’s repetitive and relentless riffing at warp speeds is not only ominous and worthy of a Darkthrone album, it helps to create an atmosphere of contained and highly controlled chaos that still rivals anything to come out of Sweden since. And a lot has come out of Sweden since! Nine out of 10 Swedish citizens are in, or thinking of starting, a melodic death metal band. It’s a fact.

In the end, Jon Nödtveidt was a pretty messed-up dude who loved heavy metal and Satan. (He wrote about metal and was involved in a slew of side projects, some of them very good indeed.) Maybe he loved them a little too much. And once upon a time he made one of the greatest metal albums ever, an album that proved to be far better than almost anything he was ever involved with before or after. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the modern history of heavy metal. The end.