Fuath Vough – Monolith to the Brollachan Priest

Fuath Vough – Monolith to the Brollachan Priest (self-released)

Format: cassette

Purchase: Prime Ruin

Price: $6US

There are no streaming links available online, but one track can be heard here. Other Fuath Vough released can be streamed here and here.

 

The term ‘uncompromising’ is perhaps the most overused in writing on black metal. A cursory scan of Google will uncover how widely and poorly the term has been deployed. Dimmu Borgir’s obviously terrible Adahabra reveals ‘uncompromising black metal’. Marduk’s unquestionably shit Rom 5:12 is apparently ‘uncompromising’ and ‘exhilarating’, a verdict surely possible only because it was written by someone who hasn’t actually listened to Marduk or any other black metal, or was bribed. The confusingly named Norse, from regional Australia, who play what I can only describe as djent with a juvenile black metal aesthetic that amounts to looking like a cheap Slipknot, supposedly reflect the ‘uncompromising’ future of black metal. If that’s true, then we’re all fucked.

 

Of course, words don’t exist in stasis, for they are not excluded from the meanderings of time. Their meaning fluctuates, the range of objects they can be applied to changes, their normative valence shifts. New words will crop up, while older words disappear, sometimes to be resurrected, but sometimes to vanish from our vocabularies altogether. So I’m not appealing to the idea that it is a violation of the ‘true’ meaning of ‘uncompromising’ to deploy the term in relation to Dimmu Borgir, Marduk, and the fucking gimps in Norse. My problem is that to use ‘uncompromising’ so haphazardly, to spread it so thinly, is to rob it of any utility as part of language. If it is ‘uncompromising’ to sign to a literal major label, in Marduk’s case, or to what is essentially a major label, in Dimmu Borgir’s case, or to have turned one’s career – as both these bands have done – into a business that spurts out generic, soulless commercial black metal every couple of years, then ‘uncompromising’ is a word that carries little force. Perhaps it is uncompromising to decide that the future of black metal is basically nu-metal, as Norse do, but if you think that, then you deserve a public execution.

 

A stricter use of ‘uncompromising’ would allow us to restore some analytical weight to the term, to use it to specify an actual trait in certain bands, rather than to attenuate it to little more than a marketing ploy. Of bands that I can be described as ‘uncompromising’ in such a way that the term carries significant meaning, Ildjarn is perhaps the first to spring to mind. The solo project of Vidar Våer, with occasional contributions from Nidhogg, Ildjarn’s brief career from 1991 to 1996 stands as evidence of an unbending will. Fuck, the band ended because his four-track broke, and he decided that working with any other four-track would deny him the necessary sound. He left Emperor because being in a band required compromising. Calling those cash worshipping fucking dress-ups playing fucks above ‘uncompromising’ robs us of the ability to appreciate how fucking singular Ildjarn was.

 

For how short Ildjarn’s career was, we have fortunately been the recipients of a rich discography. Even if this discography wasn’t so rich, it’d be fine, as long as we still had fucking Forest Poetry. Since the demise of Vidar’s four-track, and Ildjarn with it, we have seen the rise of string of bands inspired by Ildjarn’s primitive and vicious sounds. Vidar notably avoided discussing his influences, but the bands following in his footsteps have tended to be more explicit about how they understand his sound, and how it fits within black metal history more generally. To this end, Bone Awl have been prominent in advancing the idea that Ildjarn must be recognised as a pioneer within black metal for his fusing of black metal and punk, his expansion of influences that lay relatively untapped within the sounds of Hellhammer and Venom.

 

The bands following this path – Bone Awl are likely the largest, but collectives have formed around the Knife Vision and Youth Attack imprints – have tended to have backgrounds equally steeped in hardcore and black metal. It’s important to recognise that these bands all have their roots in Ildjarn – in the formative years of black metal – especially when trawling forums like those run by Nuclear War Now!, where you will encounter some complete knuckle dragging fucking mouth breathers complaining that this ‘isn’t real black metal’, a statement that probably took them 4 hours to type out correctly, and even then still required parental support to proof-read.

 

Of the various deranged sounds inspired by Ildjarn, Canada has been a breeding ground for particularly perverted offerings. The mighty Akitsa have gone a long way to entrenching this fusion of black metal and punk within the northern-most regions of the American continent, and have inspired something of a scene there, often supported by O. T. of Akitsa’s own elite label, Tour de Garde.  Notable among recent bands affiliated with Tour de Garde is Malphas, who have thus far released a pre-demo and two demos of totally fucking weird black metal/hardcore with an unhealthy infusion of electronics and Canadian folk.

 

Malphas consists of two members, one of whom does time in NYHC worshippers Straight Truth, while the other, BYRZYRKSZAQ, is the lone member of Fuath Vough, which I can describe with confidence as the most fucking demented band to spawn from Ildjarn’s remains. Fuath Vough began in 2014, preceding Malphas, and have so far put out two demos, a split with the almost as weird Ancient Stone, and three full lengths, with Monolith to the Brollachan Priest the first of these albums. Of this discography, Monolith to the Brollachan Priest stands out as the most challenging release. Indeed, it remains the only Fuath Vough release not available to stream online, perhaps evidence that, unlike Fuath Vough’s other output, this defies listening to in non-analogue formats. Both ‘fuath’ and ‘vough’ mean hate in Gaelic, and a ‘Brollachan’ is a shapeless monster of Scottish folklore, a fitting band name and album title for this hateful and disorienting offering.

 

The most common comparison I’ve seen for Fuath Vough’s sound, made by both Sam Vince in the most recent Down and Out and Fucked by Noise, is to Paysage d’Hiver, the obscure Swiss band that has made a brilliant career of unique and unrelentingly cold black metal. The comparison makes sense chiefly in one respect: like Paysage d’Hiver, Fuath Vough’s sound is split between black metal and ambience. Like other Fuath Vough releases, half of Monolith consists of exclusively electronic music, and half of black metal. For me, the comparison to Paysage d’Hiver doesn’t go beyond the structural, though. Paysage d’Hiver exists in a clear genealogical relationship to Burzum. Paysage d’Hiver’s sound is cold yet inspiring, a dedication to an untouched winter landscape, now corrupted by modern society, that Wintherr continues to yearn for. Like Burzum, the sound is a tribute to a utopian past now lost.

 

There is no utopia in Fuath Vough’s sound. Though sonically miles away, this is closest in feel to the fucking mental cases of Les Légions Noires; the aural equivalent of an insanity plea. Indeed, not simply an insanity plea. This isn’t the sound of some dull court order that represents an insanity to be discovered behind closed doors, but an insanity plea substantiated by stripping down in the courtroom while screaming and self-harming one’s naked body in front of court staff and other onlookers. This will make you feel bad, and not just in a Paysage d’Hiver pollution-is-causing-the-ice-caps-to-melt-which-is-sad-because-they’re-beautiful kind of way. This will make you feel bad in an even-if-we-had-the-ice-we’d-still-be-fucked-because-existence-itself-is-the-problem kind of way.

 

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m in London at the moment for PhD research, and I’ve been listening to this on my portable tape-deck as I walk around town, where it serves as a decent accompaniment to a town this stocked full of cunts. One result of this is that I tend to pick up the album at random points, starting back wherever I left off when I was last listening to it. I was initially worried this would give me the wrong impression of the record, but having listened to it start to finish as well, the effect is basically the same. This doesn’t get any less unnerving and disorienting whether you begin listening from the start or any other point.

 

There are songs on this apparently, or there is a track listing with the tape, but listening to this doesn’t clearly suggest that. Sparse – really fucking uncomfortably sparse at times – passages of often dissonant electronics, or pounding almost ritualistic drum hits, which give the feel of a twisted take on Burzum’s medieval-inspired synth records, separate incredibly raw passages of black metal, which often descend into feedback, to be followed by further electronics. Most of the black metal passages (songs?) consist of only one or two primitive riffs, which are played over drum beats that offer little variation between blast beats of stomping mid-tempo punk beats. These tracks don’t have clearly definable beginnings or ends; the record simply fluctuates between its two halves, fading in and out, all the while dragging you into the fucking twisted mind behind this. The mix is variable: the vocals are always incredibly high, the guitars quite low, and the drums at times overwhelm the mix, while at other points are barely audible. The production thus matches the fucking unnerving experience of listening to these songs.

The presentation of the album evokes the sounds within. Monolith came in a small photo-copied cardboard case. The notes within the booklet attached to this case are barely legible; the most obvious clue to the ideological position underlying the record is a picture of fucking humanist life-worshipping atheistic Satanist scum Anton Lavey struck through. Fuck Lavey and his munted fucking cult of delusional cunts, obsessed with celebrating their own pointless fucking lives and so-called liberation. The largely indecipherable artwork, which features columns and some kind of sigil, among other things I can’t make out, and twine wrapping of the package, further confirm the weirdness of the record. Fuath Vough has offered something completely other, singular in approach and aesthetic, a record that is both a part of a long history within black metal and a complete perversion of its norms.

 

No harm is done to the term by describing Fuath Vough’s Monolith to the Brollachan Priest as uncompromising. As Ildjarn before, this record reflects a mind fully committed to its derangement. Vince described Monolith as ‘demented and devoted’, and I can think of no better way to describe it. This record is challenging, even distressing for BYRZYRKSZAQ’s utter refusal to offer any of the reference points that anchor most albums; hooks, discernible song structures. Monolith is a fucking twisted symbol of how perverted the future of black metal can be.