Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult

by Dayal Patterson

  WHILE BLACK METAL’S popularity would increase dramatically following the explosion of activity in Norway in the early nineties—to the extent that bands such as Emperor, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Satyricon, and even Burzum became familiar names in the mainstream metal scene—this was also responsible for a surge of activity in the opposite direction, with young practitioners around the world eager to enter the cult according to the original (second-wave) set of values.

  France’s contemporary black metal scene has earned a place as one of the most highly respected in the world, with bands such as Deathspell Omega and Blut Aus Nord providing a truly cutting-edge take on the genre, and others such as Arkon Infaustus and Antaeus demonstrating uncompromising ferocity. However, it is the country’s first contributions to the movement that have arguably proven the most significant, and specifically the releases from a legendary collective known as Les Légions Noires (LLN) or “The Black Legions.”

  Alongside an admiration for early pioneers such as Bathory, this mysterious clique took much of their inspiration from the Norwegian second wave—particularly bands such as Darkthrone, Mayhem, and Emperor—drawing on their fierce musical inaccessibility while also adopting the ethos espoused by such acts and expanding upon it considerably. By retaining the Satanic and misanthropic ideals while taking the elitist, anti-commercial stance to its logical conclusion, LLN not only helped refine what could be described as an underground black metal “code of conduct,” but stayed truer to such an ideology than the Norwegian scene that inspired them.

  The Celtic Poetry cassette by Vlad Tepes, 1994.

  Whereas the attention brought by the activities of the Norwegian inner circle put its participants in the spotlight, allowing many participants to find greater recognition, those within LLN remained in the shadows. No compromises, musical or ideological, were ever made, and the group retained the vital element of mystery and intrigue gradually lost over the years as the corpsepainted wraiths of Scandinavia were revealed to be (in most cases at least) normal human beings.

  So effective was their wall of secrecy, in fact, that most of those involved in LLN have now effectively disappeared entirely into black metal legend, leaving only their music, their pseudonyms, and a few grainy photos behind. Even with the speculation of an army of enthusiasts on the Internet, solid information on the members is rare and rumor is rife. Outlandish stories—many with a surprising element of truth—abound, with tales of castle and forest dwellings, group suicides, and secret languages.

  Even the music itself has become the subject of an unbelievable degree of debate due to the fact that only a handful of recordings in the LLN discography were ever “officially” released. While Euronymous had sometimes discussed the idea of only sending records to those deemed worthy, the LLN made the notion reality by restricting practically all releases to highly limited, home-recorded tapes, generally distributed only to close contacts and those within the LLN circle itself. Now perhaps the most bootlegged bands in the entire black metal scene, counterfeit copies of genuine Black Legion releases, bogus recordings, and even entirely fabricated bands are now commonplace on sites such as eBay, where genuine items and fake tapes alike go for ridiculous prices.

  Careless labeling from the tape-trading days has caused further confusion, with the misspelling of band names leading to the accidental creation of “new” nonexistent projects, and other recordings surfacing as hoaxes recorded by imitators and traded under purposely deceptive titles. Similarly, many songs are often listed on the Internet and even physical re-presses as “Untitled” simply because the track names have been lost to the sands of time.

  Black Murder, primarily a project of Black Legions member Vorlok Drakkstein.

  “The despicable behavior of Internet merchants and clueless fanboys have resulted in [people] digging up all the material that should have remained private,” complains Mikko Aspa. “It’s hard to think what would be the worst phenomenon in underground black metal, but I think the Black Legions fanboys, in all its laughable contradictory bullshit, probably belongs close to top. To respect Black Legions, to me, would be to create real black metal. Not make tributes to Black Legions, but worship Satan.”

  With so much intrigue around the music, it’s not surprising that LLN are sometimes portrayed as an example of hype over substance, or a bunch of talentless musicians churning out poorly recorded rubbish under unpronounceable names. This is greatly misguided: though some of their output has proven far from essential, the circle did indeed produce some remarkable pieces of black metal art.

  All the same, the group would only really achieve recognition in retrospect. Like so many pioneers in this book, their genius was almost completely overlooked at the time, and though fans now clamor for their releases, back in the late nineties your author was able to pick up key recordings such as the Vlad Tepes/Belkètre split for less than the price of a pint of beer—not a hypothetical equation incidentally, during those poor student days.

  Like almost every aspect of their history, the beginnings of Les Légions Noires are shrouded in mystery. It is, however, widely agreed that the circle was formed by one Vordb Bathor Ecsed—an individual also known as Vordb Le Diable, Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb, and Avaëthre, and whose real name is almost certainly Stéphane Zarratin. The exact year of LLN’s formation is uncertain, but it would appear to be somewhere around 1991 that the idea actually came to fruition, having been conceived some years earlier.

  Prior to the circle’s creation, Vordb had played with another LLN musician seemingly called Laurent, but better known as The Lord Aäkon Këetreh, in Chapel Of Ghouls, a band formed in 1989 and whose only known release—a 1990 six-track tape entitled Prays to Nothingness—is one of the earliest examples of French black metal. For unknown reasons the duo changed their name to Zelda some time after, and recorded a four-track rehearsal in March 1991, featuring material that was more technically proficient and displayed a greater death metal influence. Later the band would change their name to Belkètre, and become one of the first official LLN bands.

  Satanicum Tenebrae, a solo project of Black Legions co-founder Meyhna’ch.

  Another early member—probably a co-founder, and the man responsible for the term “Black Legions”—was one Meyhna’ch (real name Willy Roussel) who had recently formed Mütiilation. (The misspelling is intended; when asked about the peculiarity in Northern Heritage zine, Meyhna’ch replied, “we always make everything in ‘wrong’ way, Mütiilation is a ‘wrong’ project made for ‘wrong’ people in a ‘wrong’ world … happy?”) Mütiilation was the longest visibly active group in the circle, and it would appear they were also the first to release any recordings, namely two tapes from 1992 (Rehearsal 1992 and Rites Through The Twilight Of Hell), after which they issued the iconic seven-inch Hail Satanas We Are The Black Legions, from which the collective seems to have taken its name.

  Another band joining the circle in its early days was Vlad Tepes, an act consisting of two musicians calling themselves Wlad Drakksteim and Vorlok Drakksteim (apparently not related, despite the choice of pseudonym), who entered the fold on the invitation of its founding members sometime after releasing their debut demo tape, Rehearsal Winter ’93. Eventually becoming one of the best known of the Black Legions bands, these two members would lend their collective hand to a number of LLN acts.

  By the year 1994 the collective had become well established, the trickle of releases that had begun the previous year (with Despair, Belkètre’s debut tape, and Abgzvoryathre by Moëvöt, Vordb’s solo project) now a veritable flood. The number of members in the circle isn’t entirely clear, but appears to have included roughly ten to fifteen active musicians, with the five aforementioned individuals forming the nucleus. However, thanks to countless combinations of these members in projects and solo efforts, the number of “bands” recording music numbered somewhere between twenty and seventy, exact figures of official LLN acts being, of course, impossible to confirm.

  LLN forged a h
allmark sound, which was perhaps not surprising given the relatively small pool of musicians and their regular interactions. Taking the lo-fi approach to production to new extremes (Vlad Tepes memorably being described in one UK mail-order catalogue as making “Darkthrone sound like Rush”), LLN recordings can be split into two camps. On one side are aggressive, dirty-sounding black metal assaults, loosely played, with few—if any—overdubs, very little blasting in the percussion, and possessed-sounding vocals. At the other extreme sit somber and ritualistic black ambient pieces, generally without vocals but with enough depressive or disturbing overtones to equal their metal counterparts.

  When not creating music, LLN followed in the footsteps of the Norwegian black circle and its creator Euronymous, issuing pledges of loyalty to the Satanic black metal cause and sending death threats and harassments to those considered traitorous, be it Christian metal bands or larger labels. Elsewhere the circle was more introspective and, as rumors contend, did indeed adopt their own language, usually referred to as “Gloatre.” Never used in public statements, it seems highly doubtful that anyone ever spoke this language as such, but it might more accurately be described as a “code” used to disguise words in LLN music. The most obviously translatable word is “Vérmyapre” (vampire), and further examples are evident in unpronounceable band names such as Brenoritvrezorkre, Vagézaryavtre, and Vzaéurvbtre.

  The rumor that members lived in a castle is also partly true, although this building, which appears in a number of photos of the period, was actually more of a manor or mansion that belonged to Meyhna’ch’s family. A more unconfirmed story states that some members lived for a time in a forest, either in the very early days, as an attempt to distance themselves from society, or after they had departed the “castle” and had neither accommodation or income. The “Manson Family” comparisons made by Mortiis—who in fact has a curious link to the LLN story—earlier in this book seem particularly apt with regard to the circle, since references to “Helter Skelter” appear in at least one interview.

  As should now be obvious, information on the circle is mainly second-hand at best, because interviews with the bands were rare. The members of Vlad Tepes were the most vocal, speaking in a number of fanzines, namely Holocaust, Kill Yourself, and Petrified. The latter was the work of Jon “Thorns” Jamshid of America’s Full Moon Productions, a label that also released the band’s five-track cassette War Funeral March. However, according to the Full Moon Productions webpage, after reviewing Belkètre and Vlad Tepes in Petrified and printing the band’s contact addresses alongside the reviews, Thorns was promptly sent death threats by both bands, to which he responded in kind, stating that any attempts to enter his property would result in the bands’ “leaving in body bags.”

  Elsewhere the circle’s relationship with the international black metal scene was mixed. In the aforementioned interviews Wlad Drakksteim voices both an admiration and a distinct sense of disillusionment with the Scandinavian scene, heaping praise on acts such as Mayhem, Satyricon, Emperor, Bathory, and Burzum in his interview with Petrified, but later stating in Kill Yourself that the Scandinavian scenes had “…NOTHING IN COMMON WITH US! Norwegian bands made some great arts but unfortunately they are not as high as they let us to believe. Swedish ones just followed Norwegians … there is no single true black metal band in Finland.”

  Similarly, a Belkètre interview in Meyhna’ch’s one-off zine The Black Plague, a tome essentially dedicated to LLN, has Vordb (under his Avaëthre pseudonym) asked what he thinks about “old, cult bands that seem to have nothing to do with Black Metal anymore,” to which he responds, “Those bands have opened doors and now just slam them in our faces. They deny and destroy their own works and our legacy … May those dogs die like the rest, cult or not!”

  Despite such hostilities, an interview with ex-Emperor bassist Mortiis—possibly seen as a like-minded soul due to his dark ambient works—was also included in The Black Plague, and it seems that at least one non-French act, Belgian stalwarts Enthroned, were invited to join the circle, though they declined, with frontman Nordagest apparently stating on an official forum that although Enthroned admired music by acts such as Belkètre they were put off by the behavior of certain members, which included sending either dead rats or rotten pizzas to Osmose Records.

  Somewhere around 1996, the circle that had once burned so brightly began to implode. One issue was that material that had been shared only to trusted contacts was now becoming pirated and distributed against the wishes of its creators. However, the primary cause of the implosion seems to have come from Meyhna’ch’s departure. There are many (unlikely) claims regarding the reasons for this, ranging from him being ejected for alleged drug addiction to the claim that he left of his own accord after taking offense at jokes regarding child abuse. For his part, Meyhna’ch has avoided mudslinging and remained diplomatic in interviews, stating, for example, in Spanish zine Final Solution:

  “The Black Legions splitted [sic] in different parts around 1996 … I can’t really tell why all ended, maybe because when too many dark souls stay together, there are tensions and feelings of competition about who will dominate the other ones.”

  “I created it with Vordb,” explained Meyhna’ch in an interview with me following a performance with his current band Hell Militia. “I really don’t miss it. I evolved and they did not. It’s not that I don’t want to speak of it, but I’m always asked about something that ended sixteen or seventeen years ago. The others they probably changed a lot more than I did, and finally I’m the one [who is] the fucking pariah. As well as the guy [Lord Beleth’Rim] from Vermeth and Torgeist—he’s still active in a less public way—but him and me are probably the only ones who did not change, just [found a] different way of facing the truth. About the other ones I don’t know, I don’t keep in contact. People say a lot of things but it’s dead for years now. I know some of them went in the woods to live like the Manson family, you know, without electricity and stuff like this, they chose their way I chose mine. Mine was to make music.”

  Whatever the reason for the schism, The Black Lord Beleth’Rim (who played with Vordb and Këetreh in a band called Torgeist and who still performs black metal today in Vermeth) was also set to depart. Spectators have tended to either put the blame for the circle’s collapse on these two departing members, or instead point to the flaws of the remaining members. Either way, 1997 saw very little activity, with only a couple of releases, including the final solo tape of Aäkon Këetreh, who would himself also depart soon after. 1998 saw the final LLN release, a tape from Vlad Tepes, who finished their career, perhaps fittingly, with a compilation of cover material entitled simply The Black Legions, covering Brenoritvrezorkre, Belkètre, and Mütiilation.

  And that, apparently, was the end of that. There are claims that The Black Legions still exist, hidden from the masses, distributing their music among themselves, but this seems unlikely. Others claim that the musicians have turned their backs on black metal altogether. As mentioned, Beleth’Rim is still active today, as is Meyhna’ch, who returned following a hiatus and greatly exaggerated rumors of his death. Vordb himself appears to have made a brief online presence in 2008, specifically to discredit a release claiming to contain new material from his Moëvöt project. Bootlegging and forgeries have only escalated since the downfall of the LLN, using material allegedly spread or sold by ex-members—a treachery perhaps, but one that many fans have to thank for the availability of the recordings.

  MÜTIILATION

  The majority of the Mütiilation discography was released in the years following the band’s departure from LLN, though their early recordings are some of their most admired works. 1994’s Hail Satanas We Are The Black Legions seven-inch remains iconic, but even more so is 1995’s Vampires of Black Imperial Blood, which was not only Mütiilation’s first full-length and Drakkar Production’s first release, but also LLN’s only full-length, non-split album released on a record label.

  Though Mütiilation wo
uld be a solo project post-LLN (with Meyhna’ch programming drums and using a session drummer on 2007’s Sorrow Galaxies), in the LLN days a number of other musicians appeared alongside Meyhna’ch, including bassist Mørdrëd and two drummers, Dark Wizzard of Silence and Krissagrazabeth (who also had an early LLN solo project entitled Belathuzur). The band would also use members of Celestia (a black metal band featuring Noktu of Drakkar Productions) for their rare live appearances.

  Having engineered announcements of his own death—perhaps meant metaphorically but read literally by many—on 1999’s Remains of a Ruined, Dead, Cursed Soul compilation, Meyhna’ch re-emerged with new material on the aptly named Black Millenium (Grimly Reborn), whose iconic cover features the protagonist in a wheelchair. He followed up with three more albums (2003’s Majestas Leprosus, 2005’s Rattenkönig, and 2007’s Sorrow Galaxies) and several split/compilation records (including From the Entrails to the Dirt, which featured a cover of “My Way,” a song first made famous by Frank Sinatra, but apparently covered here as a tribute to Sid Vicious) before the band officially split in 2009. On the band’s official web space Meyhna’ch stated in typically bleak tones:

  “MÜTIILATION IS DEAD! No more hope, nothing more to say …

  Sorrow Galaxies was probably the consecration of Mütiilation’s story. All I see is a empty grey horizon. I now just wait for Death. It was more than 15 years we spent … you and I. Now it’s over … see you in Hell motherfuckers …”

  The vocalist would contribute to a number of other projects however, including the short-lived Gestapo 666 (again featuring Noktu), Malicious Secrets (featuring Celestia bassist TND), Sektemtum, and perhaps most prominently, Hell Militia, an outfit featuring members of respected French outfits Vorkreist, Temple of Baal, and Arkhon Infaustus.