[While we figure out the future of our format in regards to the main-event two-hour-long metal shows that distinguish SATAN MADE ME DO IT, we’re trying something up: music reviews. We’ll go for old and new releases, hi-fi, lo-fi and everything in between and the only rule is that it’s got to be METAL! Hopefully, these will not only keep you satisfied until we get back on track with our radio shows, but also give you another motivation to drop by every now and again.]

666 (CZE) | Nekrofilie [Demo], 1983

Music has been BLACK for a long time now, but what’s even more impressive is precisely how much blackness metal has been able to take on from very early on. Surely, it’s a challenge to even position Venom’s “Welcome to Hell”, from 1981, on the same level of derangement of Poison’s “Sons of Evil”, from 1984.

Truth be told: three years is a fucking eternity, especially back then. A new world of possibilities in heavy music was just opening up and it didn’t take long for a handful of cavemen to take noise for a ride to the very many circles of hell. Poison would most likely sound very different if there was no Venom and yet “Sons of Evil” sounds nothing like Venom.

What’s really exciting is that there are even rarer – and presumably pre-Poison – specimens of originality in black metal; cases inspired by the early Venom discoveries that turned the style on its head. Take Törr and it’s early side-project, 666 with the sole 1983 demo “Nekrofilie”. *

The cheeky opener gets ugly really fast, like a joke cut short by a sudden tragedy. From then on out it’s like the band does all it can to be as stern and dissonant as possible, all while maintaining a very patient and heavy mid-pace designed to highlight its love to inflict pain on the ears of others (and maybe on their own as well).

Now don’t get us wrong, you can sound like crap and still have great taste and this is a prime example of that and one of the real glories of both noise music and, generally speaking, lo-fi releases. The bass here should be a case study of how much you can do with the instrument in the context of black metal (especially the “modern” kind). It takes the songs hostage and controls from start to finish, commanding the very weight of the entire demo with unexpected lines of sheer originality.

If you need an extra reason to seek this out, there’s something that no real banger will be able to resist: “Nekrofilie’s” title-track is a seventeen-minute-long affair that was probably mostly improvised and remains one of the greatest black metal / doom jams of all time.

The demo was made available on Törr’s “Inkubatorr” compilation from 2006. It also includes Törr’s brilliant “Witchammer” demo from 1987, which we will review at a later date.

* Some places speak of a 1985 release year instead, but Metal Archives is usually a reliable source for dates. Whatever the case may be, this demo remains a remarkable achievement in early extreme music.