Black Wednesday: In The Beginning There Was Bathory

photo courtesy of www.bathory.se/

With a new album by the biggest black metal band, Dimmu Borgir, hitting this week, it’s a good time to revisit one of the founders of Scandinavian black metal. Before there was Mayhem, before there was Emperor, Burzum Immortal or Darkthrone, Sweden’s Bathory planted the sinister seeds for all that was to follow.

A one-man-show staged by the mysterious Quorthon, Bathory recorded raw, primitive songs that blazed like a burning church and told tales of hideous demons, devil worshippers, Norse gods and Viking warriors. And while Bathory’s first two albums, 1984’s Bathory and 1985’s The Return were recorded with sub-par equipment and featured sub-par songwriting and musicianship, their impact is still felt today.

Bathory’s third album, 1986’s Under the Sign: The Sign of the Black Mark, was more evolved musically and with the arrival of its follow-up, 1988’s Blood Fire Death, Quorthon had abandoned Satanic lyrics and addressed Viking themes that would prove just as inspiring for future generations of Norwegian metal warriors.

Quorthon recorded and released another eight studio albums before his death in2004 of heart failure. In 2006, three volumes titled In Memory of Quorthon were issued as a box set by his label, Black Mark.

During its career, Bathory released just one video, “One Rode to Asa Bay”:
bathory -one rode to asa bay

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