Bakka: Vocals / Guitar
Semir Özerkan: Guitar
Mat Valentine: Bass
Dobber Beverly: Drums
Necrofier are rewriting the rulebook in their own blood. Since 2018 the quartet has applied a spicy Texan intensity to the icy atmospheres of mid-90s Norway, and Transcend Into Oblivion deploys their modus operandi with more power, conviction and ingenuity than ever before. Here Necrofier craft a modern classic of the form, where tempestuous squalls of extremity are punctuated by sinister, melancholic, otherworldly melodies, twinkling in the gloom like will-o’-the-wisps on a black night.
“This album really ended up where I always wanted us to go,” the band reflects. “It also had me digging deeper into the journey, into myself and basically everything to get it here. I felt the way the record makes you sound. Sometimes surrounded in chaos and sometimes in moments of accession. I really like what we did on the previous album, but it doesn’t compare to what we have accomplished on the new one.”
2023′s Burning Shadows In The Southern Night was a redoubtable beast, edging Necrofier closer to a radiant apex, but as its name suggests, Transcend Into Oblivion surpasses their previous work and elevates the band to a higher plateau. “Taking a little more time really makes a difference,” affirms the band. “Get the take to sound almost exactly how you want it without effects and when you add them it will be ten times better.” Just changing the order in which instruments are recorded helped maximise potential: “It gave the songs time to grow naturally, we could add more layers without being under such a short time crunch. We didn’t exactly take our time on the recording, but did everything executed in a longer window than before and I think it really paid off. We add a lot more depth on this album.”
As you might perceive from the song titles, themes and lyrics are oppressively dark and conceptually linked. The number 3 seems especially significant on this third LP, a three-act structure comprising three three-part suites, separated by three instrumentals. “The other records have different concepts, but they weren’t drawn out in one big piece like the new one,” says the band. “From the creation the record is based on a Luciferian Dark Night of the Soul. Fire Of The Apocalypse Light My Path is the awakening. The first three songs are experiences and dreams that were happening as this change begun, and I questioned everything I was doing. It starts feeling as though a new fire has been lit, but it grows dark as we venture into the second act, Servants Of Darkness Guide My Way. This is the struggle and torment that comes along with the awakening. Realizing things from the past are no longer true and you see the world in a different way, and it isn’t easy. This leads into Act III, Horns Of Destruction Lift My Blade. This is the rebirth or accession. You have been transformed; you are not who you were before. Everything has changed, you see the world differently and you take what is yours.“
The three transitional instrumentals allow free reign to Necrofier‘s movie soundtrack inspirations, the band citing scores from Jodorowsky’s Dune, The Ninth Gate and The 13th Warrior among specific favourites – “also a lot of Tangerine Dream. We combined a lot of these elements all over the record but especially in instrumentals. They are meant to continue the feeling of the album but taking out the aggressive guitars and drums. Creating a break in the aggression leads the way for these tracks to shine in a different way.“
Of the band’s predominating black metal, some historic cornerstones stand out as particularly foundational: Watain‘s Lawless Darkness (“This album really changed me in numerous ways. Made me see the world differently and is a huge inspiration on all levels of music and art“), the first two Dissection LPs (“These both really shaped who the band is“), Dawn‘s Slaughtersun (“A hidden gem of some of the best melodic black metal ever created“), and Mare‘s 2018 debut Ebony Tower (“The songs, the atmosphere, everything about this album is perfect“).
Of course, the USA has had a black metal scene since the early 90s, developing in its own obscure, eccentric directions. But Necrofier are among a gathering spearhead of US bands taking the genre’s ancient Scandinavian roots and replanting them on a wide American prairie. “Black metal in America has always been different than in Europe,” asserts the band, “but I think there’s been a siren song in the USA for this style of BM to be created here. Something in the zeitgeist has pulled it forward, and bands like Uada, Hulder, Lamp of Murmuur, Blackbraid and Cloak have all been really carrying the torch. Some of the reason is that America is starving when it comes to it, we rarely see European black metal tours. I think it created something where we and the others had to walk the left hand path so we can have this in America.”
For Necrofier, there’s an additional atavistic connection to Norwegian woods: “My family emigrated from Norway over a hundred years ago, so I’ve always wanted to return to the homeland to play the music that was created there. It’s very important to me and I know it will happen. I’ve seen the visions of us playing festivals in Europe and it’s finally time to fulfil these dreams with this album.”
