Review: Duister Maanlicht — Als Zwarte Engelen Sterven
Something different.
Unblack Metal’s No Wave Album? Duister Maanlicht’s Als Zwarte Engelen Sterven
Back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, a movement in music arose that came to be known as “No Wave.” Largely associated with a compilation record entitled No New York, no wave was an extreme reaction to both popular music and conventional forms of “rebellious” alternative music that focused in on creating a new kind of anarchistic anti-music (much in the same way that early grindcore bands like Napalm Death and Carcass did when it came to metal) – atonal, discordant, chaotic, violent and abrasive. Artists like Lydia Lunch’s Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars, James Chance and the Contortions and others deconstructed conventional song structures and musical approaches, influencing what would prove to be far more famous acts like Sonic Youth, Swans and even the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s. So what’s this all got to do with the cult Dutch black metal act known as Duister Maanlicht? Read on.
A quarter of a century ago, the controversial band released its first album entitled Als Zwarte Engelen Sterven (which seems to translate roughly as “When Black Angels Die”), apparently causing no small amount of upset to the Dutch black metal scene over the course of the next several years for their association with – GASP – Christianity. But what is actually controversial, in my eyes at least, is how this band’s debut is so totally and utterly anti-music, even by black metal standards. Hear me out here as we take a closer look.
By all accounts, this is not a good album at all. It’s obviously juvenile, poorly played and executed, and has some of the most amusingly odd vocals I’ve ever heard. The synthetic drumming consists of nothing more than frantic, inhuman pulsebeats reminiscent of the radio waves emitted by a pulsar. Guitars sound as though they are being played on a tiny practice amp that’s about to give out, occasionally perforated by sounds of cutting distortion and reverb; at times, the guitars totally remind me of the atonal noise heard from no wave icons Teenage Jesus and Jerks on Shut Up and Bleed. Vocalist Destructor lets out high-pitched black metal whines that sound like an extreme parody of Sven Erik-Lind’s black metal bird cry as heard on Drottnar’s Spiritual Battle compilation; such is their bizarre delivery that I can’t help but wonder if this album was meant to be taken serious on any level in the first place.
But here’s the thing – something about this album, in spite of all its many oddities, has kept it on my mind now for a bit. I began to think upon much of the no wave music I’ve listened to over the years, and it dawned on me that perhaps, just perhaps, Duister Maanlicht was either a) not trying to be entirely serious, or b) was trying to create a kind of anti-conventional black metal album here. Maybe both. Nothing about Als Zwarte Engelen Stervenreally makes sense outside of its singular drive to be as harsh and ridiculous as possible with what seems to be very limited equipment. As a whole, the band here seem to have little interest in creating anything remotely resembling a conventional song structure, with each song whirring away into oblivion with its hyperbolically off-putting, monochromatic style and frantic guitar work. But herein, I wonder, lies the key. This really is anti-music – perhaps, it’s a mockery of black metal convention (and black metal, despite its extremity, can often end up being as conventional as any other form of music) or of black metal’s style in general. According to the band’s Bandcamp page, “The late Martelgang Magazine reviewed the album and gave it a 6 out of 10 ‘praising’ it’s ferocious nature.” Our own Heaven’s Metal News Hound, in speaking on a much later release from the band (Influisteringen van den Duivel), termed it as an “atrocious debut” and a “musical middelfinger [sic].” Yours truly ranked it as the worst of the band’s releases in my article ranking their discography.
My intention here is obviously not to sell you on it, but to perhaps give a different angle on what remains a strange anomaly within raw black metal in general. On the surface, it all seems like a horrible record with absolutely zero interest in how the listener might feel about it all. But perhaps that was the point all along – it is a record that comes off like a crude parody, undercooked, barely-produced, and downright hostile to typical song structures. Much like no wave music, its art functioned by virtue of being intentional anti-art, dismantling and deconstructing anything with a remote whiff of standardized song structure and execution. Perhaps I’m simply overthinking it, and it’s just a bad record. Whatever it may be, it remains an obscure and puzzling release that will inevitably elicit some very strong reactions by virtue of its existence alone.
Note: In my article, “Duister Maanlicht Releases Ranked From Worst to Best” I was incorrect when I stated that none of the line-up on this album are still in the band. In fact, keyboardist Anzorgheian is Heidendoder, who remains the central driving force behind Duister Maanlicht to this day, and as of this date, the sole member in the band.
The daring and the curious can check it out HERE.
For Fans Of: Calvarium, Verdelger, Animae Capronii, Hazarmaveth
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