Review: Bathory
(Black Mark Records)
Bathory has been a band for I don’t know how many god damn years and my only other encounter with the band was hearing their first album over fifteen years ago and that was such a godawful piece of shit that no one can rightfully blame me for never coming back to feed from the Bathory trough again. That is until now. I’m listening to a very majestic sounding Bathory: heavy guitars, bigger than life drums, a sonic wall of choirly voices “Awww, Awww, Awwwwing” away in the background and a vocalist, Quorthon I assume since Bathory is Quorthon, singing in a much more gothic, Sisters of Mercy-style than I recall hearing from that first black metal lo-fi piece of self-released trash from this self-stylized vampire of the metal scene. With maturity for Quorthon, who as a youngster believed he was a vampire (from Nerdland to Nordland), comes a much deeper and thoughtful musical expression and this is really quite enjoyable. The musical p