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Naglfar Concert Review
After sweeping through the States this winter with Enslaved, Dark Funeral have returned this fall with Naglfar in the most authentically black metal bill American venues have seen all year. Both of these acts have been dominant in the Swedish scene for more than a decade now, and with up-and-comers Daath as their openers this tour was bound to draw a good crowd to The Pearl Room in Mokena, IL.
There were no local bands this evening, so Daath were set to start things off at 8:20, more than two hours after the doors had opened. They faced a tall order—galvanizing a crowd bored by waiting, much less opening for Swedish black metal luminaries—but showed no signs of nerves and put on confident display. I don’t know whether they’ve made their line-up changes permanent, but since I saw them last as openers for Nile, they have replaced vocalist Sean Farber and dropped their keyboardist Mike Kameron. As a five-piece, they were able to make more use of the stage and put on a more cohesive performance, but Kameron’s presence as a vocalist and keyboardist was missed.
Still, the band soldiered on without him (although they did use some synths as backing tracks), and played a 40 minute set drawing entirely from their latest album. Their new vocalist has a look and approach very similar to Farber’s, right down to the ‘mike cord as noose’ routine and perpetual sneer, and he led them well. His growl was remarkably consistent, nearly as fluid and natural as a singing voice would be, but they lack enough variation to make him especially notable just yet.
The rest of the band moved back and forth and made good use of the stage to keep the audience engaged. They had a handful of devoted fans towards the front, shouting and starting a mosh pit or two, although few people joined in. I was focusing on Kevin Talley, the band’s most experienced and well-known member, whose tenure in groups like The Red Chord and Dying Fetus has garnered him national attention. In Daath, however, he doesn’t seem to be playing the most challenging material. His kit was fairly simple, and he often had enough free time with his hands to throw up an inverted cross made from his sticks. However straightforward, his playing style is appropriate for Daath, since they write fairly bouncy pit anthems with a lot of groove (bassist Jeremy Creamer helps out here considerably) that aren’t on the far technical end that Talley has experience with. Perhaps this easier groove is what makes Daath sometimes come across as a rock band covering metal songs, which can be a bit of a sticking point. Regardless, by the end of their set they had a few more heads nodding along, and no doubt made even more fans smile with their brief Cannibal Corpse homage to ‘Hammer Smashed Face’, which now seems to be a staple of their live set.
And just that quickly, the headliners were up. It was almost a shock, actually, to see the Naglfar banner unfurled. Especially at The Pearl Room, opening acts can go on for hours before a legitimately big name shows up, but here were Naglfar after less than an hour. I, for one, wasn’t going to complain.
After a brief ambient intro at around 9:15, the band emerge, clad uniformly in black, and turned to face their amps with the briefest of acknowledgements to the crowd. The lights low, backs still turned, and without signal, they dove into ‘The Darkest Road’, from the new album, ‘Harvest’. With its slow sweeping riff over a withering drum assault, they immediately conjured an eerie and powerful atmosphere that helped them pull off the backs-turned gimmick without any doubt. Overall, I was skeptical going into their set about how well newer Naglfar would compare to the old, but in those first moments my doubts were already disappearing.
The only one who could put them entirely out of mind was the final member to take the stage—Kris Olivius. Formerly the band’s bassist, he took over on vocals once Jens left the band and assumed his present moniker, ‘Wrath’. Again, I originally wasn’t sold on the change and thought the band’s new image with him grimacing and glaring every which way were a little excessive, but once he arrive, his stage presence put all skepticism out of my mind. While he hasn’t entirely changed my opinion of the newest Naglfar material, he absolutely convinced me of his intensity and sincerity.
Thankfully, he had not brought the theatrical trench coat from the press photos on tour. Instead, he went with a relatively conservative combination of leather and metal embellishments that blended in well with the rest of the band. There was no dispute, though, as to who led them; nearly everyone in the audience had their eyes fixed on Wrath for the entire set, myself among them. First, I watched him from a critical standpoint, to see how he handled the spotlight and carried the band’s new image. Soon, though, I was more fascinated than anything, and forgot to be critical at all. So often when a black metal band performs, their grim personas are so obviously an affectation that one can’t take them seriously; that, or they offer up a few hints, intentional or otherwise, that they are not as evil as they pretend to be and are having a good time. Wrath, however, has an on-stage demeanor that I have never encountered and still can’t quite figure out.
Often seizing the mike stand with both hands, he would stomp slowly along to each measure and hunch forwards, almost like he was being borne down by some great weight. Only when he delivered his lines, with brow creased and fists clenched, did he stand erect. Even the lyrics, generally misanthropic standard fare for black metal, took on a new bitterness as he delivered them in his strong, middling shriek.
Most captivating of all, though, were his eyes. He had applied a few touches of stage make-up for atmospheric effect, but the withering, unblinking glares were all his own. He would gaze out across the audience from side to side, then find a spot to fixate on and stare at it, unmoving, until it seemed as though he had forgotten entirely about the performance at hand. Even between songs, he would pause in his introduction of the next song and look out into the distance, completely detached. During some songs, he would silently mouth what looked like Satanic litanies and outline an inverted cross in front of him with eyes rolled back. The effect was unnerving, which was actually just what I’d hoped for. Naglfar’s modern songs sound more conventional than some of their older work, but their stage show proved that in no way is Naglfar trying to shoot for a friendlier image.
The rest of the band, too, were consummate professionals, although admittedly not as fascinating to watch as Wrath. Between the two of them, Marcus Norman and Andreas Nilsson put on a clinic in tremolo picking and carried out their 50 minute set in perfect synchronization with each other. Marcus handled the few tapping duties and did so well, but his obvious forte was the speeding, shifting riff that Naglfar are so well known for. Also with them was Morgan Lie, who has filled various positions for the band over the years and presently is handling the bass. Finally, behind the kit, Mattias Grahn was a tempest, though his deadpan features belied his intensity. Framed by Naglfar’s bristling logo, he looked especially cadaverous when the fill lights reflected red off his kit and cast long shadows across the hollows of his face.
The band’s outstanding stage presence overshadowed the disappointment that they played only one song from ‘Vittra’—‘As the Twilight Gave Birth To The Night’—but other cuts like ‘The Brimstone Gate’, ‘Spoken Words of Venom’, and the closer ‘Swarm of Plagues’ got the crowd going nonetheless. Wrath took note of this and, in what was probably his only minute on stage without a grimace, extended his appreciation to us all for coming and supporting Naglfar throughout the years. While this is a typical comment to make, he seemed especially impressed by the crowd that evening, and reiterated as much to me when I spoke with him later, saying that the Chicago stop was one of the best the band had seen throughout the entire tour.
With them finished, the only band left to round out the evening was Dark Funeral. For anyone who might have somehow forgotten, they were no doubt reminded by the massive banner (the howling Satan cover of ‘Attera Totus Sanctus’) that was let down from the ceiling and the two others placed upon either side of the drum riser. These were more lavish than those from the previous time, but continued the same satanic themes as always, just in greater detail. In a final touch, the kit’s bass drums had been emblazoned with the band’s pentagram logo, while five demonic names—Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan, Beelzebub, and Asmodeus—encircled it.
By all means, theirs is a stage show of baroque proportions, but when the band members emerged, their outfits completed the image and their performance validated it without reserve. Each member bore unique corpsepaint designs while the core trio—Magus Caligula, Ahriman, and Chaq Mol—wore custom leather cuirasses emblazoned with the pentagram. Once combined with their sheer physical stature and the leveling opener ‘King Antichrist’, one can easily forget the looks and be swept away by the performance.
Following ‘King Antichrist’ and rounding out a powerful opening salvo were ‘Diabolis Interium’ and ‘The Arrival of Satan’s Empire’, which Caligula introduced (as usual) as, “a song about a very special day….” Other notable tracks included ‘Secrets of the Black Arts’, ‘Hail Murder’, as close to a sing-along as Dark Funeral will get, and the crowd favorite ‘Open the Gates’. Their set was largely similar to what it had been the last time I saw them in January, but there were enough differences to make this one memorable.
First, the positive. Some months ago it came out that Dark Funeral’s talented drummer Matte Modin had been deceiving them (claiming to have been sick when he was in fact touring with another band, among other things) and was summarily kicked out. This was an unfortunate blow, as Matte had been their drummer for some time and had proven his worth with a no-triggers performance on their ‘Attera Totus Sanctus’ album, but his replacement has turned out to be an even more dominant force: Nils Fjellström of Aeon, In Battle, Chastisement, and more, here called Dominator. Although it sounded like he took a song or two to warm up, by the time ‘Open the Gates’ rolled around he was fully engaged, blasting, rolling across the toms, and punishing the cymbals to earn his name. The drum sound was much better than last time, courtesy of the new sound crew from the local Beyond the Gates records, and we could much more easily hear his subtleties beneath the duo of Chaq Mol and Ahriman.
As for the rest of the band, they were at the least up to the standard they had set last time. Caligula’s vocals were strong and wide-ranging, when called upon, and his long shrieks were quite satisfactory. All the members exuded a very steady confidence and moved deliberately from one spot to the next, headbanging slowly or standing still with guitar thrust outwards. Chaq Mol and Ahriman make an excellent pair, both in their performance and similar presence, while Caligula acts as the towering anchor in the middle of the stage.
In fact, their set was shaping up to top what they had done in January, but a couple hitches unfortunately set them back. First, during one of their final songs, Dominator suddenly stopped playing and stepped back off his stool to behind the drum riser. The band kept playing for a few more seconds, but after it became clear that he wasn’t coming back immediately they stopped as well to wait. We never quite found out what happened, but Caligula offered that, “something obviously has broken,” and after a few more seconds Dominator returned and the band moved on to another song.
The other issue was more subtle. During one of the later songs, Caligula left the stage momentarily and came back, which in itself seemed normal, but later did it again with the rest of the band after only 45 minutes. They came back soon enough and played an encore, ‘Atrum Regina’, but then departed for a final time rather hastily, with only one or two members staying to shake hands with the audience. It seemed to be an abrupt ending, and although they played for as long as they had in Cleveland the night before, they were scheduled for at the Pearl Room for another 20 minutes or so.
The crowd lingered for a bit longer after they had left, showing their appreciation even if the band were absent, while a few other called for another encore, but the lights soon came up again for good. While most were thoroughly satisfied, some were left with the impression that there was something else afoot.
I decided to stick around to see what I could discover, and while I can’t verify that what I heard is the truth, it seems a likely story. Nothing was said about the mysterious drum issue, but apparently Caligula had taken bon a little too much Jägermeister the night before and was still feeling the effects. Luckily, we in the audience weren’t witness (or victim) to any of the lingering effects, and Caligula was able to get off stage both times before the booze came back up again.
If this is indeed the case, I can’t be disappointed with the end result. Dark Funeral are a metal band, and gross alcohol consumption on the road is to be expected. In fact, I give Caligula credit for coming out at all and giving us as good a show as he did while still feeling under the weather.
After the show, he was nowhere to be seen backstage, either, which lends some more credibility to the story. The rest of his band, though, did not appear to have suffered similar effects and were all lounging about with fresh drinks in hand.
They, as well as Naglfar, looked a little worn from their touring duties but were decidedly human and quite approachable beneath the corpsepaint and spikes. Still, though, they are formidable men, and even when sharing a drink or chatting with them, one comes away with the lingering impression of their intensity. I spent most of my time there talking with Kris (who turned out to be much saner than he appeared on stage), mostly about Naglfar and their long journey to the States. It was refreshing to find that he is acutely aware of how theatrical the band’s image can be and is still able to chuckle (however stonily) about it all. Through it all, though, his eyes remained hard, and were almost enough to make me forget that he was wearing Capri pants and what looked like flower pattern flip-flops below his Naglfar hoodie.
We then discussed the differences between European and American rolling papers, the Scandinavian’s inexplicable attachment to his homestead (even when it nearly borders the Arctic Circle), and the America’s lagging metal festivals scene. I noticed that slow stomp he’d employed on stage actually carried over some into his general persona—even when standing still, he would bounce slightly with every nod and always seemed to be tapping along to some rhythm in his head.
After an hour or so I had to take my leave, with still at least another hour’s drive ahead of me. It was unfortunate, too, since by the looks of it, things were just warming up backstage. And anyway, better a brief soirée with the black metal elite than none at all. Even if they are wearing flip-flops.
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