With this ingenious new release from Hellhymn Records based in the United States, the clue to the meaning is in the name. Satanaskald, the mysterious and sinister entity that released Invoking the Hellrunes, has a deep runic meaning that is not for the faint of heart. Most definitely not.

First let’s begin with what Satanaskald isn’t. It is in no way romantic in any recognisable sense. It isn’t depressive, quite the opposite in fact. It certainly isn’t war Black Metal, and neither is it vampiric. What it is, simultaneously, is rather more complex and yet paradoxically the very essence of simplicity itself.

Rather, Satanaskald’s meaning is mythic, cosmic and infernal. It is not simply another Black Metal project by the personage behind Satanaskald (Vesperith) or an anonymous YouTube project or a persona. Satanaskald is a metaphysical function enacted where fire and ice collide, and where ‘creation’, or even the very concept of the term itself, collapses and inverts.

In this universe of reality, the skald, the Norse storyteller, the poet, the keeper of runes, the storyteller of Odin’s halls, becomes satanaskald, the infernal skald, the chronicler of infernal creation. A creation that is not created by fire and ice, but a creation unmade as foretold by the ancient runes.

This hellish ep is a recitation, a direct ritual invocation, and, ultimately, a returning cosmic echo emanating from the outer cosmos. While most certainly a part of the growing low-fi, limited-release tape-only Black Metal micro genre that is emerging over there, across the Atlantic, this is not just another USBM production hailing Satan and the darkness. Invoking the Hellrunes would be unique in any of the Black Metal geographies because it is one of a kind.

The opening track, When Muspel (primordial fire) met Nifhel (the icy underworld), marks the beginning of the Rite, the invocation where fire collides with ice. The point where creation will meet its final end, a skaldic tale twisted into a deliberate Ritual of infernal destruction. Main composition and centrepiece of this release, Invoking the Hellrunes makes use of the runes as pure Satanic sigils that corrupt and deliberately subvert Odin’s, and for that matter, all divine ‘wisdom’. Its echoey, trancelike atmospheric riff pushes the Ritual intent with energy and fiery purpose.  This ensures maximum resonance with the mysterious and unmentioned entity to whom it is despatched without pity, with no remorse.

As we continue to watch True Kvlt Black Metal as it remorselessly pursues its path like a malign serpent poised to strike all fools who try to prevent its progress, mock or in any way seek to degrade it, the genre’s latest transfiguration is a source of magnificent, malign joy.

Don’t look for Satanaskald on social media. It’s nowhere to be seen. For where fire and ice collide, the skald speaks — and every word is a rune that unravels creation.

EP

Hellhymn Records

Bandcamp: https://hellhymnrecords.bandcamp.com/

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