Satyricon
My Skin Is Cold
Roadrunner Records
by Hugh Platt
So no-one’s burnt a church down in ages – does that mean black metal has curled up and calmed down? A second into the title track from Satyricon’s latest 5-track EP, it’s obvious that it’s merely evolved into something more venomous than ever.
Satyricon might have sidelined some of black metal’s more signature quirks to concentrate on a more traditional “metal” sound, but Satyr’s vocals still rasp and croak like he’s one of those lizard people David Icke is so afraid of. Frost’s drumming still thunders like a stampede of rapid horses coming out your stereo to trample you to death.
When they want to, they’re as brutal as a beating from the blunt end of a fire extinguisher – but now they no longer feel they have to break their audience on an anvil of blast beats and with a hammer of rocket-fast guitars.
Two tracks, ‘Live Through Me’ and ‘Existential Fear Questions’, are re-masterings of the bonus tracks from 2002’s Volcano album. Rather than being sub-standard studio off-cuts, they demonstrate how Satyricon have built something exciting on the fortress of their black metal foundations.
‘Existential Fear Questions’ quickly ditches a slower, more traditional black metal opening, to pull out a huge galloping riff that almost sounds like it’s off a Down album.
Watch the video to ‘Mother North’ by Satyricon
The live tracks – ‘Mother North’ and ‘Repined Bastard Nation’ – use the horn sections of the Norwegian orchestras to add some brooding majesty to their scorching metal. Far from the overblown nonsense of Metallica’s S&M, the orchestral extras boost the ambitions of Satyricon’s more sweeping metal.
While My Skin Is Cold may be a stop-gap release to ease the wait for their seventh studio album, it showcases what makes Satyricon stand out from all those chancers in corpse paint. The title track might be the only truly new track, but Satyricon are still the freshest corpses growling out of Scandanavia.
4.5/6
My Skin Is Cold by Satyricon is out now on Roadrunner Records