From new world blasphemy to crimson frost (or not...)
posted on 13 Apr 2006 under category History
So I got two songs finished for the New World Blasphemy split, released the split, and was rather pleased with how well the songs were received. I was also encouraged by the fact that I managed to knock out these two songs rather quickly, and so I thought I could convert the momentum and get “Crimson Frost” finished.
This was also when the title came in. As I looked over all the black metal I had been listening to over the past couple of years, I noticed how it’s never just ‘red’. It’s always ‘Crimson’. It sounds more dramatic that way. I also liked how everyone did the weather report stuff about ice, snow, glaciers, etc. It became natural that, given my penchant for humorous titles, I would combine the two biggest cliches in black metal to create the title of the album - but it also worked on a more literal level, as I’d always intended to do at least one song about long-dead and frozen warriors, and them bleeding onto the snow where they died would be, literally, Crimson Frost.
Of course, I wavered back and forth over whether or not they would come back to life seeking revenge. And, again, that became a metaphor for what to do with this album, as I kept changing what I wanted.
Now, I don’t know why. Back then, it was obvious. To more familiarize myself with black metal, I began visiting more and more black metal forums, listening to others speak about what they thought black metal ‘was all about’. My reasoning, at the time, was that if I was going to really touch on everything that black metal is, it would help to understand what that ‘everything’ is, and one way to do that was to talk to many different people who listen to it - for study purposes.
Hopefully now you see where I went wrong. I didn’t, at the time.
Okay, I’ll tell you. I listened to what OTHERS THOUGHT.
As I hope you’ve noticed from reading my other writings on other songs, my main impetus and inspiration comes from myself - MY reactions, thoughts, and feelings on things are what create that spark that generates new songs for me. By listening to what others thought, and trying to incorporate that into my ideas, I was actually separating songwriting from my own thoughts, however subtle that separation might seem upon reading this.
But I didn’t get this at the time. I just wanted desperately to write five or six more songs of ‘black metal’ that were kinda like “Black Flames” and “Ritual Curse” and churn out the album.
And, remember, this is mid-2001, so I also had that “Doom-Metal”-album rock in my shoe. Whenever I was frustrated with Crimson Frost getting nowhere I would tinker with parts of “Doom Metal”, not wanting to be doing nothing but also feeling like any effort not spent on CF was a waste. I didn’t want to do what I was doing, but couldn’t do what I wanted.
After a couple of months of such wavering, I realized I was literally getting nowhere, and decided I had to either shit or get off the pot. From there, it was simple math - for “Doom Metal” I had three finished songs and ideas for at least two more; for Crimson Frost I had nothing. So, dejectedly, I began finishing what would become Monolith to an Abandoned Past - though there was some shred of hope there, since once it was done ALL I would have to work on is Crimson Frost, and the statement of the album itself would show I was leaving the past behind and moving to a new future.
Though I should have known that bitch Fate would have different plans for me than I did…
(Looking back now, I don’t know why I was so dead-set on doing some black metal that was in that newer vein. I did find the major works inspiring, but that same thing holds true for lots of inspiring works I listen to from other metal sub-genres - I get just as much of a kick out of Kill ‘em All or Bonded by Blood or Leprosy as I do out of Vampires of Black Imperial Blood or Blut und Krieg. Was it just that I had many online friends and circles who were into this and I wanted to do something that catered to them? Did I not see how many of the hardcore-black-metallers were also into other metal styles, though many would die before admit it in public? Did I just want it because I told myself for so long that I wanted it? Did I just want to earn my place on “The Black Metal List” that floated around Usenet all those years ago?)