A Trip Inside a Separate Mind

I pretty much wrote the two songs for New World Blasphemy concurrently. Though “Ritual Curse” was finished first, it was “Black Flames…” that was started first. Looking back now I’m surprised it turned out as well as it did, because it’s even more obvious to me now than it was back then how much I was just aping what all I wanted it to sound like - the fast, abrasive strummed melodies ala Mutiilation/The Black Legions, a big strutting epic section with high, piercing keyboards like Graveland, the overlaid melodic outro solo over a modulation like Behemoth. I guess in retrospect that it’s not that far from how I wrote most of the stuff on This End Up (you could pretty easily play the same kind of match-the-riffs game on “Six Bells at Midnight”), but for some reason I don’t think this one pulled off quite as well. At least at first. It all started with that opening guitar riff. I liked how large intervallic leaps were implied by simple half-step progressions: for example, if you’re strumming an E power chord (E and B), then move the B a half-step to C, you’re doing a C major all of a sudden (C and E, no fifth) - and this plays well into my own method of bass line writing, where you can imply even more complex harmonic movement by accenting either the ‘root’ note or the ‘color’ note, or even choosing a completely different note. Anyway, from that C major, I figured I could do another half-step and move the E down to Eb, thus juxtaposing C major and C minor, another common black metal ‘trick’, and then moving the Eb down to D left you with that horridly dissonant major second (C and D). Sounds complex, but all you’re doing each change is moving one note a half-step. Anyway, I hammered on these changes to work out the basic parts of the verse riffs, came up with a couple of changes, and was stuck there for a while.

I knew I wanted a midpaced ‘triumphant strut’ section in the middle there, but no idea exactly what I wanted to do with it. I went digging in my riff archives and found something that I started working on during that previous year and that basically ended up being the middle bridge section, once I modified the main guitar riff to serve as a ‘keyboard topping’ for the strut riffs. It sat that way for about a week, since I got more inspired for “Ritual Curse” at the time, but then I came back, determined to finish the song structure and to write the lyrics.

I don’t remember now which was which, but I suspect the arrangement came first because I seem to remember deliberately leaving the long, ringing sections in that outro part to do some kind of screaming part, without knowing what I was going to be screaming. I do remember that the ‘drone’ variation of the main riff that starts the ending of the song was inspired by Judas Iscariot (think of “I Awoke to a Night of Pain and Carnage” from their last album), with the modulation up taken off of the last track on Behemoth’s “From the Pagan Vastlands”. The solos for that section are each just mutated from the main melodies of each section.

Anyway, the lyrics were basically just scribbled out not too long before recording, though I had the basic theme set from the start - the ‘black flames’ would be a metaphor for temptation, as in luring someone to sin, thus, temptation leads to damnation, and the black flames light the path.

Visions in my head of a world now dead
Devastation, Satan's Wrath
By my hand, the dreams will come true
Black Flames light my path

Summons from the darkness
Voices calling me
Temptation, fruits of evil 
Embrace, and rejoice

The road to power is paved from below
Satan guide my hand
I walk the way of wickedness
Black Flames light my path

Damn me to your hell
Vomit on your book of lies
I mock all you hold sacred

Fuck your weak dead god
Damn you all to hell

Malice in my heart
Fire in my eyes
Death in my hands
Falling from the skies

Defile the virgin whore
Invert the sacred cross
Spit upon your altar

Fuck your weak dead god
Damn you all to hell

The Millennium of Satan begins
As the holy icons fade
Belief crumbles into dust
As the symbols burn away

Black Flames light my path
Black Flames light my path to damnation

A bit over the top, but I do think there’s some strong imagery in there and in particular I like the semi-narrative flow of the basic feel of the lyrics - temptation comes first, then embracing it, acting on it, and then welcoming in the damnation at the end. That strut section seems almost a bit too low-brow to be in the rest of the song just looking at it on paper, but I think it fits well in the music.

(I often am self-deprecating about my own songs by saying that you can mix-n-match the pieces of my songs to what I was listening to when I was writing or what I was thinking about when I was writing. As you can see above, it’s as true for this song as for many of my others, if not more so, but I’m still really happy with how it turned out. I think the rerecording for the proper Crimson Frost release is stronger because of the real drums and the high guitars replacing the keyboards, but my only regret is that I didn’t slow down the solo bits a little more. Maybe not as slow as the NWB versions, but not quite as hectic as they ended up being on CF.)