Karin Dahlstrom is a freelance Artist, Designer and Fashion Writer located in S.W. Florida and Linkoping, Sweden.

Review of “Black Metal Satanica - A Documentary ”

At the risk of being banished from the dark side for having a “rainbow & unicorn” disposition, I decided to immerse myself in the Holy Grail of my Nordic Metal roots and once again watch the cult documentary by Mats Lundberg - “Black Metal Satanica."

The graphically explicit interviews with Hammerslagfestival organizer Bjorn Almar, and various other "Black Metal” Scandinavian Musicians, led me to a very different conclusion than I believe most 40+ year old women would assume after watching. In fact, I have a different take on Scandinavian Black/Death/Viking Metal altogether.

Although I may have a skewed predisposition to this type of culture, being half Swedish myself and also having previously been in a few “relationships” with some of the genre’s top musicians, one thing remains clear -Viking Metal is more than music, it is a culture.

Conceived in Pagan Scandinavia, Black Metal's origins stem from a primal source of ancient pain. An ancestral anger & a complaint of injustices by religion and deep, deep hurt. It is the ultimate reaction to racism and the oppression of “religious” freedoms known to our humanity. Entwined with a grief of loss of cultural identity, haunting melodies wrap the ice cold landscape of the region in the form of complex and intricate chord progressions and just plain rage.

Just as Gothic Fashion and all of it’s off shoots and branches personify the unsettling, the dark and the decayed, Viking Metal reflects these as well as sorrow and loss. There is an attraction to the disdained. Often this is excepted and reciprocated primarily by teens, however now that we “artsy” teens of yester-year have come of an age, we appreciate and see “the beauty in sorrow” and the comfort we find in remembering long times past, lost loved ones and all that has gone before us. Hence the “Gothic/Metal” Culture and all it’s inclusive genres of the Arts.

I appreciated the documentary for it’s graphic explanation towards all things Nordic Metal. While I don't submerse myself in this music for long periods of time, I do understand it, understand it’s pain and frustration and the ability to rise above oneself to create out of desperate emotion. When we as humans learn to accept and work within darkness, then we begin to create from a place of undying strength.