STORM - NORDAVIND (1995)

Back in the early days of IllCon, I tried not to "cross streams" too much with Aesop over at Cosmic Hearse--that is, I figure anyone who reads this blog is already reading that blog, so why bother re-hashing shit that he's already covered in the greatest of detail? But hey: that was then, this is now. I don't really give much of a fuck about that kind of stuff anymore, and if there's any one album that deserves its moment in the sun here on our hallowed pages (Hearse or no), it's Storm's 1995 folk masterpiece Nordavind.

Thus spake Aesop: If you end up playing this for your non-metal-loving friend, prepare to hear one of them make a crack about the old Swedish Chef character from The Muppet Show. This would be as good a time as any to cleave them with your well-worn battle axe, and let their inferior blood stain the snow of your fatherland. Your friends are assholes, and aren't fit to be galley slaves in Storm's dragon-prowed longboat of old. If you can't enjoy Nordavind you are already dead, and Valhalla is lost to you.

Well, Valhalla is somewhat lost to you, because Uncle Aesop's link got eradicated in The Great Megaupload Cleanse of 2012. But fear not, for Cobras is rectifying his shameful negligence with a brand-new re-up today!
Storm was the ultra-short-lived project of our old pals Fenriz (left) from some band, and Satyr (below right) from some other band, who decided to get together with this chick Kari from 3rd And The Mortal to play electrified versions of Norse nationalist hymns, heavy on the simple, distorted riffs, war drums, yodeling, unbridled manfulness, and sick grooves.

Nordavind became something of a controversial album years later in Norway, when vocalist Kari decided to pursue a career in the pop-music world. You see, the "mainstream" Norse media found fault in the pagan/nationalist/anti-Christian messages she had seemingly taken part in with Satyr and Fenriz during the production of the album, and to this day she carries to lingering taint of heathen forest trolls and malevolent ice-giants.
I don't know. Look at the pictures of Satyr and Fenriz. Look at the picture of Kari. Look back at Fenriz and Satyr, then read the following paragraph.

From Encyclopaedia Metallum: After Nordavind was released, Kari Rueslåtten (left) stated in the Norwegian music newspaper Puls that when she agreed to join the project, she made sure that there would be no extreme lyrics in the songs, but then she felt betrayed by Satyr and Fenriz, because the latter one wrote a new end to the song 'Oppi Fjellet': "...en grusom død til hver en mann/som ikke hyller vårt faderland..." (...a horrifying death to every man/who doesn't hail our fatherland...) and "...om du noengang lukter kristenmannsblod/oppi fjellet, oppi fjellet/ja hent øksa og hugg dem ned/oppi fjellet, oppi fjellet" (..if you ever smell the Christian man's blood/up in the mountains, up in the mountains/then get your axe and chop them down/up in the mountains, up in the mountains). According to Kari "I reacted very strongly when I heard that they had changed the lyric, but I wasn't strong enough to say no. Now I want that people shall forget this. I feel totally crushed, and I feel that I have lost everything but people must accept that I have made a mistake. And they have to see me as the person I am, as the artist I am. I don't want to be punished more than I already have been punished through this".

Good luck with all that, Kari.

The Viking murder anthem in question (my JAM):



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