Alongside much traditionalism, Norway’s fertile and expansive black metal scene has also served us the other side of the coin throughout the decades, which is to say an impressive quantity of visionary, adventurous or just plain weird bands that break expectations, limits and boundaries at each step. Even if they weren’t all that “out there” in the very beginning of their career, at least not as much as what they have turned into with time, DØDHEIMSGARD have nevertheless never been easy to fit into any little stylistic pigeonhole and they are one of the most iconic examples of that fact. Their history is already long, starting in 1994 with quite a trio, Aldrahn, Fenriz and Vicotnik – the latter, at the same time, also breaking all the rules of conventionality with Ved Buens Ende, which we will also encounter this year at SWR -, a lineup that suffered as many distortions as their music, keeping only the gentleman that goes by the real name of Yusaf Parvez as fixed member. DHG (a shortening that actually became their sort of official name for a little while back in the first decade of this century) have built a truly heterogeneous catalogue during these many years, with a more or less tenuous connection to black metal, depending on the phase, by always with their heads turned to the stars and beyond. The most recent chapter was the profoundly bleak «Black Medium Current», which came out in 2023 but still feels like it was released yesterday. Even universally timeless classics such as «666 International» still feel, at each listen, that they’re still being digested by us poor listeners, offering more and more each time we dive into them. It’s called genius.
