OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 10): SATYRICON, WOLFHEART, HAVUKRUUNU

 

I guess it’s not a bad time to take stock of where we are in the rollout of this 2017 edition of our Most Infectious Song list, since this is the 10th Part. With the three songs I’m adding today, we’re up to a total of 32 tracks. I had planned to finish the list by the end of this month, so we can finally close the book on last year (or mostly close it) and focus our time more exclusively on the flood of new metal that’s been coming our way in 2018. If I follow through on that plan, it really just means I’ll be calling an arbitrary halt… because I’m still just figuring this out as I go along.

I suppose if I really feel that calling a dead halt on January 31 would leave too many gems behind, I might edge into February, but on the other hand, that could become a very slippery slope. I do have 8 days left in the month, and if I knock out an average of three tracks per day, I can make it to 56 songs… which would be about 20 fewer than usual for this series. We’ll see.

 

 

SATYRICON

Satyricon are on my mind since I saw the news announced yesterday that they will be touring the U.S. for the last time this spring (accompanied by Inquisition). This song, “To Your Brethren in the Dark“, has been on my mind a lot since I first heard it, too.

I have no doubt that some fans of the band’s latest album, Deep Calleth Upon Deep (reviewed by Andy Synn here) may quarrel with the selection, and of course I easily could have picked other tracks. I suppose the choice may depend a bit on which era of Satyricon’s creative output exerts the greatest hold on each listener, since (to paraphrase Andy) the album successfully draws upon ideas and influences from across the breadth of the band’s discography.

But regardless, I find this song to be completely sorcerous, and it succeeds in casting a spell every time I hear it. The lyrics are very cool, too, as is this video:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WOLFHEART

I think it’s fair to say that Wolfheart has been a consistent favorite at this site since the project’s inception, and it has been gratifying to see how enthusiastically the band’s music has been embraced since the release of Winterborn in 2013. We certainly greeted the latest record, Tyhjyys, with considerable enthusiasm, as expressed in DGR’s extensive review of the album.

Interestingly, while DGR devoted significant attention in his review to many individual tracks from the album, “World On Fire” wasn’t one of them — even though that song is one that he recommended I include in this list. It wasn’t a hard sell for me to include it either. So much to like about the song — the darting riffs, the sweeping ambient layers, the hooky little keyboard melody that surfaces just before the 2:00 mark, the soaring solo, the surging energy, the way that Tuomas Saukkonen manages to sound like he’s singing even with that monstrous roar that comes from his throat….

And the video for the song is great:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HAVUKRUUNU

With their first album, Havulinnaan, Havukruunu proved very quickly that they were something special. Two years later, they produced Kelle surut soi, which was released last April. Anyone who might have worried about a sophomore slump easily perished those thoughts — the band managed to surmount a debut that was itself spectacular.

I briefly reviewed the album for our site and singled out the album’s second song, “Vainovalkeat”, as the one that really reached in and pulled the heart from my chest. Its central melody is so grand and glorious, and so immediately captivating. It feels like you’ve been thrown into a chariot of fire and taken straight into the heavens with Valkyries as your vanguard.

The rampant passion in “Vainovalkeat” surges throughout much of the album, with fire and fury dominant at times, an air of bombastic grandeur at others, and crushing sorrow at still others. But this song is the one I yearn to hear more than any other, and that makes it worthy of this list of mine.