Black Metal. For a decade now, Finland's WHITE DEATH have built a small-yet-formidable canon of work that's come to define modern underground black metal in their nation. It's no secret that Finland has possessed one of the most potent black metal scenes from the early '90s onward, and with each new generation that picks up the torch, some are contenders and others are just content to uphold "the Finnish sound." WHITE DEATH took their time with deploying demos and then their debut album, simply self-titled, but they occupied a unique position between those poles: steeped in noble tradition, but exuding a confidence and charisma that rendered White Death an exceptionally nasty work even with its considerably cleaner production. Three years of silence followed between the release of that debut album and the three-song Promo 2020, which included an Enochian Crescent cover - an inspired choice from an oft-unsung legend, and a portent of grandeur to come.
"Everyone knows the curse of the second album, because the first demo or album is always best," smirks WHITE DEATH frontman Vritrahn. "People ask and hope us to do this or do that, and when we put out a few preview songs, there were complaints about sound, for example. So, not to please anybody, we bought the smallest and worst-possible amplifiers from the second-hand store just to ruin fucking great riffs and drown all the best things on this album under muddy noise."
Black humor, perhaps, for WHITE DEATH's forthcoming Iconoclast is anything but "worst-possible" or "muddy" - in fact, it's downright HUGE. Comprising an epic hour across a dozen tracks, Iconoclast is an all-engrossing album-length experience: each track stands mightily on its own, but all are threaded together into a dazzling song-cycle that can handily challenge any "big budget" black metal album past or present. It could be heresy to liken WHITE DEATH's second album to some of the second wave's biggest albums, so we won't, but the point stands that these Finns are operating within rarefied territory; hearts authentically ablaze with the underground spirit, they nevertheless unshackle themselves from the ghettoized thinking that mostly serves to keep the mongrel hordes within safe, status-quo boxes. Thus, with no small amount of pomp and majesty, Iconoclast blasts out into the cosmos on a rocket of kaleidoscopic splendor and still-nasty riffing. Fully 3D, the orchestration is densely layered and yet possessive of mystical space, buffeted by songwriting that continually peaks and crests; dynamics are sharpened to a sterling degree, encasing the listener within surround-sound splendor. Before one knows it, the 60 minutes of Iconoclast have come to a close and it's time to drown within its velvety depths again. Here, WHITE DEATH salute a new horizon...
"This new album is like the Anttila catalog," concludes Vritrahn with yet more black humor. "They sell all kinds of shit, from toys to furniture. The Anttila underwear pages were the most masturbated magazine in Finland. If you know what to search, you can find it. You just need to try a bit harder to cum, but eventually, you will."