1349: Blasphemy & Beer
Black metal masters 1349 have just brought out their latest album, The Wolf And The King and it sees the band keeping their black metal roots burning while also injecting both energy and foreboding menace to their music as well and the results are spectacular. We caught up with 1349 guitarist Archaon to hear all about The Wolf And The King.
We start things off with Archaon excitedly telling us how it feels for 1349 to be back with this new album. “It’s always like a new chapter when you do a new album. Naturally with this one being the newest one, it’s going to be very creative in the live context, and very exciting from a personal point of view to perform a bigger chunk of that.”
Archaon then goes onto explain the meaning behind The Wolf And The King. “It’s basically a foundation in alchemy. It was discussed a lot with Ravn and Frost. They’d been discussing for a while, with Jordan Barlow, the guy that designs the sleeve. There was some fascination about the ability to achieve the most of yourself, to be the best version of yourself in the form of the wolf. The king, he’s devoured by the wolf. The wolf burns and from the axis, the king arises as the best form of itself.”
With five years between The Wolf And The King and its predecessor The Infernal Pathway, Archaon explains that 1349 take their time making albums these days before giving us a bit of history about the band’s early days making albums and how that fitted in with touring. “We were not in a rush. We never are, so it takes the time it takes. Our early albums were released in 2003, 2004, and 2005 in a row because we composed the album a year ahead of things. At that time, it was more emphasised to touring. We had the first offers to tour the States which not many black metal bands did at that time. We were one of the few Norwegian black metal bands touring the United States with CELTIC FROST when they reformed. They brought us on as the main support which was a really great opportunity. CELTIC FROST are the godfathers! Later on, we also did some big, big acts of main support for CANNIBAL CORPSE, CARCASS, BEHEMOTH, MARDUK and looking back, I think most of those tours built a foundation for a lot of the growth that we experienced in the following years.”
With the talk of live shows, Archaon tells us how excited he is to be playing the songs from The Wolf And The King live. “It’s gonna be great. I just came from rehearsal now, we played four new songs, so it’s really exciting!” He then goes on to tell of his eagerness for the tour with KAMPFAR as the album releases. “I think it’s an exciting package, that’s going to show like extreme metal from many different angles.”
Going back to the album, Archaon discusses the blasphemous nature of 1349 being as strong as ever, especially on opening track God Devourer, before talking about the whole dark vibe of the album. “It’s perhaps an even darker album than we have done in a while. God Devourer was very consciously composed, but interesting enough Frost always wanted it as an opener. We actually discussed that quite a bit, and me and Ravn, we’re looking at Inferior Pathways as the opener but Frost was very sure about that song and hence he talked us into it, so that ended up being the opener. I’ll say that there’s no fillers on the album, so it’s a hard time when you try to find which song is going to open an album. Sometimes, it’s just very clear, this has to be the one here, this has to be somewhere in the middle, and this closes the album. We knew that Fatalist would close the album the whole time, because it’s a bit more epic with a claustrophobic feeling of void in the song.”
Archaon then talks about the approach that 1349 have in 2024 and how their dark side will always be there in their music, just not in such an obvious way anymore. “You can sing about Satan as much as you want, but in 2024, I don’t believe that that has got the same effect that it did in 1992. If you choose to show your individualistic appearance and attitude, then it’s something else. I’d say we are much more about the mysticism, and, about more occult approaching, even in everyday life. All the band has got their own take on it, so the anti religion aspect of the lyrics and music is still going to be prevalent as the band goes on but I will say that we are more than that, definitely we are not a religious band, rather, quite the opposite.”
We finish things off by talking about the beer that 1349 have had brewed in their honour with Archaon enthusiastically telling us about it. “It started in 2009, Frost brought the idea and we did a tasting to see what we could find and I remember very vividly it was a Belgian style Abbey ale and it went from there over the years with the making of a pale ale.” With a new 13.49% dark beer released by Norwegian brewers Haandbryggeriet in tribute to The Wolf And The King, Archaon was similarly enthusiastic. “We tried to reflect in the beer, the way that black metal is harsh and brutal in its nature, we wanted the beer to have the same reflection and we wanted the reflection of Norwegian nature like the spruce reflected in there as well.”
The Wolf And The King is out now via Season Of Mist.
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