Desert Northern Hell

Tsjuder - “Desert Northern Hell” 2004

Tsjuder
“Desert Northern Hell”

Origin: Oslo, Norway

Genre: Black Metal

Label: Season of Mist

Fucking Tsjuder! The world of black metal’s most brutal band: thrash and death-inspired, Satanic to the core and killing in the name of His Infernal Majesty. Since 1993, they’ve been laying waste to the Norwegian scene. Whilst bands like Emperor and Satyricon try to get all epic on everyone and as Taake and Kampfar spin their yarns of olde, Tsjuder just does what they do best - Devil horns up your ass black metal. Their discography is like Satan throwing a tantrum o’er the competition: aggressive, scathing and raged. And as the blood flows and as the crosses blaze, it’s to adrenaline-fueled records like 2004’s “Desert Northern Hell” - Tsjuder’s crowning achievement - unleashed during the height of the New Wave of black metal; an era for redefinition and refinement for the genre. “Desert Northern Hell” fit right in to that particular climate, and served as inspiration for up and coming bands like Svarttjern who would embrace the sheer mania of this wholly originally, savage style of black metal.

“Desert Northern Hell” just rips, man and it hits like nothing you’ve ever felt from any other Norwegian BM band. Not even Gorgoroth or Urgehal possess this kind of testicular fortitude. Tsjuder piss standing up! Making the rest of the Norse hordes sound like your mother’s kind of black metal bands. Supper anyone? Maybe a nice crocheted afghan… With Tsjuder, it’s bullets, axes and torches all fucking day. “Malignant Coronation” - a fevered and maniacal scourge of bewilderingly brutal passages that chug and swirl over you like a diabolical tempest of biblical proportions; raining down piston-stroke blast beats and heavy artillery-revving riffs from crimson skies of rapturous apocalypse. And “Possessed”! A proper title, as Nag, Draugluin and Anti-Christian vomit pea soup, turn their heads 180 degrees and unleash their sonic onslaught. Music for the wolf as it tears through the fold and for the immolation of your local church. The outlier comes by way of “Unholy Paragon” - a dreamlike intro as the catalyst to as of yet unheard levels of savage instrumentation. A banger! Enough to get a circle pit whipped up and snaking around piping hot portals to Hell. The album’s finest offering and Tsjuder’s greatest deep cut.

“Desert Northern Hell” closes with an old timey Venom-heralding speed and thrash metal-inspired ripper in “Morbid Lust”. Like something straight out of ‘84 - Paul Baloff decked out in spikes & leather as opposed to tank-tops and denim. Blackened thrash mastery as only Tsjuder can do it until you’re eased into a trance state by temped passages that lull and seduce like a Vixen before the carnage ensues once more. An epic closer to one of the greatest black metal records to have ever been realized under the midnight sun.

Tsjuder’s music is akin to a jacked-up Ram - pitch black and bellowing exhaust through big fat chrome straight pipes while the rest of the horde scoots along in their Priuses… Shit that puts hair on your chest and veins on your cock. Just the apotheosis of brutishness and Neanderthal-like cruelty. Undisputed, unrivaled and STILL bringing the pain are Tsjuder, and there are NO signs of retreat. Like masterfully blended and perfectly aged whiskey, this band has only become more satisfying with age. A little bit more refined and perhaps a little less pissed off, but still fiercely aggressive - seasoned in the craft now as they’ve astounded us with epics like “Antiliv” and “Helvegr” that signify a proper level of artistic maturation. But Tsjuder’s lunatic heyday of the early ’00’s will always be the era by which they are remembered for most, and “Desert Northern Hell” happens to be the finest Norwegian black metal album of said age.

10/10

Experience “Desert Northern Hell” by Tsjuder right here as presented by Black Metal Promotion:

https://youtu.be/lf_qGwfStF4?si=ii996fZqENMS2Th1

~Jeger