Diving Into The Vígljós Hivemind
Or how medieval beekeepers became a thing in black metal
An eerie buzz is growing louder from the Swiss city of Basel. Historically known for its century-long commitment to humanism and for being a safe haven to notable people such as Nietzsche, Jung, and Hesse, Basel is now the place where the black metal band Vígljós has established its hive.
While nods to medieval times are commonplace in metal, a new trope has notably come into fashion. Both the Ukrainian trio They Came from Visions and the Swiss debutants Vígljós have recently found in medieval beekeepers an inspiration for their aesthetic. Though the bands have different approaches to black metal, it is curious to see how the interest in beige hoodies and wicker masks has spread lately.
In the case of Vigjlós, it all started with “The Beekeepers and the Birdnester”, a painting made by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1568 and featured in one of the 40 museums found in Basel. According to the band, it had “everything that we felt was contained within our music: the horror, the craze, mystery, and beauty of his work was a perfect match.” But, more importantly, they seem to be sick of the cliché: “How many more satanic hoodie bands does the world need? Like, seriously…”.
But despite their innovative approach to black metal aesthetics, the premise of their music is to go back to the roots. For their first album, “Tome I: Apidae”, which will be released on May 11th, the objective is to quote second-wave bands such as Darkthrone, Immortal, and Emperor. On the other hand, their contemporary influences come from non-metal artists: “We dig a lot of pretty weird music like Comus or Exuma. One of us grew up in a family of blues musicians and, for many of us, Deutschpunk and videogame soundtracks were part of our adolescence.”
All of that sums up to the rendering of eight tracks which are named after their muse: the bees. That is indeed a refreshing take on how black metal has historically blended with nature, though now not through flora but fauna. Fanzines such as “Become the Forest” have already shown plenty of evidence of how forests have populated the genre since its beginning, and though wolves and crows are the metalhead’s favorite pets, insects might be more commonly found in the agenda of noise and drone musicians (pun intended?).
In their second edition, "Become the Forest" featured an interview with the American band Botanist, which has created its own lore around the descent into madness of a botanist. It seems that Vígljós is cooking something similar when it narrates the exchanges between the human and the non-human, the apiarist (or beekeeper), and the bees.
But there seems to be a catch, as some of the songs refer to “swarming” and “the hive”, in the sense that Vígljós might be dealing with the concept of the collective. One can easily see beauty in birds in murmuration or fish in a shoal, but when it comes to humans, the massiveness of crowds feels rather scary and threatening. For the average misanthropic black metal fan, being in the middle of a crowd may sound much more horrific than, say, an actual encounter with Satan.
As much as Vígljós is a music act, there is a lot of visuality in their work. Talking to the band, I learned that Jodorowsky’s “The Holy Mountain” and Aleksei German’s “Hard to be a God” are their main cinematographic inspirations. Both are quite weird movies, as well as equally atmospheric and ritualistic.
To me, Vígljós also feels like “The Wicker Man” and “A Field in England” in as much as all these artworks are rendered to transport you to another context or even level of consciousness channeled by magic and nature. With the two instrumental tracks that open and close the album, you can definitely get the folk horror feeling of it. Moreover, the very name of the band, Vígjlós, is an Old Norse term for a light bright enough to kill a man.
There are no available lyrics to the songs and black metal vocals can be difficult to understand, but you can get the general feeling as buzzing noises are always hauntingly growing out of the songs. According to an interview they recently gave, this first album is a “romanced and stylized narrative about the life and death of bees” and how certain phases of this animal’s life are part of our own daily lives.
Rather than delving into the darkness as other fellow black metal musicians, the Swiss trio has found horror in another extremity, in the excess of beauty and revelation: the last track, “VIII: To Die in a Flowerbed”, might refer to succumbing not only in a delightful setting but also possibly from a "pollen overdose". While drones are not exactly mentioned in this first album, it is known that they die after mating for the ejaculation is so powerful that it causes death by mutilation — maybe that is what Vígljós is subconsciously thinking of?
For fans of DSBM who want the taste of the dramatic Darkthrone-inspired guitars, lo-fi mixing, and excruciating guttural vocals, “Tome I: Apidae” can be a fun ride. Highlights go to “VI: Raiding the Hive” and the catchy “II — Sweet Stings”. Good choice for the upcoming Midsommar.
Tracklist:
𝓘: 𝓻𝓪𝔂𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓵𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽 𝓸𝓷 𝓵𝓲𝓺𝓾𝓲𝓭 𝓰𝓸𝓵𝓭
𝓘𝓘 : 𝓼𝔀𝓮𝓮𝓽 𝓼𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼
𝓘𝓘𝓘: 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓪𝓹𝓲𝓪𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓽
𝓘𝓥: 𝓼𝔀𝓪𝓻𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓰
𝓥: 𝓭𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓫𝓾𝓶𝓫𝓵𝓮𝓫𝓮𝓮
𝓥𝓘: 𝓻𝓪𝓲𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓱𝓲𝓿𝓮
𝓥𝓘𝓘: 𝓿𝓲́𝓰𝓵𝓳𝓸́𝓼
𝓥𝓘𝓘𝓘: 𝓽𝓸 𝓭𝓲𝓮 𝓲𝓷 𝓪 𝓯𝓵𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓻𝓫𝓮𝓭
