I've been fascinated with the spiritual side of black metal since I first read about Jon Nödtveidt, Dissection and what was once known as the Misanthropic Luciferian Order, but it wasn't until I discovered Serpent Noir that my curiosity would turn into thirst for knowledge and understanding of what I consider to be the true Satanic path. Actual Qliphotic practitioners creating true black metal that honors Satan: The Dragon and brings truth to the idea of who Lucifer truly is. BM as a vessel for black & red magicks, draconian current, daemonic forces, Luciferian enlightenment and the most powerful Satanic energy. True Satanism that transcends any and all Abrahamic perceptions or Laveyan ideas actually exists, and the music that's created as the product of such esotericism by bands like the aforementioned Serpent Noir, Ofermod, Mortuus, and Thy Darkened Shade happens to be - at least in my opinion - some of the finest the scene has to offer. Athens Greece's Thy Darkened Shade transcend even the furthest stretches of the black metal genre with music that enlightens and bears witness to Lucifer - The Father - an all-powerful and misrepresented deity whose Luciferian light guides the way through Satanic darkness. What you're about to take part in is an awakening, a rare and valuable learning experience provided so graciously by a real Qliphotic practitioner and visionary black metal artist. During my latest interview, Semjaza from Thy Darkened Shade provides some profound insight into the music, the past and current state of the scene, the esotericism behind their hymns and the complicated, but all-magnificent nature of the deity, Lucifer... Let the ritual commence!

Jeger

Black metal music - no matter from what country - is generally steeped in tradition and heritage. Yet your style, particularly on the new record is transcendent without much in the way of what one would expect to hear on a Rotting Christ or Varathron album. Do you draw much inspiration from the early Hellenic era?

Semjaza: Of course, some of my favorite releases are coming from the 90s era of the Hellenic black metal underground. These people created some of the best BM releases of all time. In fact, first I experienced the Hellenic BM underground in more detail and then the international BM scene. I suppose that was normal for me to do so. That period fully inspires me, but I dislike copying-pasting their sound. I'd rather create my own sound than copy any of my favorite releases or scenes. For instance, I am obviously influenced by Necromantia and Thou Art Lord but TDS sounds really different. I still remember the day I ordered Eosforos by Thou Art Lord like it was yesterday. I was still in elementary school; these bands really opened another dimension, spiritual dimension within me, unconsciously. "Thy Mighty Contract" is fully important to me, Scarlet Evil Witching Black, Eosforos, His Majesty at the Swamp, Necromantia split with Varathron, many killer releases came from that era, demos, eps, splits as well. Also, apart from the more known releases there were even more underground ones that were significant (in fact back then, all those bands were underground anyway). Like for instance, Entrance and Wandering on the Seven Zones by Zephyrous, the Lemegethon demos or Nergal's De Vermis Mysteriis, to name a few.

Your previous full-length album "Liber Lvcifer I: Khem Sedjet" and your forthcoming record "Liber Lvcifer II: Mahapralaya" are based upon luciferian concepts. There are a number of different branches of occultism with different ideas about who The Lightbringer is and what he stands for. And - of course - there are the more well-known Biblical perceptions of Lucifer. How is Lucifer perceived on these two albums and how do they tie into one another?

During the years, I realized that instead of listening to conscious ideas of what people imagine about Lucifer, I rather construct unconscious ideas by focusing on communicating directly with the deity. I obtained very different signals from what people just think about Lucifer through their conscious mind. The totality of the deity is very hard to be grasped from a human mind and I don't pretend here that I fully grasp the deity either. However, I know for sure that many people and bands are downgrading divinity to reflect their own mundane created image. So, they project their humanity into a limitless deity, something which is an error. I like learning from errors, I perceive Lucifer as my father, a real deity whose adversarial energy traveled throughout history. With the Liber Lvcifer albums we aim to clarify how Lucifer interacted with the cosmos throughout the aeons and under which manifestations. Another question that is answered is how we can communicate with the deity. We focus on the totality of the god form, by invoking Him under all His names, the totality of the god-form is summoned. Even though Khem Sedjet was closer to Lucifer and Mahapralaya is closer to Satan, we know that the light of Lucifer is the darkness of Satan, the light that either blinds or illuminates. That's how all these albums relate to each other.

How would you describe the writing/recording process for your forthcoming album "Liber Lvcifer II: Mahapralaya"?

The process of composition was totally killer, fully inspiring as well. That is always the easiest part for me. I had the hymns composed from a very early stage. I had to choose from tons of TDS music which hymns fit better into the frame of Mahapralaya. That's normally the case, first I create music and lyrics by using the unconscious, without any mundane thoughts attached. Then I choose the tracks that fit in a frame, making them sound coherent from an album perspective. So, I must use my conscious mind for that. On the other hand, the recording process and the finalisation of the album was full of difficulties. In general, it was painful, not the easy way out, too much work for even simple tasks. Some mundane work too had to be done and I am not very good at performing mundane tasks for TDS - a tiring experience. At the end I was fully drained, but also the experience was illuminating and profound. It deserved all the pain and the sleepless nights. This was our most difficult release to date for several reasons.

My understanding is that In Jewish mysticism, Qliphoth and Kabbalah are the representation of evil or daemonic forces from the realm of Sitra Achra. How do Qliphoth and Kabbalah tie into the concept of the new album?

I am a Qliphotic practitioner therefore, the Qliphoth reflects what I do daily and of course this defines TDS as well. I don't want to get too specific with that in relation to our new album since it is important for me that everyone will form personal analyses of what we do. However, our music is a hidden passage through several Qliphotic spheres and tunnels. By extending what I said before, TDS and my existence is dedicated to the totality of the deity. The true light is that of Lucifer and therefore, any Sephirotic (demiurgic) emanations are not only illusional but damaging to me. It is through the light of Lucifer that I receive the balance to go through the darkness of Satan. It is through the passion of Lilith that this quest becomes even more strengthened until all illusions will be nothing but ashes - metaphorically as well as literally.

From your perspective as a band who has put in a good share of underground work, how do you feel about streaming, the internet, social media and their impact on the scene? Is it even really underground anymore?

It's really a huge conversation. I recently replied to a similar question with this one, but for me it is an important question. The impact of the internet on the BM underground is mainly awful from the perspective that I see it. Plenty of people entered the scene, pushing their own agendas into a genre that was already fully established before them with blood and sacrifices. They claim they own BM while at the same time their mindset is diametrically opposite of what this movement stands for. Some of them dislike real ΒΜ revolutionary deeds, but they still claim they own the genre. This concerns these bands and individuals. Seriously, no matter what you believe in, that really doesn't concern me. Be whatever you want to be and do what thou wilt, but call your genre something else since it is something else. This is what happens when something revolutionary becomes widely known… It becomes watered down. Back in the 90s a BM band needed to have the apocryphal concept along with a personal vision to be called as such. A band had to contribute to the Satanic mindset and the sound of BM with their personal vision. By saying Satanic I don't solely mean the manifestation of the deity within the Christian tradition (that's another thing that people confuse). But the manifestation of the adversarial deity in all traditions along with the rebellion against any kind of oppressive force or deity. People nowadays don't have to do any serious work to be part of this movement since even the most obscure of all zines are widely available through the internet. Something which isn't even valued by them. Back in the day, no one had to negotiate the obvious thing. It is a fact, not my opinion, lets repeat until it will be crystal clear: BM IS APOCRYPHAL, OCCULT, ADVERSARIAL and SATANIC MUSIC - the worship of the Dark Gods. To avoid the usual confusion, I don't say that all the people behind the bands were occult experts (some of them in fact became). However, a lot of them were ready to kill and die for their Satanic beliefs and were touched by a presence unconsciously and were basically writing for that as well consciously. Remember, even the Count did that with his devil worshipping interviews, Dominus Sathanas track and his Satanic lyrics for Darkthrone etc. The evidence is all there for those who wish to search for facts about BM tradition. Here, I don't speak about good or bad music but about the very traditional definition of this genre. I listen to tons of other genres apart from BM myself anyway. Also, the obscure feeling of the BM scene is something that I miss a lot. Some few bands are managing to capture it. Other bands - due to them overusing the social media and their poser like magazine pictures - make BM look like a circus. The problem with that is that outsiders assume that BM is about those koala bear figurines dragging the scene into the dirt for their own mainstream fame. For my own reality, solely, BM within me developed into something ever more solemn and serious with my own growth. Now, I see it from the perspective of a 39-year-old man. I ensure you I still value any release that I listen to, any zine that I read, and I am buying as many releases as possible since I first heard this genre when I was a kid. But I would gladly leave the comfort zone of the internet behind to return to the obscure feeling of zines and the diehard mindset of the 90s scene.

I wanted to ask what some would probably consider to be a loaded question. From your viewpoint as a practitioner, how do you feel about the commercialization of Satanism and what sometimes feels like the naive use of Satanic imagery/concepts by mainstream black metal bands?

That's a killer question to me. Satanism cannot be commercialized no matter how vainly people (or bands) are trying to use this religion for their own gains. Satanism is for the few and cannot be widely well known, this can never change. Most people are not willing to have the bravery to become Satanists and that's normal. Only a distorted version of pseudo-Satanic organisations can be well known. These organisations are so diametrically against any real Satanic path that they cannot be called Satanic. No matter if their pseudo-high priests choose to call it so (just for extra cash, ego glorification and doing "rituals" as their main mundane jobs). They should name their obsession as Egoism or Narcissism instead of Satanism. This trend started with the Americanization of a branch of anti-Satanism through Anton Szandor LaVey and his Church of Egoism. These people, while being in their traditional ego-trip state, even dared to say that they are the only true branch of Satanism. There is nothing Left Hand Path in being up your ass and wanting to have sex all day. These paths are anti-Satanic paths and essentially no hand paths. Worshipping the ego is narcissistic, not Satanic. Church of Egoism propagated: Just watch yourself in front of a mirror, pretend you are superior from anyone else and have as much sex as possible. Congratulations, now that you worship yourself, you also worship Satan and we also have your money. What kind of an absurd joke is this? They also named their mundane pseudo-Nietzschean ideology as occultism. There is nothing occult about it either, as there is nothing spiritual there too. Using holy names as psychodrama for someone to feel superior doesn't sound too sacred to me. They should try something else instead, maybe playing video games and trying to cool down a bit. The organisations like them who aim at the commercialization of Satanism do nothing other than projecting their own insecurities into the world. Bands or individuals that are exploiting it have no clue with what they are messing with.

What's the most valuable thing you've learned through your music and esotericism?

To believe in my true Self that stems from the original source. To embrace fully the quest of becoming the higher Self no matter the obstacles. To trust the immortality of the black flame and what lies beyond this illusionary plane of existence. To believe in the endless potentiality and possibilities that arise when someone becomes a vessel of adversarial energies. To trust the totality of the deity.

Do you have a message for your followers?

Yes, the message is that I don't need followers. I rather have listeners, people that follow and those who need followers are equally vulnerable. HSL!

German progressive deathers Dark Millennium have recently released their fifth full-length album "Acid River" (read review here), which at least in my opinion, is one of the highlights of the early 2022. I had a very nice telephone chat with vocalist Christian Mertens about the quite interesting history of the band and about the new album, too. Enjoy reading!

Michael

Hi Christian, how are you?

I'm fine, thank you. I just got home from work, was on the road all day and am now relaxing at home in the warm living room.

On January 7th your new album "Acid River" was released. Do you have a certain expectations regarding the reactions?

Well, that's difficult to say that we have a certain expectation. I would say that we are curious about the reactions. Every album we've done has been different from the previous ones and it's no different with "Acid River". It's quite a difference from the previous album and I think it tells a new story again and is a new chapter. On the last album, except for the closing track, we recorded relatively short songs because we felt like it, it's different again with this album, and there are fewer but longer tracks on it. It's not an expectation in the sense that it would be totally important for us if we get many negative reactions. And it's not a decision criterion, whether we continue to do it. This is not meant to sound arrogant; we have always done what came out of us and what we simply had the desire to do. I would say that we are curious and it would be great if a lot of people like it and is well received.

After listening to the album umpteen times now, it still leaves me pretty amazed because it's so incredibly diverse. I've always felt like I'm in Alice in Wonderland or on a trip when I listen to Dark Millennium, but this time it's all a bit more whacky. Was that your intention to evoke such feelings?

When we started songwriting, of course we thought about what we felt like doing and what we wanted to do beforehand. We felt that we would like to write longer songs again, so also record fewer ones and we didn't want the typical verse / chorus scheme. Apart from that, we went into it with certain adventurousness and just went for it, not knowing ourselves where it would lead us. We tried to surprise ourselves and I think you can hear that adventurousness in the album. With most of the songs, there's not a lot of repetition and you never really know what's going to happen next and that unpredictability factor was a principle after we wrote the songs. We didn't say we wanted to make a totally whacky album; we approached it with a certain spontaneity and let ourselves be surprised. I think that it has become quite an adventurous album that you probably have to listen to or at least can listen to several times and I think that this aspect has been quite successful. It is certainly not an album that you just consume.

But what I never feel when listening to your albums is joy. I think your compositions always drag you down tremendously. Do the songs reflect your soul life?

Let's say that it reflects an aspect of our soul life. In the genre in which we move - which can be roughly described as atmospheric death metal or something like that - it fits and we have always wanted to musically set dark moods to music and accordingly the lyrics are also relatively dark. But we are not a bunch of completely depressed people who go through life with a great death wish, but we simply have a certain joy in transporting different gloomy emotions. It's basically like the pleasure of watching a horror movie or reading a mysterious book. It's the fun of playing with negative emotions and it's also a kind of outlet, of course. It's also a bit of mental aggression release. If you would experience us, we often sit together, laugh and have fun (laughs) and at the same time we just make this dark music. That's one aspect of our personality that we enjoy expressing through our music.

Haha, you don't sound really depressed now!!!

Haha, I'm not, but that's just because I'm making this kind of music, haha!

I read in the promo that the songwriting was much more spontaneous and flexible and everyone in the band could contribute their part. How did you manage that?

I had written the lyrics in advance, before we composed the music, and I got stuck on seven songs. So I had lyrics for seven songs and then we met again and again in the studio in different compositions, sometimes in twos, sometimes in threes, sometimes in fours and I explained the themes of the songs to the guys. Then we looked at what each of us had up our sleeve in terms of ideas that could fit in and then we got through them relatively freely from part to part, tried to let a structure develop and we recorded it spontaneously. We made song sketches and I also sang spontaneously to it, something that I thought would fit and then seven song sketches came out of that, all very spontaneous and situational and in different combinations. Then each of us had the opportunity to let these song sketches work on themselves and practice a bit. Because I had sung the things directly, our drummer had a better feeling at which point he should play dynamically or more reservedly, it was a very free process. It also happened that we used some aspects of these spontaneous demo recordings in the final recordings, which can be found on the album. If a take was particularly successful, then we said we'd leave it, we couldn't record it any better.

So did a dictatorship rule before by a few band members and the others were just "musicians"?

No, you can't say that. Since the reunion we always compose relatively freely and everyone has the opportunity to add different things. When we recorded the comeback album "Midnight in the Void", I composed the songs mostly together with Hilton (Theissen, M.) and Michael (Burmann, M.) and on the last two albums the others joined in as well. But we don't have such a real dictatorship.

What would you say, is your musical development in the last years, rather backward or a pure further development? I personally think that by now you perfectly combine the progressive elements of "Diana Read Peace" with the early death metal approaches you had on "Ashore the Celestial Burden".

I'm really happy about that! These are statements that I find very interesting. I don't know if I would call it development, because that means that you keep working your way from one point. It's more of a jumping between things that we've done before and things that we haven't done yet and we mix something from that. I would say it's more like playing with the possibilities. We reused, as you also said, elements of the first two albums and at the same time put some progressive stuff in there and tried to stir it all together into a good mix.

"Diana Read Peace" is 28 years old these days. With this album you have pushed a lot of people in front of their heads or at least irritated them tremendously. How would you judge the album in retrospect?

That was a very radical step from the first to the second album. At that time we also had a lot of other listening habits, we listened to a lot of progressive, grunge or pop and that's where "Diana Read Peace" came from at that time. Apart from that radical cut to the first album, I'm glad we did it because it had to be done, but if we were to record it again today, I would do a few things differently. I always feel the album is a touch unfinished. We should have taken a little bit more time for the album in retrospect and what aspect is essential for me is that we should have played through the album a few more times together in the rehearsal room before we recorded it. It was pretty much a head thing and that's the thing that I still don't like so much in retrospect. Nevertheless, the album had to be made at that time, because all the ideas had to come out somehow.

Lyrically, especially in the opener or also in 'Vessel', I have the feeling that you are trying to deal with the situation in the world today, which is truly not as simple as it was a few years ago. "A long cold winter in our world begins" or "Submission, Demolition, The world we know explodes". In addition then still fittingly the title "Acid River", something that etches itself into society....what is it about?

In principle, I must say that "Acid River" is an album that has many occult themes. It's about the penetration of the occult world into our reality and it's about people. I tell seven stories of people in whose reality something changes. Something is happening that they can't grasp and that is disturbing. This always has an occult background, although you can also infer these cross-references to the present day from it. It's about worlds changing and in today's world worlds are changing because of real things like a pandemic, war or whatever and "Acid River" deals with that more figuratively. 'The Verger' is about the Antichrist sneaking into a community and the people there sense that something is changing but can't grasp it. 'Vessel' is about a world in a vessel, that's kind of influenced by Clive Barker, one of my favorite authors. 'Threshold' is about something changing in an unreal way. That threshold - often it's not what happens that's really bad, but that moment when something changes that you can't grasp yet. You sense that something is wrong and something threatening is happening, but you can't grab it. The title "Acid River" is basically a generic term. The "Acid River" is the thread that flows through the songs. It flows through the stories and changes something.

What are your favorite songs on the album and why?

I find saying about favorite songs difficult. The first song we wrote for the album was 'Lunacy', so it has some meaning for me. When we started composing and writing 'Lunacy', it became clear to us while writing into which direction we collectively wanted to go on the album. So I think it's quite charming that the song is in the middle of the album and on vinyl it's divided into Part 1 and Part 2. When the question of vinyl came up and we were thinking about where to make the cut on the album, we said we'll take 'Lunacy'. At that doom part, where there's an opening door, that's where we make the cut. From there the meaning for me is that it's the starting point for the album as well as now the centerpiece and the second song that I find very interesting is the opener 'The Verger'. We didn't say we're going to compose the opener now, but we were into it and at some point one of us said that's the perfect opener and then we did it that way. I then wrote the line "A long cold winter in our world begins" and thought that the album should start with that. That's a good way to start (laughs).

I was a bit surprised when I saw the playing time of the 7 songs. They are all the same length!

Yes (laughs). It was a result of the process. The fact that we do seven songs was kind of on my mind, because I wrote the lyrics and because I thought it would be cool to do an album with seven songs (laughs). When we were writing the songs, the idea came up that the songs would be longer anyway and it would be charming if they were all around seven minutes long. That's when we started having fun with the idea, while also saying that if we feel like a song needs to be longer, we don't stick to that corset. But we somehow managed to compose the songs all at seven minutes. So it's a mixture of intention and coincidence (laughs).

When I look at the cover, I can't see much on there. There we go again with the trip, haha. And what I noticed is that the album title has to be read from right to left.

Yes, because it's kind of upside down. I talked to our cover artist Alex Freund, who has painted all of our covers so far, about the themes of the album and with artists it's always like you have to give them an inspiration but at the same time give them a lot of freedom. Alex tried a few things that didn't quite fit the context and then at some point he painted this picture. It's basically like a mountain with lava flowing down from it and ending up in a sea at the bottom. There are also faces in these seven lava flows (laughs), no matter how you hold the cover. These faces are basically the protagonists of the stories we're telling about. And we wrote the album title upside down to motivate the viewer to turn the thing around....

...haha, so the smart ones and not the dumb ones like me!!!

Haha, no, no problem!!! The thought behind it is this: Music has become so consumable these days. You stream more and more and who buys a record or a CD today like in the past and deals first with the cover and the lyrics? That's an aspect that is completely lost and we wanted to make the viewer a bit curious with the upside down cover to just take a closer look.

Are there any plans for the future? When was your last concert?

We don't have any concrete plans. In principle, of course, we definitely want to play live and present the new songs and we would also like to play a few songs from the last album, because Corona came fully in between. I think with the last album we had a gig and then Corona came, so of course we really want to mix the current songs with older songs live. But the situation to plan something is still not that easy and it's also that we all have our regular jobs and we have to plan that then. If we got the offer to do a 3 week tour next month, we wouldn't be able to do that at all. From there, it's more focused on targeted gigs on the weekend somewhere. But if that continues to not be possible, we will continue to compose. We still have tons of ideas for many more recordings.

What albums are you listening to at the moment?

It's a pretty colorful mishmash. I listen to a lot of older records that have accompanied me throughout the years. Of course a lot of death metal, for example the first two Death albums, the first Possessed, but I also listen to a lot of grunge like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden. Those are bands that have never let me go over the years. Nick Cave and P J Harvey are two artists I absolutely adore. I also like to listen to Norwegian black metal and what I really like right now are bands that combine post hardcore and black metal a bit - stuff like Oathbreaker or Deafheaven.

Do you have any words for our readers?

Apart from wishing everyone good health and a good start into the new year, I would be very happy if one or the other would deal with "Acid River" a bit more intensively and not just take a quick look, because there is something or the other to discover, even at the risk of people saying: okay, that's not mine after all. I would also like to thank those who have been involved with the band over the years and supported us even after the reunion. I know that our band doesn't always make it easy for the listeners, but it's also nice to follow a band that can surprise you every now and then.  From therefore I am very grateful and appreciate it when our listeners keep faith with us and follow our whole jumps a bit.