What The Actual Hel?

I would like to extend special thanks to the lovely and talented 'fireangel' of the brutal and epic metal blog Night Elves' Forest, without whom this post would not have been possible.  Noticing that your humble wolf den slash trollcave did not have any contact info, she managed to pass a message on anyway, largely thanks to the raging nycticebusophiliacs over at NCS.  The subject of this message was the blackened pagan metallstürm known as, well, 'Hel'.

Hel HAILS (take that, Rev. Will!) from Germany, and are old stalwarts at the blackened pagan (or as I shall henceforth be referring to it as "blackagan") oeuvre, having formed in the mid-to-late 90s.  Since I don't know German worth a set of flaming balls, I'm going to take word that they're pagan; they certainly seem to embrace the iconography of Norse mythology, and Hel was of course the half-and-half queen of the Underworld.  I'm willing to bet she was responsible for that most heinous of nasty pimpmobiles: Naglfar.  That would be the ship made out of toenail clippings and the occasional tuft of unmentionable hair.  

Like this, only times a billon.  And...you know.  Made into a ship.

Hel hits a lot of sweet spots for me.  As fireangel has said in the Night Elves' post about this band, they are strongly influenced by Bathory (and really, what Viking metal band isn't?) but this is no slavish hero-worship.   The Bathoryesque elements are there, but Hel definitely does its own thing.  The best I can give you right now is this album teaser for their latest release.  There are some track samples on here, and it's just enough to tell me I want it.

Hel - "Das Atmen der Erde" teaser trailer

I encourage you to visit their homepage HERE, because they are selling their album directly to the public, with no label or distributor middlemen.  Possibly a bold move for an already established band ('Das Atmen der Erde' is their fourth studio album) but I'm hoping this sort of thing becomes more common.  Also, the album will be available through iTunes on April 30th according to their website.  

And once again, a huge thank you to fireangel for the hookup.  Raise your horns!

Note: you can NOW contact me at trollfiend@hotmail.com or by clicking on the link in the sidebar where it says "Holler Into My Hole".  I look forward to many informative emails about how I may supersize my love stick.