***Though they bore little sonic resemblance to their peers at the time, the story of black metal cannot be told without reference to Abruptum. Founded in 1989 by Tony “IT” Särkkä, a pillar of the early Swedish scene who, in addition to Abruptum, also played in Opthamalia and Vondur, among other bands, Abruptum rode the crest of black metal’s second wave. With their debut album on Deathlike Silence Productions carrying the catalog number Anti-Mosh 04, Abruptum was one of the first bands—preceded only by Merciless and Mayhem—to appear on the label that would come to define black metal and export it outside of Scandinavia. Even back then, Särkkä’s credentials were unimpeachable. Before forming Abruptum, he had been in bands with his high school friend Dan Swanö, who later formed Edge of Sanity and opened Unisound Studio, and who credits Särkkä for guiding him into the more extreme corners of the underground scene. Abruptum had little in common with the furious riffs and blast beats that typically characterized the genre; Abruptum was more an entity, a presence, than a band. “The audial essence of pure black evil,” an expression, attributed to Euronymous, that adorns some of the band’s album covers, captures the intent of Abruptum. In many respects, the formlessness of their music conjures a darker atmosphere than more traditional black metal, which still bears remnants of the rock music from which it evolved. Abruptum, by contrast, was a ritualistic distillation of the genre’s core elements. Like a dissected cadaver, splayed with its organs excised and isolated, Abruptum deconstructed black metal and recontextualized it. In this way, Abruptum, perhaps more than any other band, demonstrated that the fundamental essence of black metal is defined not by style or sound, but by intention and disposition. By the time they released their third full-length album “Vi Sonus Veris Nigrae Malitiaes,” in 1996, on Full Moon Productions, IT had parted ways with ALL and recorded the album alone. With “Vi Sonus…,” IT pushed Abruptum to new extremes, cultivating a sound that is cold, opaque, and lifeless. The album also marked an inflection point for Abruptum, for soon after the release of “Vi Sonus…,” IT recruited Morgan “Evil” Håkansson, best known as the guitarist and founding member of Marduk. The two collaborated on one EP together, after which Håkansson took over the project and has remained the lone custodian of Abruptum ever since, maintaining the band’s legacy, even after Särkkä’s death in 2017. NWN! is honored to present this new edition of “Vi Sonus Veris Nigrae Malitiaes,” IT’s ultimate expression of pure black evil.
