UNCOVERED- the reason drugs were never a big part of the Norwegian black metal scene

File under "Don't Try This At Home". And cross-reference it with "Don't Try This Anywhere Else". Like that regrettable incident years back with the Blue Stratos, or getting hospitalised by friendly fire (half a brick to the back of the head) during a riot, I did this so you don't have to.


So... what did I do that was so fucking stupid?

Get yourself a beer and I'll tell you.

By various means (largely exacerbated by the infectious enthusisam of Barbelith's Rizla) I've somehow ended up with an unhealthy interest in Norwegian black metal. You know- the guys who paint themselves to look like pandas and burn churches. Kind of like Satan's own Furries Of Rock. A large part of this is to do with the gap between humour and seriousness- these are people who, as kids, listened to Venom, and Slayer, and Black Sabbath... and believed every word.
Anyway...
I was idly (and very drunkenly) wondering, as you do, what black metal would sound like to someone incapacitated by an enormous dose of ketamine. So, I did an enormous dose of ketamine, and wapped on Mayhem's classis "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas". A few seconds later, I realised this was a bad idea. A very bad idea. It sounded horrible. And not in a good way. Of course, being hugely dosed up on animal tranquilisers, I then found myself unable to reach the button on the stereo, despite it being a mere foot or so away from my hand. I remember being launched into the psychedelic stratosphere with the thought "oh bugger. I've got to listen to the whole album". It was like that bit in Empire Strikes Back when Luke's been hung up by the feet in the Wampa's cave and is trying to reach his lightsabre. Except, try as I might, the Force just wasn't gonna play ball. Possibly the K had lowered my midichlorian count... I'm not a doctor, let alone a space doctor, so how could I tell?
For forty-five minutes that seemed like an eternity, I lay there. Imagine a black metal version of Hodgson's "The House On The Borderland". Except it wasn't the universe I was watching come to a fiery cataclysmic end, it was my brain.
I remember being just about rational enough to recognise "Freezing Moon" and therefore have a vaguely comforting idea that this was, after all, just a combination of drugs, music and stupidity, then I was gone again.
At some point later, I finally lost consciousness. Of course, it being about six in the evening, I came to at about four am with a terrible headache, and a chronic inability to go back to sleep.

Don't do it, kids. It's a great album, but it's just not suited to those types of drugs. I'm not particularly sure I am, either...