by Niklas Göransson

The path of penance led Swedish multi-instrumentalist Emil Lundin back to black metal. In 2014, Reverorum ib Malacht converged to create De Mysteriis Dom Christi – a threefold exploration of the divine mysteries and sacraments.

 

KARL HIERONYMUS EMIL LUNDIN: After years of shunning the instrument, I finally gave in and started playing guitar again. I was reluctant, but Johan Gustafsson persuaded me, saying, ‘Come on, you’re pretty good at this – shouldn’t we try our hand at black metal?’ I had a colossal library of pre-recorded drum tracks, which Johan knew about.

In 2014, Johan Gustafsson – who’d previously collaborated with Emil on the electronic side-project SEKTEN – joined REVERORUM IB MALACHT. When the duo began writing new material, they had at their disposal roughly a hundred songs’ worth of drums tracked by Emil back in 2009.

EMIL: That’s when we resumed work on “De Mysteriis Dom Christi”. Since 2009, I’d lived with this title, obviously alluding to the MAYHEM record. Similarly, our cover mirrors that of “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”, which shows a church.

Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim – that Euronymous had planned to blow up on the release date.

EMIL: True, but that never happened – so now it’s just a church… with hideous calligraphy in the booklet! It looks like something a drunken monk, or even a child, would create; it’s completely ahistorical. I wanted to make real a black metal album about the divine mysteries and sacraments. We recorded “De Mysteriis Dom Christi” and ended up with enough material to release three of them.

In September 2014, The Ajna Offensive released three separate REVERORUM IB MALACHT titles, each exclusive to its own format – cassette, vinyl, and CD – and all titled “De Mysteriis Dom Christi”.

At first glance, it may seem like utter lunacy, but upon closer inspection, a method emerges from the madness. For example, some material appears across multiple editions. A section in “Domini Est Terra” on the CD can be heard at the beginning of both the cassette and vinyl.

Additionally, the music seems tailored to each format. The cassette tracks are rather monotonous, with a flatter and rawer sound. The CD version, which has the most black metal content, includes more digital soundscaping. The vinyl, rich in dynamics, falls somewhere in between.

EMIL: Absolutely; the two vinyl tracks, each twenty minutes long, were specifically written for the LP format. The music on the CD wouldn’t have sounded right in cassette saturation, but the tape material does. The CD was designed to be more digital, with a broader stereo width and phase shifting between speakers. Regrettably, it was mastered down at the plant, making it more listenable and less extreme than initially intended.

 

Releasing three different albums with the same title on the same day sounds like a label manager’s nightmare.

EMIL: I don’t remember Tyler (The Ajna Offensive) saying much at all. What I appreciate most about Tyler is that he’s always dared to back up all our ideas as long as he liked the music. I mean, just releasing ‘Roman Catholic Black Metal’ – let alone an album called “De Mysteriis Dom Christi”… and that one was quite expensive, especially the gatefold vinyl.

The 2011 release of “URKAOS” preserved the layout and content as originally intended upon its completion in 2006. Consequently, many REVERORUM IB MALACHT listeners were unaware that both Emil and Mikael had since converted to Catholicism. With the overtly Christian themes of “De Mysteriis Dom Christi”, Emil left no room for doubt.

EMIL: Despite five years passing since the Serpent Bearer interview where I announced my change of heart, people still didn’t seem to get it. I’d see comments like, ‘Oh, they focus on the dark and destructive aspects of religion – medieval inquisitors and so forth.’ No. Just consider the crucifixion of Christ; can you imagine anything more harrowing than God dying? God is the source of all life. God is love. And He dies. That in itself is unfathomably dark, wouldn’t you agree? Why do you need the Middle Ages?

How were the reactions?

EMIL: Honestly, I expected more pushback because I still believed that black metal fans opposed Christianity – a position I’ve since had to reevaluate. Sadly, they just don’t care. It would’ve been better to have something solid to stand against, but that’s not the case. I was surprised by how many embraced the albums, seemingly unconcerned with their Catholic nature.

Perhaps because the music is so dark.

EMIL: True. I suppose “De Mysteriis…” sounded so disturbing that it appealed even to those who knew I was no longer a devil-worshipper. People said, ‘They might be Christian, but this is the sickest, most twisted thing I’ve ever heard.’ But there was no conscious decision to veer in that direction; I’d always wanted to make such music. It was simply where my artistic journey led me.

 

Emil and Johan also revived DÖDFÖDD after a five-year hiatus, recording “Demo 15” in January 2015. Reviewing my timeline, I noticed that both “Demo 09” and “Demo 10” were also recorded in early January.

EMIL: This is due to the academic year – I’m off after Christmas. Or not ‘off’ per se; that’s when I’m supposed to be preparing courses for the next semester. It has become a recurring thing, and we’ve since made a new album every January but one. These convergences of the academic and secular years have become known as our ‘January sessions’.

For “Demo 15”, Emil focused on enhancing the brutal aspects at the expense of melody. Its approach is similar to “Dmdc[2009]” which he and Sir N recorded six years earlier – however, “Demo 15” features a Serge synthesiser instead of guitars.

EMIL: My vocals were processed through a Serge module with Russian mini-valves, which gave them that dreadful, trapped sound. The project was intended as a split album with EMIT, but complications arose. Michael (EMIT) planned to release it on his label but encountered issues with the printer. They refused to print our tape, mistaking it for ISIS propaganda.

What made them think that?

EMIL: I suppose the artwork, which shows a ninja in front of an acid smiley, could be misinterpreted as depicting a terrorist. Further confusion arose from the Arabic script on the cover, which I intentionally designed to look inauthentic. Western authorities often mishandle Arabic in graphics, frequently failing to connect letters properly or inverting them.

It bears mentioning here that Emil is not entirely clueless about these matters. He has a PhD in Semitic languages and speaks Arabic fluently.

EMIL: The text on the cover says ‘Techno Akbar’ – ‘Techno is great’ – as well as ‘Haters of Qatar’ in the same stylised fake Arabic. We also thank ‘Yemen House Mafia’, which started as a side project but ended up as a SEKTEN song. I love Yemen. It’s the best country in the world.

Perhaps not the ideal spot for leisurely living at the moment.

EMIL: True. Sadly, misfortune befalls even the righteous. Yemen’s history, especially the ancient Sabaean Empire, is fascinating. As are the languages and the enduring Old Testament harvest traditions still practised there before the war. Yemen’s historical importance is often overlooked, not just in the biblical context but also in Islam. But let’s not get into that. Suffice it to say, this long-standing interest has influenced our work. Look at this LP – “Vad är inte sju huvud?” – and you can see the Yemeni flag here.

 

REVERORUM IB MALACHT began recording “Vad är inte sju huvud?” in the summer of 2016. What a trip this album is. While I’ve since drastically reevaluated the work, my initial impression was that of rare moments of brilliance drowned in a torrent of exasperating nonsense.

EMIL: We started during an extreme heatwave. Everyone in the band was present, which made it incredibly hot here in my humble abode. Each member contributed to the best of their abilities. “Vad är inte sju huvud?” reflects a multitude of charismatic perspectives, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly what each individual sought to achieve. But yes, it’s a rather strange album, though still black metal in some sense.

In a prior conversation, Emil scoffed with disdain when I mentioned that the closing bit of “Evangeliet går ut” reminded me of mid-90s BRIGHTER DEATH NOW. Clearly unimpressed, he explained that it is rain processed through an analogue limiter.

EMIL: I wanted a climax of madness towards the song’s end. During a rainstorm, I put a microphone outside the window, aiming for an overdriven sound where the source didn’t matter much. This wall of noise is then penetrated by the sample of a preacher, creating a ‘downpour of verity,’ so to speak.

The fifth track, “Att drivas av Kristi kärlek och utföra hans uppdrag”, is an almost seventeen-minute blend of droning metal, demented soundscapes, demonic moaning, operatic vocals, and outright noise – all layered on top of a strange drumbeat.

 EMIL: Listen closely towards the middle, where the tempo is normal, and you’ll hear the snare drum only in the first bar before it cuts out. This technique helps build that pulsating, anxious ambience. Traditional music often follows patterns of ‘tension and release,’ with chord progressions leading to some kind of resolution. The MALACHT approach is more about navigating chaos and order.

Are those dramatic-sounding strings sampled?

EMIL: Yes, they’re from an Egyptian documentary about devil worshippers. From an overaching perspective, “Vad är inte sju huvud?” explores something distinct and different. It emphasises that God, as the only perfect being, is unique. The theme reflects on sin, manifested as a hydra with seven heads.

In Greek and Roman mythology, the hydra is a multiheaded serpent-like creature with the notable ability that if one head is cut off, two more grow back in its place.

EMIL: You might sever yourself from one vice, but you’re still confronted with similar temptations. Sin is persistent, no matter how much one tries to rise above it. Catholicism has never been about attaining salvation once and for all; it’s a daily struggle to turn oneself around and repent.

 

In an already peculiar album, the final track, “Han har inte besegrat mig”, manages to stand out. It revolves around a recording of REVERORUM IB MALACHT co-founder Karl Axel Ignatius Mikael Mårtensson engaged in a verbal dispute with the chorus of a ‘golden oldie.’

EMIL: The whole thing is actually seventeen minutes long, but I edited it down. We felt it captured the album’s essence. Mikael always carries bags full of cassettes, VHS tapes, Dictaphones, and old analogue recording equipment. He regularly buys hundreds of second-hand cassettes, searching for chrome tapes. Occasionally, they contain some real treasures – many of which end up in MALACHT. In this instance, he was going to play us one such sample.

This demonstration can be heard on “Han har inte besegrat mig”. Using a scratched 78rpm disc, Mikael plays an old 1950s song stuck on a repeated groove, initially explaining that it is to be used for MALACHT. He adds that the lyrics say, ‘C’mon, I have won.’

To be honest, I’m not quite sure how he reached this conclusion, as it sounds to me like ‘My wife…’. Anyway, Mikael then stresses that ‘he’ – referring to whoever is singing – has certainly not won and never will. ‘Han har inte besegrat mig’: ‘He has not conquered me.’

EMIL: It turned out that Mikael, while recording his instructions, underwent a bit of an episode. I don’t know if we should call it ‘psychosis’ or whatever, but he heard it as ‘C’mon, I have won’ and reacted accordingly. It’s a phenomenon where you interpret what you’re predisposed to hear. We, as humans, subconsciously seek meaning in our experiences, and this can be exploited – which is something we often do with MALACHT. You give chaos meaning through interpretation, much like how language evolves.

During my pre-interview research, I noticed that this particular song had over 40,000 plays on Spotify – making it the most popular REVERORUM IB MALACHT track by far at the time. Quite astonished, I mentioned this to Emil, who informed me that he’d paid for a bot service to generate plays.

EMIL: Yes, that’s correct. Or actually, we put it on repeat ourselves. Perhaps not the cleverest of marketing ploys, but at least it’s amusing. It’s not our most listened-to track any longer, but for a while, it had lots of plays. Perhaps we should take action again? Because I firmly believe that “Han har inte besegrat mig” should be fronting MALACHT. Whoever can make it through the whole thing is probably ready to hear our remaining material.

What does the cover artwork depict?

EMIL: I’m not entirely sure – I found it at a church exhibition. The cathedral grates and certain background elements suggest a Christian setting. What those purple tentacles are up to is anyone’s guess; to me, they’re suggestive of sin. I’m still trying to comprehend that album. It’s been a while since I listened to it, which is why I’m unsure about the compositional aspects. Individual songs might be easier to dissect, but as a whole, “…sju huvud?” is too lengthy for a simple analysis. It’s charismatic!

Another unorthodox feature is how the production changes noticeably between songs.

EMIL: Back then, I’d started tiring of the album format. ‘Why on earth should all the songs have the same production?’ With custom-made mixes, every individual piece gets its own distinctive character. Yet it doesn’t detract from the totality. I’d call “…sju huvud?” the epicentre of that mindset, but it’s also prevalent in “Im Ra…”.

 

Parallel to the work on “…sju huvud?”, REVERORUM IB MALACHT’s “Im Ra Distare Summum Soveris Seris Vas innoble” took form. Through a painstaking process, Emil pieced together an entire album from old sound files of riffs he’d tracked between 2000 and 2004, combined with drums from the 2009 sessions. Emil still had the guitar used in the original recordings, so he acquired a pedal of the same model to fill in where needed.

EMIL: The main challenge was determining the bpm – meaning, the tempo the riffs were played and recorded in. I eventually solved it, but I’m not sure how. The reason I couldn’t open the original projects goes back to a computer crash around 2005. I lost everything, quite simply.

Some of these songs, like “Incompatible Molokh”, are brilliant – what were they originally written for?

EMIL: Many were intended for the DÖDFÖDD debut – we had well over an album’s worth of material when my computer died. The best of those riffs I could remember ended up in “URKAOS”. Years later, I was able to restore a number of WAV files, some of which found their way into “Im Ra…”. I remember Philip remarking that the distortion is so digital-sounding you can almost touch the ones and zeros, and I think he might’ve had a point.

Does it contain any new material?

EMIL: Not much, as I recall. “Cloud of Unknowing” is new, which should be quite obvious from the different-sounding distortion. This was before “Pentagrammaton” came out, and I had ideas about recreating the OFERMOD song I wrote, “Unfolding Paradox in Final Redemption”. I asked Mika (Belfagor), but he replied, ‘No thanks, no more black metal stress right now,’ so I abandoned it. What else…? “E Va Um da” – Mikael’s track – is also recent.

The title, “E Va Um da”, is in Mikael’s custom language and apparently translates to ‘once upon a time’.

EMIL: “Im Ra Distare Summum Soveris Seris Vas innoble” is also in Mikael’s own tongue, but I have no idea what it means. Mikael often contributes lyrics in this made-up language, or wherever it is he gets his words from. It’s the same with the band name: ‘Reverorum ib Malacht’ was another phrase he intercepted.

In addition to Emil’s longtime collaborator Sir N, the album features two Cold Meat Industry veterans. Henrik Björkk of MZ.412 provided the intro, and Henry Möller from ARDITI and PUISSANCE made the outro.

EMIL: Möller is an old friend of Johan’s, and Johan used to live next door to Henrik Björkk. I also traded Buchla modules with Henrik, so we’d been in touch. We both frequented the same electronic music forum and were aware of each other’s work. If I understood him correctly, he appreciated the innovative aspects of both SEKTEN and MALACHT.

 

In the summer of 2017, shortly after “Im Ra…” was completed, The Ajna Offensive released another shelved REVERORUM IB MALACHT album: “Ter Agios Numini”. The material underwent three recording phases – first in 2004 and 2005, then in 2012, and again in 2014. The earlier versions have never been released.

EMIL: Uffe, who’d attended the same upper secondary school, collaborated with us on its first incarnation. He was very skilled in electronic music and is now an IT developer who builds synths as a hobby. Another classmate, Jerk from Rättvik, plays the accordion. The original version of “Ter Agios…” was primarily electronic. Over the next decade, we recorded vocals and added various instruments through several different mixes. In 2014, we made an entirely new version, but I forgot about it.