Okay, mostly just for fun. If these guys wanted money, they’d hop on the band wagon with some fancy novelty packaging instead of issuing their tapes in a plain plastic case with a one-sided, black-and-white photocopy for an insert. If the guys in Grafvolluth had been hanging out with Varg Vikernes in 1992, you can bet there would be a few less churches in Norway.
View slideshow: A look at "Long Live Death!" by Grafvolluth
It’s clear from the outset that these guys are more concerned with rocking out than trying anything especially original. The guitar is brutal, the drums are fast … what more do you want? The image of Yggdrasil on the cover, the romantic allusions to Germanic heraldry, and the praise of ancient civilizations do not exactly add up to a stroke of innovative genius, but the band seems at least honest about their longing for a bygone heroic age. That said, the European intellectuals of the neofolk world can hardly be thrilled to have these Brooklyn barbarians weighing in on their scholarly discourse. The loss of cultural identity to the forces of globalization, though obviously a subject for serious concern, is an issue already lamentably entangled with the image of the Nazi boogeyman. The fact that Grafvolluth is actually volunteering to be accused of loving genocide just seems deliberately counterproductive … not to mention completely nuts.
The fact is, whatever you think of them, they don’t care. Viking metal is all the rage these days, and truthfully, you’re better off with these maniacs than a bunch of major label sissies with a goofy stage show.
As an added credit to their already substantially anti-social image, it seems they had to go to Holland to find a distributor for their tape. “Long Live Death!” was distributed by Dutch labelWolfsvuur in an edition of 100 no-frills cassettes.
