For a long time, I thought I was out. And then they keep pulling me back in.
Well, I was never out of extreme metal. I've listened to it now for what, about 3 decades of my life? But I hadn't really had urges to review over those times; yes, even hearing lots of great albums that had been coming out. I was content just buying and enjoying the music, going to a live gig when I could, you know, like a normal person.
But somehow, last year, 1349's "The Wolf and the King" hit me so hard that it made me pick up a pen(or, well, my keyboard) and write a little review of it on my Facebook, something that I only use once a month to show whatever models I am working on at the moment and to let folks overseas know that I still draw breath in some format. (I have ranted on my blog before that I think the internet peaked back in the 2000s and it's been all downhill from there, you cannot even try to get me posting on IG or TT anything else of those. Hey, you do you if you use it for business, pleasure, or both, but it's not for me.)
I suppose I might have been inspired because I had missed their Helsinki gig last October due to having a chest infection, which I am still mad about. But I loved the album, it was my Album of the Year 2024, and besides an odd bit of blogging, I was like, "Surely I won't have to review anything else for awhile."
Well, 1349 went and did it again; the end of 2025 they went and released something. So here I am, taking a break from trying to finish this particular miniature here, and as I wait for Season of Mist to deliver my 200-limited colored double vinyl to my door(or, more like, up the hill where I have to go talk to a person to receive said item) to write my thoughts about this album because of course I have to.
Said miniature, who looks like he'll come to life and kill me in my sleep if I don't finish him this week.
It's fucking awesome.
Winter Mass is the latest release from 1349, albeit not a *fully* brand new album, so to speak, but a live album. Recorded back in 2021 at Parkteatret in Oslo, this album runs over an hour and sounds absolutely top-notch.
I've talked about the band a few times on the blog; 1349 typically consist of Ravn(Vocals), Archaon(Guitars), Seidemann(Bass) and Frost(Drums), though for this set, they add in Destructhor(Myrkskog) as a second live guitarist, giving them a thicker sound again. (The band used to run two guitarists back during their earlier years; after Hellfire, they had become a four-piece.)
It's got a really solid 13-song setlist, spanning their works up to and including The Infernal Pathway from 2019; The Wolf and the King had not been released(it came out in October 2024.) The only album they didn't hit their first full-length, Liberation; everything else is accounted for in some way, usually with some of their more beloved tracks(like Demonoir's "Atomic Chapel", Hellfire's "I Am Abomination" and "Sculptor of Flesh" and Beyond the Apocalypse's "Chasing Dragons." This band's discography is so strong that trying to narrow down a Best Setlist for them is basically impossible, but we get a damn good one here, especially if you're a big fan of Massive Cauldron of Chaos and The Infernal Pathway(the two most hit albums in this.) There's also a fun bonus at the very end, if you're a big fan of David Lynch like myself. ;) (I am sitting here with an array of Lynch stuff to use while DJing myself, so I was *extra* happy to hear this.) Hell, they even included a track off of Revelations of the Black Flame(their experimental, polarizing album which I also managed to write a couple thousand words about in another blog), Serpentine Sibilance, and Dødskamp, from an EP.
With cover art done by Kim Holm, an amazing Norwegian artist who paints musicians live in concert in a very cool way(really, go check his stuff out, he also does amazing Cthulhus and other dark, awesome looking pieces), I'd definitely pop this album on a must-have list if you're a fan of the band, or a good way to check them out if you hadn't heard of them yet, since you get a compilation of their stuff, since they've never really had a 'greatest hits' album or anything. The sound is crisp, the band is incredibly tight and they sound super-brutal live, the chainsaw-like guitars and Frost's drums(somehow simultaneously hitting near sonic-speeds while hitting harder than a spiked lead club and never missing a beat, showing that he's still one of the best) cut through the air like a big, nasty and serrated blade you might see on a Chaos harbinger or something. They have several of my own favorite songs on this one, but if I had to pick some standouts, their live versions of "Atomic Chapel," "Slaves," "Chasing Dragons," "Through Eyes of Stone" and "Abyssos Antithesis" might be my fav cuts here.
Now, since I'm a fair reviewer, even for my favorite bands, I'll say that I'd have *loved* to have hear them play Celestial Deconstruction at this gig, as it's one of my fav 1349 songs of all time(from Hellfire, one of my top 10 albums of all time), and it's not one that makes it onto live setlists too often. If this was a special, recorded gig, I'd have really loved to have seen them take this one out of their pocket, but at the same time, I understand I Am Abomination and Sculptor of Flesh are big fan-favorites. (I'd have loved to have seen a 3rd Hellfire song.) But I'm just one person and that's one of my own favorite songs, and I don't make the bands' setlists-they know what they're doing. (Had I had my way for the pick for Revelations, I'd have probably wished for "Maggot Fetus...Teeth like Thorns", which is a nasty, nasty track and I love when I hear it on live videos.) But otherwise, the setlist is fantastic, and I try not to be too hard on live setlists because bands have tons of songs, and they gotta narrow it down, so something's always gonna give.
While I usually don't often give AotY to a live album only, what I would indeed be doing this year is *including* this in my Albums of the Year this year it's so good. (Usually I reserve Live Albums of the Year to very special ones; stuff like Metallica's S&M, Satyricon's Live at the Opera, or something perhaps like Children of Bodom's A Chapter Called Children of Bodom, rather than a really great live show, but this album IS so good that I feel like I need to name it as one of my favorites of 2025.)
As someone who keeps running into horrible luck seeing these guys live(Note: I WILL BE SEEING THEM LIVE in 2026, so help me, I don't know or care where but I will see them), getting this at least lets me hear their absolutely blood-freezing aural assault live right there on my stereo; it's never AS good as being there, but it certainly helps, and I certainly have a new soundtrack to add while I am painting up more harbingers of Chaos this winter. (And yes, one of them is going to be heavily inspired by 1349 itself. I'll post it here when I'm done.)
May the nine hells steady my hand when I attempt to free-hand paint the band logo on that banner at the end.
Hell, maybe I'll see them play Celestial Deconstruction when they come around again! (Please come around again! ;__;)
In short, if you like 1349, buy this live album. If you are unfamiliar with the band and want a great selection of songs that sound like a brutal battering ram, buy Winter Mass, and then probably end up buying a bunch of their other stuff since you'll probably like it, at least I would hope. In any case it's a fantastic addition to the band's already packed-with-great-stuff-catalog.
Alrighty, back to the paint table!
Band: 1349
Vocals: Ravn
Drums: Frost
Guitars: Archaon, Destructhor(Live)
Bass: Seidemann
Track Listing:
1. Enter Inferno
2. Sculptor of Flesh
3. Slaves
4. Through Eyes of Stone
5. Cauldron
6. Striding the Chasm
7. Chasing Dragons
8. Serpentine Sibilance
9. I Am Abomination
10. Golem
11. Atomic Chapel
12. Dødskamp
13. Abyssos Antithesis
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