ARCKANUM

Black Metal • Sweden
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Arckanum is a black metal band from Mora, Sweden. The band formed in 1992 and consists of only Johan "Shamaatae" Lahger as sole member.

Arckanum is not a "pagan" black metal band. Johan "Shamaatae" Lahger is a practicing chaos-gnostic.

All of Arckanum's lyrics are written in either Old Swedish or Old Icelandic. Shamaatae tries to make them as grammatically correct as possible.
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ARCKANUM Discography

ARCKANUM albums / top albums

ARCKANUM Fran Marder album cover 3.96 | 4 ratings
Fran Marder
Black Metal 1995
ARCKANUM Kostogher album cover 4.67 | 2 ratings
Kostogher
Black Metal 1997
ARCKANUM Kampen album cover 4.50 | 1 ratings
Kampen
Black Metal 1998
ARCKANUM Antikosmos album cover 3.71 | 3 ratings
Antikosmos
Black Metal 2008
ARCKANUM ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ album cover 4.28 | 7 ratings
ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ
Black Metal 2009
ARCKANUM Sviga Læ album cover 3.50 | 1 ratings
Sviga Læ
Black Metal 2010
ARCKANUM Helvítismyrkr album cover 3.54 | 3 ratings
Helvítismyrkr
Black Metal 2011
ARCKANUM Fenris Kindir album cover 4.00 | 2 ratings
Fenris Kindir
Black Metal 2013
ARCKANUM Den förstfödde album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Den förstfödde
Black Metal 2017

ARCKANUM EPs & splits

ARCKANUM Boka Vm Kaos album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Boka Vm Kaos
Black Metal 2002
ARCKANUM Grimalkinz Skaldi album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Grimalkinz Skaldi
Black Metal 2008
ARCKANUM Antikosmos album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Antikosmos
Black Metal 2008
ARCKANUM Arckanum / Sataros Grief album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Arckanum / Sataros Grief
Black Metal 2008
ARCKANUM Þyrmir album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Þyrmir
Black Metal 2009

ARCKANUM live albums

ARCKANUM demos, promos, fans club and other releases (no bootlegs)

ARCKANUM Demo 1993 album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Demo 1993
Black Metal 1993
ARCKANUM Trulen album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
Trulen
Black Metal 1994

ARCKANUM re-issues & compilations

ARCKANUM The 11 Year Anniversary Album album cover 0.00 | 0 ratings
The 11 Year Anniversary Album
Black Metal 2004

ARCKANUM singles (0)

ARCKANUM movies (DVD, Blu-Ray or VHS)

ARCKANUM Reviews

ARCKANUM ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ

Album · 2009 · Black Metal
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Warthur
"Þ", or Thorn, is a letter mostly found in the alphabets of some archaic Germanic and Scandinavian languages that has largely fallen by the wayside as the languages in question developed into their modern forms - but it's been retained in Icelandic.

This makes it an apt letter for Arckanum's Shamaatae to fixate upon, delivering this set of songs all of which have titles beginning with Þ; after all, Arckanum's songs are all sung in Icelandic and hail back to the ancient eras of myths that provide a common cultural link between the various cultures who had Thorn in their tongues in ages past. Musically speaking, the album eschews the lo-fi approach of Arckanum's early albums for a more direct musical assault, making it in some ways a precursor to Darkthrone's recent blending of black metal aesthetics and traditional metal sounds.

ARCKANUM Kampen

Album · 1998 · Black Metal
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Warthur
Recorded at the same time as Kostogher, for the most part Kampen has a more straight-ahead black metal sound than the preceding album due to having less guest artists involved, though regular collaborator Lena Klarström pops in to offer some clean vocals. The occasional atmospheric section splits this up a bit, but for most part this is raw, furious black metal with a more energetic rock-oriented style than much of the subgenre, with some sections almost having a punkish vibe to them. This was the last full studio album Arckanum would put out for a while, and it's certainly a hard act to follow.

ARCKANUM Kostogher

Album · 1997 · Black Metal
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Warthur
Shamaatae sharpened up Arckanum's sound for this second album, which shows a greater sonic variety than the project's debut whilst staying within the pure black metal realm Arckanum have carved out for themselves. Some portions seem to rock out to an extent that black metal sometimes seems too po-faced to attempt; in other portions, Andreas Sten is brought in as a guest musician to provide some delicate violin performances, which add a wistful and softer note to Shamaatae's compositions. Purportedly recorded in an intense burst in 1995 along with the followup Kampen and the never-released Faunaz Samgang - the latter of which was extensively rewritten and a revised version recorded and released as Antikosmos - this finds Shamaatae at a creative peak, and the results secure Arckanum's place in the pantheon of Swedish black metal.

ARCKANUM Fran Marder

Album · 1995 · Black Metal
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Warthur
Although Arckanum has for most of its existence been a one-man project by Shamaatae, it was originally a full band before being reconfigured as a more personal affair. Perhaps that is why the project's debut, Fran Marder, is able to call on such a cross-section of guest artists to add extra vocals here and there, including Sataros who had been part of the band lineup for their earliest demo recordings.

Unlike many one-musician affairs in black metal, Fran Marder is able to attain a decent level of production quality - don't be fooled by the quaint LARPing on the cover image into thinking that this album will sound at all amateurish. It offers up a solid black metal affair with a mild influence from Burzum's ambient experiments in the outro to the final track. It's not an enormous departure from the black metal playbook, but it does demonstrate Shamaatae's early mastery of the form.

ARCKANUM Fenris Kindir

Album · 2013 · Black Metal
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Warthur
As with other long-time black metal artists such as Darkthrone, Arckanum's Shamaatae has reinvigorated his music lately by drawing on more classic, old school metal sounds. Fenris Kindir is the result of that, showing the influence of a range of first-wave black metal acts such as early Bathory and Venom, as well some more traditional heavy metal passages. A welcome change from "all blast beats and tremolo all the time", it isn't an album which is going to revolutionise black metal any time soon but it does demonstrate that Shamaatae's one man band project still has plenty of gas in the tank.

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