Until the Light Takes Us

(Factory 25)

A fractured fairy tale documenting black metal’s A Blaze in the Northern Sky turns on the Norwegian genre’s Cain and Abel: Burzum’s Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes and Darkthrone’s Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell respectively. The corpse painter that ends up dead, however, is Mayhem’s Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth, the murder of whom Vikernes comments on from Norway’s Trondheim prison (“like a stay in a monastery”). Murder, Mayhem, homophobia, devil worship, racism; the too-short outtakes reel counters with a sense of humor.

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This article appears in December 3 • 2010.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.