NOISEY 019: OCCVLTA

The old saying goes that you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. Well, Occvlta seem to set more store in the old school than they do in old idioms. They began as a black metal band of brothers back in 2004, choosing the names Hord, Torm, and Vrgh. They resolved to make a racket that could measure up to classic acts like Venom, Celtic Frost, and Mayhem.

The band is one of the last hopes of Germany’s fruitless black metal scene, combining the slurry brutality of doom riffs with a rock ‘n roll sense of showmanship that extends to demonic fiction recitals and Kohl’s eye make-up. Noisey joined Occvlta at the Diamond Lounge in Berlin, the basement venue at the hip White Trash Fast Food restaurant. It’s their third concert in six years, but exclusivity fosters desire. For the longhaired devotees of “true metal” in the crowd, it was more than a concert—it was a mass.