Immortal Says 'No'

From Blabbermouth. Report reproduced here without comment:

Norwegian black metallers IMMORTAL have "rejected" their nomination in the "Metal" category at this year's Spellemann awards.

The nominees for the largest and oldest Norwegian music awards show, which is often referred to as the country's equivalent to the American Grammy Awards, were announced earlier today (Monday, January 25) and included nods to IMMORTAL for the band's latest album, "All Shall Fall", as well as to the most recent releases from CODE, ÅRABROT and THE CUMSHOTS, all of whom were also nominated in the "Metal" category.

After receiving the news that they were nominated for a Spellemann award, the members of IMMORTAL issued a brief statement saying, "IMMORTAL says no to Spellemann nomination. IMMORTAL has registered that we are nominated to a Spellemann award for 'All Shall Fall'. We hereby wish to announce that we reject this nomination."

IMMORTAL manager Håkon Grav told the blog of the Norwegian TV program "Lydverket" that the IMMORTAL members themselves should explain why they have chosen to reject the Spellemann nomination, but offered his personal view on the drama.

"IMMORTAL doesn't necessarily want to be the biggest band in the world, they just want to be the rawest band," he said. "And honestly, one has to say that there are few black metal bands who have kept their credibility while still playing for 80,000 fans around Europe."

When "Lydverket" contacted Marte Thorsby, the head of the Spellemann board, to get her response to IMMORTAL's statement, she said that it would not pose a problem for the awards show. "We're not gonna force anybody to be nominated for a Spellemann award, so we'll remove them from the nominations. This is completely unproblematic."

Here We Go Again...

Yes, once again, a Black Metal gig has been cancelled due to pressure by simian terror groups. It seems Temnozor was due to play live in Holand earlier this month, but a troop of smelly, politically correct chimpanzees noticed and decided to rattle the cage (see here)

Huldrefolk, who were supposed be in the line-up, issued one of those tedious "we are not Nazis!!!" (...zzz...) statements (see here).

Little good did it do them: the venue lost heart and the gig was cancelled anyway.

Lesson: even if true, a Black Metal band should never issue a statement denying they are Nazis. It always looks stupid, it never works, and, most importantly, it indicates they are on the defensive, playing by rules set by the opposition.

Return

After a week's delay, due to the snow and the consequent air travel disruption (which resulted in our return flight being cancelled at the last minute), we are back behind our desks, only to find chaos on the roads and many closed businesses. We had no postal delivery this morning and two courier deliveries scheduled for today failed to turn up. When the companies in question were contacted with regards to the missing parcels, we were told the latter were stuck at depots, and that drivers were "taking as much as they can, when they can" - and that there was no guarantee as to when they would be able to deliver to our address.