Spear of Longinus – Nazi Occult Metal (1995)

August 10, 2023

A recent talk by Dr. Ben Hillier on “Esoteric Fascism in Extreme Metal Music” (well worth a watch for those who are – like me – perhaps on the outside looking in at this stuff) had me realising that out of all the “OG” NSBM acts, I had overlooked Spear Of Longinus.

There is no beating around the bush here. There are no dogwhistles or covert symbolism: its all there, I suppose to their credit, in the title. There is no guessing here (and certainly no “are SOL suss?” threads on Reddit).

Musically, the demo is a little monotonous but not to the point of offense. Either way, you are not missing out if you are one of those people who gives NSBM bands a wide berth. The unsettling thing about this demo is that the same tracks repeat twice, once with “harsh” black metal vocals and the second time through with additional folky / shouted / clean vocals. Going back to Ben Hillier a second, he attributed this second recording with cleaner vocals to be a clear and deliberate attempt to make sure that the listener was able to understand and digest the message here. Personally, I find even the second run through to be just as obtuse as the first, but yeah, there is absolutely no denying the message here.

To summarise: hateful, hateful shit, and musically just above avarage.