When singer/guitarist
Sverre Stokland, aka
Gard or
Blodstrup, and drummer
Sarke formed
Khold in 2000,
Tulus (the Norwegian black metal band they had been performing with) was put on hold indefinitely.
Khold acquired an enthusiastic cult following and became better known than
Tulus, and most of the people who were familiar with
Tulus' '90s recordings assumed that he was gone for good. But in 2006, something interesting happened:
Gard and
Sarke announced that
Khold was going on hiatus, and they resurrected
Tulus. Recorded in 2006,
Biography Obscene is their first album since their resurrection, and their first studio recording in eight years. Somewhat surprisingly,
Biography Obscene is in English rather than Norwegian, which was the language of choice for
Khold and the language that
Tulus favored on their 1998 recording
Evil 1999.
Khold's members were often quoted as saying that even though they spoke English fluently (which is the norm in Scandinavia these days), they preferred writing in Norwegian because their songs often dealt with Norwegian myths, themes, and folklore. But from a commercial standpoint, recording in English makes sense because English is the dominant language of both black metal and death metal -- and the fact that
Gard sings in English on
Biography Obscene certainly doesn't prevent
Tulus from incorporating elements of Scandinavian folk. This 34-minute CD isn't outright folk-metal in the way that the Finnish band
Finntroll plays folk-metal, and it isn't lush or intricate enough to be considered symphonic black metal. Nonetheless,
Biography Obscene does contain violin interludes that draw on Nordic folk; on top of that,
Tulus includes some piano, horns, and occasional female vocals to go with the brutal guitar and crushing blastbeats. The end result is a generally respectable outing that, for all its intensity and aggression, is not without musicality.