1349

1349 is a black metal group from Oslo, Norway, formed in 1997. Its members are Balfori, Ravn, Tjalve, Seidemann, Archaon and Frost. The band’s name refers to the year the Black Death reaches Norway.

Style and influences

1349 plays black metal and is associated with the wider Norwegian metal scene. Ravn cites Celtic Frost as his principal influence, and the band also covers Celtic Frost in live performance. On its debut album, Liberation, the group includes a cover of Mayhem’s “Buried by Time and Dust” as a further acknowledgement of its influences.

Live activity and collaborations

The band tours regularly. Its live shows often begin with Frost and guitarist Archaon breathing fire. In 2006, 1349 tours the United States with Celtic Frost. In March 2008, at the Oslo Inferno Metal Festival, the band is joined on stage by Celtic Frost frontman Tom Gabriel Fischer for a performance of “The Usurper”. Ravn also appears on Celtic Frost’s Monotheist (2006), providing guest vocals on the CD digipack bonus track “Temple of Depression”.

Recordings and releases

A music video for “Sculptor of Flesh” follows the release of Hellfire (2005) and is directed by Judd Tilyard. The video combines live footage from Norway with surgery clips filmed in Australia. In late 2008, the band records its fourth album, Revelations of the Black Flame, which Tom Gabriel Fischer co-mixes and which appears in Europe in 2009. That album marks a slower, more dark ambient and industrial-tinged direction than earlier releases.

At the beginning of 2010, 1349 signs with Indie Recordings for European release of its fifth album, with Prosthetic Records handling North America. The album, Demonoir, appears in 2010 and returns to the band’s earlier sound while keeping the low-fi production and ambient qualities associated with Revelations of the Black Flame. A deluxe box set of Demonoir appears in 2011.

The band’s first live DVD, Hellvetia Fire – The Official 1349 Bootleg, is released by Candlelight Records in 2011. It is filmed at Bikini Test La Chaux De Fonds in Switzerland in 2005. Recording for the sixth studio album, Massive Cauldron of Chaos, begins in 2013 and the album appears in 2014 via Indie Recordings. The seventh studio album, The Infernal Pathway, is released in 2019, and the eighth studio album, The Wolf & The King, is released in 2024.

Festivals and touring

1349 appears at Hellfest in France in 2007, where it asks to perform after dark rather than in daylight. In 2010 the band plays the Evisceration Plague Tour with Cannibal Corpse, Skeletonwitch and Lecherous Nocturne, and also appears at Wacken Open Air and Summer Breeze Open Air. It later tours Canada and the United States with Triptykon, Tom Gabriel Fischer’s project, in 2010.

Labels

The band releases material through Candlelight Records, Season of Mist, Indie Recordings and Prosthetic Records, with verified label credits including Candlelight Records and Season of Mist.