Impaled Nazarene

Impaled Nazarene
Background information
Origin	Oulu, Finland
Genres	Black metal, Extreme metal
Years active	1990–present
Labels	Osmose Productions
Associated acts	Finntroll, Children of Bodom, Diabolos Rising
Members	Mika Luttinen Reima Kellokoski Mikael Arnkil Tomi "UG" Ullgren
Past members	Kimmo "Sir" Luttinen Ari Holappa Mika Pääkkö Harri Halonen Jarno Anttila Taneli Jarva Marco Hietala Jani Lehtosaari Alexi Laiho Teemu Raimoranta Tuomo "Tuomio" Louhio

Impaled Nazarene is a Finnish extreme metal band that started as black metal but have incorporated grindcore elements, and have grown more towards hardcore punk. The band is currently signed to Osmose Productions of France.

The band formed in November 1990, with founding members Mika Luttinen, Kimmo Luttinen, Mika Pääkkö, Ari Holappa and Antti Pihkala. The band gained national success when their demo album, Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz, entered the Finnish charts.

The band was infamous for their apparent hatred of the Norwegian black metal scene back the early 1990s; however, the band now seems to have disassociated itself from that dislike. Luttinen later affirmed that "We have absolutely nothing against Norwegians. I even made up with Euronymous before he was killed so just forget this thing, it is ancient history".

Impaled Nazarene stopped wearing corpse paint in the mid 1990s when black metal exploded, with Luttinen explaining that "we felt it was time distance ourselves a bit from the ridiculous ideas and statements that were circulating around the whole scene back then. And look around, we are not alone who have done this. Even Norwegian bands have dropped paint and other shit and are concentrating on the music instead of childish statements".

With the release of Suomi Finland Perkele, Impaled Nazarene dropped some of their aggression and made a stylistic shift, but this direction ended with the removal of Kimmo Luttinen from the line-up. Mika Luttinen explained his dissatisfaction with Kimmo and how the band changed under his guidance:

The bottom line is that Kimmo [Luttinen - Mika's brother and the band's former drummer] changed our style pretty much after the release of Ugra-Karma. It was his vision of how we should sound, and the rest of us weren't happy at all. It is useless for a band like us to try to be a copy of Danzig or fucking Paradise Lost. So, after Kimmo was replaced, it was normal for us to go back to what we do best, i.e. play aggressive and fast metal [...] It was one guy who wanted to go a different way, and the rest did not agree. Nobody expected such a release as Latex Cult from us anymore, but we fucking proved that we are still here, doing our thing our way. We can get only nastier.

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Wikipedia