'Bloed In De Sneeuw' is generally acknowledged as the first Black Metal song with lyrics in Dutch. In this post, Orlok recalls the song's history.
"The song 'Bloed In De Sneeuw" was written in early 1994. At the time, we listened a lot to bands like Master's Hammer and Masacre, who sang in their own languages, which inspired us to also try that.
The original version released on 'The Return Of The Horned One'
When the compilation was released, reactions to the song were very enthusiastic. Besides being a really cool song musically, admittedly heavily inspired by 'Viking era' Bathory, the Dutch lyrics gave the song something 'extra' that was apparently more than just the novelty factor. So we started rehearsing the song with Countess and we even played it live once (in May 1994). However, for reasons I cannot remember - if any - we didn't include it on the next Countess album, 'The Return Of The Horned One' when we record that later in 1994. Then when we were signed to N.E.P. and we were preparing the album's release, Opyros insisted we add 'Bloed In De Sneeuw' to the album because he really liked that song. We didn't have time to record it again, though, so we just did a remix of the original 13 Candles version and tacked that onto the album as the final track (admittedly, there is hardly any difference between the remix and the original mix).
When the album was released, again the response to 'Bloed In De Sneeuw' was really good. So when, in March 1995, we had another Countess line-up together and began rehearsing, we decided to include the song in our live set. We did change the song a little: we moved the lead section from the end to after the second chorus, before the break in the middle. We felt that made the song 'flow' better. As far as I remember, we played 'Bloed In De Sneeuw' live at every gig we did from then on. It was also recorded for the live album in 1996. While the full live album was never released, the live version of 'Bloed In De Sneeuw' was eventually released as a bonus track on 'Heilig Vuur' in 2004. 'Heilig Vuur', of course, was an album entirely in Dutch.
The 2007 version, released as a bonus track on 'Blazing Flames Of War'
A few years later, we recorded a new studio version that was released as a bonus track on 'Blazing Flames Of War' in 2007 and when, in 2014, we started rehearsing an playing live again, there could of course be no question that 'Bloed In De Sneeuw' would be included in the set. Similarly, it was obvious that the song also had to be included on the 'Sermons Of The Infidel' CD as this was a compilation of new versions of some of our personal favourite tracks from the band's long history. So in 2014 'Bloed In De Sneeuw' was recorded yet again. We like to think of this version as the definitive rendition of this classic track."
The 2014 version, released on 'Sermons Of The Infidel'
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