The Black Metal Thread
Darkthrone - "Panzerfaust" (1995)
A flawed but enjoyable follow-up to the "unholy trinity" that's noticeably less focused & ground-breaking but manages to overcome its issues through sheer substance & integrity. "Panzerfaust" really sounds more like a collection of outtakes than it does an album with a couple of tunes mimicking the previous record "Transilvanian Hunger", a few delivering blatant Celtic Frost worship & the one Greifi Grishnackh-penned tune "Quintessence" sounding very much like early Burzum. The production is clearer & fuller than Darkthrone's previous albums with Nocturno Culto's charasmatic vocals thundering over the top & very much representing the focal point of the album. I absolutely love his delivery & always will. There's a increased concentration on slower, doomier sections which I really enjoy but the closing ambient piece is quite disappointing & sees the album petering out to an extent which is a shame. Thankfully it doesn't drastically change my impressions of a release that's aged pretty well & is pushing up closely behind "Under A Funeral Moon" in my esteem these days. It'll never touch the dark majesty of "Transilvanian Hunger" or "A Blaze In The Northern Sky" for me personally though.
For fans of Celtic Frost, Hellhammer & Burzum.
4/5
Immortal - "Pure Holocaust" (1993)
Norwegian black metal legends Immortal's sophomore record certainly took the underground by storm back at the time of release. I'd already come across their early material through the tape trading scene by this stage but it was this release that made me sit up & pay attention as it's atmosphere is as cold, icy & frost-bitten as any of the Second Wave black metal of the time. The tracklisting is very consistent although the band do spend the remainder of the album struggling to match the unrelenting power & majesty of the opening couple of tracks which are genuine black metal classics (particularly opener "Unsilent Storms In The North Abyss"). I'm very much onboard with the blazing ferocity of the faster sections & the croaky goblin-like vocals but Immortal also had plenty of melody in their sound when they chose to tone the tempo back a bit. Unfortunately it was during those sections that it became fairly evident that the duo's technical chops weren't quite up to the task & there are a number of sections where they lose their grip on the song structure. These moments are a little cringe-worthy if I'm being completely honest. In fact, you can easily see why they'd record their next album at a slower tempo & then speed the recording up artificially to give them a more unified sound. Regardless though, this is a fine example of black metal in the fine Norwegian tradition & I enjoy it significantly more than their highly acclaimed 1999 album "At The Heart of Winter". As with that album though, I'm not sure it's the classic that people make it out to be & I prefer the ultra-brutal follow-up "Battles In the North".
For fans of Inquisition, Abbath & Mayhem.
4/5
I also prefer Battles in the North to virtually everything else Immortal did except Damned in Black. Is it true that they sped the recording up artificially though? I've never heard that before.
When I was looking up what other bands besides prog-thrashers Vektor have used raised tunings like F, I found out that Immortal album used F tuning, along with Burzum in the albums Varg Vikernes made before he was sent to prison. This makes me wonder if some of the earlier second-wave black metal bands actually tuned their guitars a half-step higher than standard tuning or if they just recorded in a slower tempo in standard E tuning or lower and then changed the speed and pitch to be faster and higher.
I think I am in a very small minority of people whose favourite Burzum album is the debut (especially the version that includes the Aske EP). I know that the three subsequent albums are actually more accomplished affairs and I certainly can't argue with people who like them better (except maybe Filosofem - that endless ambient track does my head in, to be honest) but I just really love the raw and rabid delivery of the debut.
Is it true that they sped the recording up artificially though? I've never heard that before.
It was common knowledge in the scene at the time & I've since seen reference to both albums being artificially sped up by 13%. I believe Abbath has confirmed it in interviews however I don't have any actual evidence of it handy. It certainly sounds likely given that Abbath's drumming skills weren't exactly amazing on the evidence of "Pure Holocaust". They played the songs at album tempo in a live environment though so one would assume that it was simply to tighten things up on the recordings.
I think I am in a very small minority of people whose favourite Burzum album is the debut (especially the version that includes the Aske EP). I know that the three subsequent albums are actually more accomplished affairs and I certainly can't argue with people who like them better (except maybe Filosofem - that endless ambient track does my head in, to be honest) but I just really love the raw and rabid delivery of the debut.
Interesting. I regard "Filosofem" as the pinnacle of black metal & place it only behind "Reign In Blood" for metal overall.
I think I am in a very small minority of people whose favourite Burzum album is the debut (especially the version that includes the Aske EP). I know that the three subsequent albums are actually more accomplished affairs and I certainly can't argue with people who like them better (except maybe Filosofem - that endless ambient track does my head in, to be honest) but I just really love the raw and rabid delivery of the debut.
Interesting. I regard "Filosofem" as the pinnacle of black metal & place it only behind "Reign In Blood" for metal overall.
Interesting that an album that is only just over 60% black metal is so highly considered by black metal fans. Sure, the black metal is really good but I just can't ignore that massive ambient snoozefest. In fact, on a more general point, I really don't get the huge amount of ambient stuff that you find on a lot of black metal albums, an awful lot of it is just fucking dull and sounds like those new age CDs sold in garden centres. There, I said it! Someone had to!
I can actually agree with this...conditionally. After going through the 1st Decade Black Metal challenge and 3 years of listening to a ton of recent Black Metal, atmospheric sections are often overused or pointless. It may sound like I'm a hypocrite, considering Im Wald was my favorite album of 2020, but I think that's an instance when the ambient stuff is woven very well into the progression of the album and becomes a part of the experience, rather than a sideshow.
Your average Atmospheric Black Metal album seems to put these sections in either because historically that's part of the genre, or they want to make sure they're getting their point across. However, most Atmospheric Black Metal albums either take place in a forest or space. In all honesty I'm getting pretty tired of hearing the same old forest recordings on a forest themed album that's named "something something Forest" in a language I can't read. The music itself can give off the feeling of walking through the woods, so the addition of these recordings really doesn't add anything of value most of the time. Obviously there are the exceptions, but I'd love to hear more bands be more creative with how they incorporate this element of Atmospheric Black Metal. Trhä's Endlhëtonëg is a prime example from this year how well done ambient sections can fit in extremely well with Atmospheric Black Metal, but those sorts of examples only come around once or twice a year.
For this weekend's top list I've put together my Top Ten Conventional Black Metal Releases Of All Time. You'll notice their are a couple here that aren't exactly conventional in nature but I chose to go with them anyway as there's not really another subgenre that fits them on the site. See what you think.
1. Deathspell Omega – Kenose” E.P. (2005)
2. Akhlys – “The Dreaming I” (2015)
3. Darkthrone – “Transilvanian Hunger” (1994)
4. Oranssi Pazuzu – “Mestarin kynsi” (2020)
5. Oranssi Pazuzu – “Varahtelija” (2016)
6. Bathory – “Blood Fire Death” (1988)
7. Mayhem – “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” (1994)
8. Bathory – “Under The Sign Of The Black Mark” (1987)
9. Deathspell Omega – “Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeturnum: Chaining The Katechon” E.P. (2008)
10. Darkthrone – “A Blaze In The Northern Sky” (1992)
Nocturnal Triumph - "Nocturnal Triumph" (2022)
The brand new third album from this mysterious US black metal outfit came highly recommended by Ben & I did find it to be a pretty enjoyable listen although admittedly nowhere near as much as he seems to. I think it's just a touch more melodic than I'd usually go for & his comparisons to Ulver's "Nattens madrigal: Aatte hymne til ulven i manden" album ring very true in that regard as I've always had similar feelings about that record. The consistently tremolo-picked riffage possesses a sweeping quality that brings to mind a band like Winterfylleth while the inventive bass guitar work is very interesting beneath it & stands out in the mix quite well. I'm not a huge fan of the drumming which doesn't exactly set the world on fire while the shrieking vocals a more serviceable than they are impressive & that kinda sums up my feelings on this album to an extent. It's a reasonably well executed example of your classic second wave style black metal model that's generally pleasant on the ear but lacks the class & menace required to see me returning to it all that often.
3.5/5
The greatest black metal album ever recorded, A Blaze in the Northern Sky, is thirty years old today - fuck!!
Just look at that cover. This album IS black metal.
It's not my favourite black metal release of all time any more but it's hard to argue with that statement Sonny. I bought "A Blaze In the Northern Sky" upon release & it utterly reset my mind. I was already a First Wave fan by that stage but this shit took that sound to another level & saw black metal stepping up alongside my beloved death/thrash metal obsession.
Fenriz talking about A Blaze in The Northern sky, released 30 years ago:
“Definitely one major, major point was looking at my collection and [realizing] I had bought maybe five death metal releases from 1990,” explains Fenriz of the stylistic shift. “I was so sick and tired of it, even though it was what we’d trained to play. I mean it was okay to play, but not to listen to other bands. And many other death metal bands came out with disappointing stuff after their promising demos … it became apparent that what we got a kick out of was, to put it simply, Celtic Frost, Motörhead, and Bathory. Throughout 1990 it was more and more of this but the songs we made were still death metal—we had 13/16 beats and shit like that, it was almost jazz—and I was thinking in my head, ‘This professionalism has to go, I want to de-learn playing drums, I want to play primitive and simple, I don’t want to play like a drum solo all the time and make these complicated riffs. Ted and Ivar had also talked between them and said the same damn thing. Then one time they took the car and drove to my place, which was also the rehearsal place, without Dag ’cos he was really into the technical stuff, and said to me, ‘What if we just skip playing all the intricate stuff and just play what we really care about, what we’re listening to, what fires us up?’ And I said, ‘Oh yeah, let’s go guys,’ so we quickly stopped rehearsing the Goatlord material. But we had to use some of the material for the A Blaze album, ’cos we didn’t want to make an EP with just three new total black metal songs. So we made three new black metal songs—‘Kathaarian Life Code,’ ‘In the Shadow of the Horns,’ and ‘Where Cold Winds Blow,’ and the rest would be Goatlord-ish material that was ‘blackened’ because of the studio sound we choose".
Deathspell Omega - "Mass Grave Aesthetics" E.P. (2008)
Most metalheads have a few bands that simply tick all of their boxes, bands that they find very hard to fault & are consistently dazzled by with each successive release. French black metallers Deathspell Omega are one of those bands for me. In fact, if classic Burzum is the pinnacle of the black metal sound for me then Deathspell Omega would quite possibly be in second place & that's a huge achievement for a band that I initially found difficult to tolerate.
2008's "Mass Grave Aesthetics" E.P. is one of several single track releases from the band & is yet another triumph following on from "Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum: Chaining the Katechon" which was released just a week earlier. (Weeeeelllll... if we're getting technical "Mass Grave Aesthetics" was originally released as part of a split release with fellow Frenchmen Malicious Secrets back in 2005). This 20 minute piece has got everything that I love about Deathspell Omega: the unbelievable drumming, the best black metal vocals in the business, the dissonant experimentation, the ever-changing song structures that leave you wondering what insane twist lies around every corner, the darkest of black metal atmospheres, the stunning technique... What's not to love?? Perhaps I rate this release a touch higher than most black metal fans seem to but you know what? I'm allowed to & you can't do anything about it so NER! *thumbs his nose at the reader*
4.5/5
Deathspell Omega - "Mass Grave Aesthetics" E.P. (2008)
Most metalheads have a few bands that simply tick all of their boxes, bands that they find very hard to fault & are consistently dazzled by with each successive release. French black metallers Deathspell Omega are one of those bands for me. In fact, if classic Burzum is the pinnacle of the black metal sound for me then Deathspell Omega would quite possibly be in second place & that's a huge achievement for a band that I initially found difficult to tolerate.
2008's "Mass Grave Aesthetics" E.P. is one of several single track releases from the band & is yet another triumph following on from "Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum: Chaining the Katechon" which was released just a week earlier. (Weeeeelllll... if we're getting technical it was actually released as part of a split release with fellow Frenchmen Malicious Secrets back in 2005). It's got everything that I love about Deathspell Omega: the unbelievable drumming, the best black metal vocals in the business, the dissonant experimentation, the ever-changing song structures that leave you wondering what insane twist lies around every corner, the darkest of black metal atmospheres, the stunning technique... What's not to love??
4.5/5
Are you sure the conventional black metal thread is the best place for a DsO release Daniel?!
Anyway, more to the point, have you heard the new album yet? I'm still forming an opinion on it, although the first track has definitely got me hooked.
I haven't as yet but I plan to get to it shortly. And no there's nothing conventional about Deathspell Omega's sound. Unfortunately we don't have a dissonant/progressive/avant-garde black metal thread as yet.
And here's my updated Top Ten:
01. Deathspel0l Omega – Kenose” E.P. (2005)
02. Akhlys – “The Dreaming I” (2015)
03. Darkthrone – “Transilvanian Hunger” (1994)
04. Oranssi Pazuzu – “Mestarin kynsi” (2020)
05. Oranssi Pazuzu – “Varahtelija” (2016)
06. Bathory – “Blood Fire Death” (1988)
07. Mayhem – “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” (1994)
08. Bathory – “Under The Sign Of The Black Mark” (1987)
09. Deathspell Omega – “Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeturnum: Chaining The Katechon” E.P. (2008)
10. Deathspell Omega - "Mass Grave Aesthetics" E.P. (2008)
https://metal.academy/lists/single/157
I haven't as yet but I plan to get to it shortly. And no there's nothing conventional about Deathspell Omega's sound. Unfortunately we don't have a dissonant/progressive/avant-garde black metal thread as yet.
Considering the popularity of just such releases here at The Academy maybe we had better start one!
Immortal - "Sons Of Northern Darkness" (2002)
I have an admission to make. Despite the fact that there was a time when I fell in love with Norwegian black metal heavy-weights Immortal during the mid-1990's, I can't say that I've ever found most of their more celebrated releases to genuinely compete with the top tier black metal acts overall. "Battles In The North" was the exception with it's super intense & brutal approach fitting directly into my comfort zone but even it's very strong predecessor "Pure Holocaust" (4/5) had some flaws that saw it residing firmly in the second tier for me personally. Their highly regarded 1999 fifth album "At the Heart of Winter" (3.5/5) seems to be almost unanimously claimed as Immortal's career peak these days but I struggle a bit with it's thrashier meloblack direction & sloppy musicianship to be honest & have never been able to see what others do in it even if I do get some enjoyment out of it. And this brings us to Immortal's other major landmark in 2002's "Sons Of Darkness" record which leaves me with fairly similar feelings overall.
On the positive side, Bloodbath/Hypocrisy/Lindemann/Lock Up legend Peter Tägtgren's production job has done a splendid job at highlighting the album's strengths i.e. it's consistency, it's melodicism & it's more mature & refined used of space & tempo. This doesn't really surprise me as Peter already had a very strong decade-long portfolio of high quality records like Dawn's "Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy)" under his belt by this stage, not to mention Immortal's previous two albums. Everything sounds really tight with the musicianship & execution having seen a remarkable improvement on the band's previous "classics". In fact, it could be said that Peter plays as important a role as the musicians here when you compare the result to some of Immortal's previous releases. I don't think I'd be out of line to suggest that it's his influence that sees Abbath's guitar work sounding as tight as it does because there is just so much evidence of how inadequate the iconic front man can be in that department over the years. There are glimpses of the hectic blast beat insanity of the past but even then they're utilized in a more controlled fashion & always return to a more subdued & often quite thrashy direction that's not all that far removed from the one you'll find on "At The Heart Of Winter". There are some obvious references to Bathory's Viking period included too (particularly closing track "Beyond the North Waves") but I'm not sure that they're as effective as they sound on paper.
I dunno... I certainly still enjoy Abbath's croaky vocal performance, Horgh's moments of relentlessness & the band's trademark icy atmosphere but I can't deny that I find myself being a little disappointed at the end of the experience. As Ben said to me yesterday when we were discussing the album, "Sons Of Northern Darkness" is a very solid black metal record but unfortunately that's all it is as far as I can see. The record just sounds a little too easy on the ear for me to really become enraptured with it. In many ways it's Immortal's answer to Carcass' "Heartwork" in that it's so clearly more restrained & melodic compared to it's older siblings but still offers plenty of value, clearly not as much as that landmark release for the melodeath movement did though. It simply comes down to taste I'm afraid & I can't honestly say that I regard any of these tracks as black metal classics. In terms of Immortal's overall back catalogue I place "Sons Of Northern Darkness" just behind "At The Heart Of Winter" in the list of also-rans that follow my more muscular "Battles In The North" & "Pure Holocaust" sweet spot.
3.5/5
Enslaved - "Vikingligr veldi" (1994)
Revisited this oldie for the first time in ages this week. I picked the CD up upon release back in the day after being impressed by Enslaved on the Emperor split & the album didn't disappoint me either. The majority of the tracklisting takes an expansive Norwegian black metal approach but there's also a Viking Metal component that differentiated it from some of the competition along with the regular use of keyboards without ever threatening to push out into "symphonic black metal" territory. I have to say that time hasn't been that kind to those synthesizers as they sound very dated & more than a little cheesy these days. Grutle Kjellson's vocals were pretty gurgly at this point too & could have been a little better. There's some wonderfully classic black metal on here though & I was heading towards awarding it a premier rating until the decidedly Moonsorrow-ish closing instrumental piece "Norvegr" popped up at the last minute to bring me back to earth. It's not a bad track but it's folky Viking Metal stylings aren't anywhere near as much to my taste as a blasting black metal monster like "Vetrarnótt" (my album highlight) or "Midgards eldar" with it's obvious early-90's Bathory influence. After revisiting Enslaved's super-popular 2003 album "Below the Lights" recently I'd have to say that I prefer "Vikingligr veldi" these days & I wonder how much of that is nostalgia. I'm not too sure but I can't say that I think of "Vikingligr veldi" as sitting amongst the elite Norwegian black metal releases. It's a second tier record for mine but a strong one at that.
For fans of early Emperor/Windir & Viking-era Bathory.
4/5
And here's my updated Top Ten Conventional Black Metal Releases of All Time list after falling in love with the new Scarcity album (not that it's at all conventional but I don't think it's got much to do with the atmospheric black metal subgenre & we don't have an experimental black metal subgenre at the Academy):
Batushka - "Litourgiya" (2015)
I've really enjoyed this week's revisit to one of the more popular black metal releases of the 2010's. "Litourgiya" is essentially made up of some fairly traditional & simply structured but very well executed Polish black metal with the ground-breaking addition of some church-style chanted male vocals as a clear point of differentiation. This certainly making for an interesting combination but if I'm honest I'd have to suggest that it's not that component of Batushka's sound that I find most appealing. In fact, the weakest moments on the album generally match up with the less inspired chant sections. The best elements at play here are the searing black metal screams & the incredibly precise blast beats. For the record, I actually had to check I wasn't listening to programmed drums when I first encountered this album, such was the sheer confidence & control on display. The riffs aren't anything all that different to what you would usually expect however the guitars appear to be down-tuned which gives Batushka a slightly different tone to most of the competition. Closer "Ектения • VIII • Спасение" is the only track that I find to be a genuine classic but there are no weak tracks included which makes "Litourgiya" a very professional & high quality release with enough accessibility to appeal to broad cross-section of extreme metal fans.
For fans of Cult of Fire, Mgła & early Uada.
4/5
Liturgy - "Aesthethica" (2011)
I hated New York avant-garde black metaller Liturgy's sophomore album back at the time of release. I simply wasn't ready for my black metal to reach this far or to draw upon more positive sounds at times. Given time & experience though, I've found that there's a deep artistic credibility to Liturgy's music that I can really relate to & the experiments with many disparate outside influences are generally well received. Admittedly the two best tracks have nothing to do with black metal whatsoever in the crushing sludge metal anthem "Veins of God" & the djenty progressive metal of "Generation" but it's really only the dull post-minimal electronics of "Helix Skull" that falls flat across the twelve tracks included. "Aesthethica" is really a pretty great album & one that I regard more highly than Liturgy's highly praised 2019 fourth full-length "H.A.Q.Q." these days but it does require a level of open-mindedness towards your black metal so if you can't stand the positivity of Deafheaven, the post-rock experimentation of Altar of Plagues or the chaotic mathcore infusion of Serpent Column because they take you too far from the original intent of the black metal model then you likely won't be open to this release which is unfairly lumped with the "hipster black metal" tag in my opinion.
4/5