The Black Metal Thread
Thank you! It's going well, a lot of life and job stuff happened the past 2 years but I'm making some pretty big changes for the better. Nothing was ever dire, just a lot going on in my professional and personal life. Since I keep myself pretty busy inside and outside of work, the energy wasn't there to keep up with music like in the past, but it's looking like that's going to change for the better here soon.
Glad to see everyone's still here and kicking.
Welcome back, Xephyr. Great to see you back. Our little corner of the internet is still hanging in there doing its thing!
Archvile King - Aux Heures Désespérées (2026)
French Black Metal has a surprisingly strong scene with legends like Blut Aus Nord and Deathspell Omega alongside strong supporting acts like Aorlhac, Les Chants de Nihil, and especially Véhémence recently. I'd like to add the one-man project Archvile King to that list as the awesome cover art drew me in and the rawer, darker, and triumphantly medieval music kept me coming back. There's a noticeable attention to atmosphere on this one, with the synth breaks having a more unique kind of character to them than your average Black Metal album. They really sell the gloomy, medieval fantasy world that the cover gives off in a way that fits in with the rest of the album, especially when more layers are added on top of them like the beginning of "L'Excuse". Even though the album starts off with a ripping opener filled with blast beats, it quickly slows down a bit and continues on in more Melodic Black Metal territory. Thankfully, it never really loses the energy or the edge since the guitar work is masterfully layered and there's a ton going on if you start to dissect it. Whether the leads are going for satisfying tremolo chord progressions or switching it up to more melodic riffing, Aux Heures Désespérées does a great job of bouncing around to different ideas without losing the whole cohesive theme. The vocal performance is similar to Véhémence in that it's all French and not entirely indistinguishable, but I think Archvile King has a more satisfying bite to the delivery that goes into the more fried screams and darker growls compared to Véhémence's more triumphant and choral approach. I've been consistently coming back to this one for 3 months now, so I'm looking forward to seeing where it stacks up at the end of the year. It might be a bit theatrical and slow for some Black Metal fans, but this is my kind of stuff for sure.
Archvile King - Aux Heures Désespérées (2026)
French Black Metal has a surprisingly strong scene with legends like Blut Aus Nord and Deathspell Omega alongside strong supporting acts like Aorlhac, Les Chants de Nihil, and especially Véhémence recently. I'd like to add the one-man project Archvile King to that list as the awesome cover art drew me in and the rawer, darker, and triumphantly medieval music kept me coming back. There's a noticeable attention to atmosphere on this one, with the synth breaks having a more unique kind of character to them than your average Black Metal album. They really sell the gloomy, medieval fantasy world that the cover gives off in a way that fits in with the rest of the album, especially when more layers are added on top of them like the beginning of "L'Excuse". Even though the album starts off with a ripping opener filled with blast beats, it quickly slows down a bit and continues on in more Melodic Black Metal territory. Thankfully, it never really loses the energy or the edge since the guitar work is masterfully layered and there's a ton going on if you start to dissect it. Whether the leads are going for satisfying tremolo chord progressions or switching it up to more melodic riffing, Aux Heures Désespérées does a great job of bouncing around to different ideas without losing the whole cohesive theme. The vocal performance is similar to Véhémence in that it's all French and not entirely indistinguishable, but I think Archvile King has a more satisfying bite to the delivery that goes into the more fried screams and darker growls compared to Véhémence's more triumphant and choral approach. I've been consistently coming back to this one for 3 months now, so I'm looking forward to seeing where it stacks up at the end of the year. It might be a bit theatrical and slow for some Black Metal fans, but this is my kind of stuff for sure.
Hey Xephs, welcome back. I have this one on my Bandcamp Wishlist and I don't recall finding it all that theatrical if I recall correctly.
Thanks Vinny, maybe theatrical is too strong of a word for the synth-y interludes because they are very well done and not very self indulgent to my ears, even when the album ends on a full-on Dungeon Synth-y track with just a bit of strings at the end. It's a little bit of a bold choice but I think it works really well.
Burzum - "Fallen" (2011)
Varg Vikernes' eight (second recorded after his release from prison) studio album was a major disappointment for me at the time but it's been a good decade & a half since we last crossed paths now so I thought I'd give it another chance to capture me this week. Unfortunately, despite not being quite as bad as I first thought, "Fallen" is still a fairly underwhelming experience with pretty much every element being less effective than they've been during Varg's incredible creative peak of the mid-1990's. The overall sound is thrashier than he'd offered up before & spends time in both the conventional & atmospheric black metal space. There's a noticeable lack of synthesizers here though which is regrettable when you consider how wonderfully Varg's utilized them in the past. Vikernes' harsh vocals are totally different too & sound like he's really struggling to reproduce them in his old age while his incorporation of clean vocals is misguided, even bordering on being cringe-worthy. In saying all of that, there are some great black metal riffs here at times which leads to a good half of the record being pretty enjoyable (see "Jeg faller", "Vanvidd" & my personal favourite "Enhver til sitt"). Sadly though, the other half is pretty lacklustre with the tracklisting petering out badly at the end & collapsing completely with the God-awful neo-pagan folk closer "Til Hel og tilbake igjen". Look... you can obviously tell from my rating that "Fallen" isn't a complete disaster but it simply isn't up the task of maintaining Burzum's legacy. In fact, it's hard to deny that it does its best to tarnish it. I think "Fallen" was comfortably the weakest Burzum album to the time.
For fans of Drudkh, Forgotten Woods & Judas Iscariot.
3/5
Yeah, I agree Daniel. I may even be harder on it than you. I thought it was a major disappointment at the time. It is a shame because I have a really nice digibook version of it which I bought on pre-order and never play because, basically, it sucks.
Not in the mood to write a full review, but this new Panopticon just might be my favorite of theirs. It's more unpreictable, but totally moody and mystifying.
Këkht Aräkh - "Pale Swordsman" (2021)
I have to admit that it's taken me a good five years to build up the courage to decide how I feel about this controversial black metal hit whose primary claim to fame was the succession of memes that were drawn from its ridiculous cover photo. The black metal scene generally isn't too kind to artists who present themselves in such a vulnerable fashion so you do tend to get a skewed view of the quality of a product like this one based on the triggering of people's gag reflex but I choose to base my judgement purely on the musical quality of such a release & it did take me a few listens to overcome, not only that cover, but also the unintimidating sound of this Ukraine one-man outfits second full-length. I mean, despite being influenced by classic black metal artists like Burzum & Darkthrone, "Pale Swordsman" does make most blackgaze acts sound pretty sinister in comparison but that doesn't mean that there's no substance behind it.
Lone contributor Crying Orc isn't exactly a virtuoso but he presents his ideas with passion & authenticity, almost thumbing his nose at the black metal traditionalists out there. There's a fragility to his melodicism & a boldness to his tendency to want to showcase his own vulnerability, as best showcased in gentle closer "Swordsman". Don't get me wrong. I do still have to confess that I definitely crave a darker format for my black metal. I just find that there's nothing terribly wrong with "Pale Swordsman" when taken as a purely artistic form of expression instead of comparing it with my long-standing ideals about what black metal should be. Album highlight "In the Garden" is a prime example of this as it's bookmarked by some fairly lightweight tremolo-picked riffage but, at its gooey centre, you can find the sort of atmosphere that I crave from my European black metal with the Orc's easily intelligible snarled vocals sitting very well over some highly melancholic guitar arpeggios.
If I was being critical, I'd suggest that the couple of piano-driven interludes are pretty flat & some of that is due to the production which has stolen the brightness that could have given these pieces a bit of life & replaced it with artificial vinyl crackles. Apart from that though, I've found enough quality in these simple black metal songs to keep me interested. It's very easy for people to dismiss the album based on a cursory listen because we are a flawed species with a tendency to want things to be as they first appear. A deeper investigation can sometimes surprise us though & I've found "Pale Swordsman" to have grown on me over time. Not enough to see me returning to it in the future I suspect, but enough for me to afford it a respectable score.
For fans of Draugveil, Felvum & Ebony Pendant.
3.5/5
Satanic Warmaster - "Exultation of Cruelty" (2024)
Finland's Satanic Warmaster is a solo black metal project of Lauri Penttilä, aka Werwolf, who is ex-vocalist of Horna (as Nazgul) and the current lead vocalist with Vargrav, amongst a million other projects. I haven't heard all of SW's releases, but what I have heard has a fair bit of disparity in quality, particularly due to quite a wide variation in production. "Exultation of Cruelty" isn't too bad as far as the production goes, but it certainly isn't the crispest, clearest black metal you will ever hear, exhibiting some degree of muddiness that does blunt the sound a little. The reverb is also set very high and impacts the clarity further.
Music-wise the playbook for most of the tracks sees them lurching from mid-paced, kind-of-melodic black metal riffing to more savage sounding blasting, these switches in pacing providing a dynamic impetus to the tracks that gives the impression of song progression even though there is a fair bit of repetition in the riffing. Occasionally the repetition just reaches the point of outstaying its welcome when, thankfully, Werwolf inserts one of these dynamic shifts and in so doing hits the refresh button before things become tedious. The tracks are actually quite lengthy for this conventional style of black metal, most hitting the 7-9 minute mark, timings more usual in the atmospheric black metal world, so he actually does a pretty good job of preventing staleness from setting in.
The playing is fairly precise, exhibiting none of the sloppiness that poor production values and excessive reverb sometimes attempts to cover up and it is evident that Werwolf is a guy immersed in the black metal scene who just "gets" what it is about and how to deliver it in an authentic and uncomplicated manner. There are no surprises here, but rather a well-conceived and executed album of fairly straightforward black metal. If you are looking for a challenge in your black metal listening then you would be best served looking elsewhere, but if you just love the old-school black metal ethos and aesthetic then get ready for an hour of leather and spikes, unholy blasphemy and spitting in the eye of "the Man".
4/5
Emperor - "IX Equilibrium" (1999)
I believe Ben showed me Emperor's third full-length while I had already entered the early stages of my decade-long hiatus from metal but I wouldn't fully explore "IX Equilibrium" for myself until a good decade after its release. I remember really liking it too, as I do now after revisiting it several times over the last decade & a half. It's certainly not the undeniable classic that 1994's wonderful "In the Nightside Eclipse" debut album (4.5/5) was but it compares fairly well with 1997's "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk" sophomore release (4/5) & Emperor's split album with Enslaved (4/5) in my opinion.
Emperor were just a trio by this point with their iconic frontman Ihsahn (Hardingrock/Peccatum/Thou Shalt Suffer/Zyklon-B) being supported by only rhythm guitarist Samoth (Scum/The Wretched End/Arcturus/Gorgoroth/Satyricon/Thou Shalt Suffer/Zyklon/Zyklon-B) & drummer Trym (Enslaved/Zyklon) but their sound still has plenty going on. The Norwegians had toned down the symphonic component by this stage in their evolution so this is more of a conventional black metal record, although we are starting to see some more progressive elements starting to take shape here & there. If I'm being critical, I'd suggest that Trym's drum sound is far too clicky which highlights his deficiencies in timing but there can be no denying his sheer speed when he conducts his trademark blast beats. The otherworldly atmosphere that Emperor have built their careers on is still here but I don't think Ihsahn's vocals are quite as effective as they have been in the past & there certainly aren't as many highlight tracks. Closer "Of Blindness & Subsequent Seers" is the obvious exception & it takes you to all manner of weird & wonderful outlooks. "The Warriors of Modern Death", on the other hand, seems to be nothing more than a Viking-period Bathory tribute (complete with intentionally chaotic guitar solos) & is comfortably the least effective piece on the album, even if I do still kinda like it.
Ultimately, I can't deny that Emperor were still a class act but I don't think "IX Equilibrium" (or "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk" for that matter) are tier one black metal releases. They sit very comfortably in the middle of the second tier which is still a more than respectable place to be. Let's just not kid ourselves that they retained their position at the top of the black metal pecking order for more than a few years. If pushed to choose sides, I would place "IX Equilibrium" slightly behind its predecessor & the Enslaved split but comfortably ahead of the 1992 "Wrath of the Tyrant" demo tape. I don't think it'll leave too many The North members disappointed & I'll continue to revisit it for years to come but I don't think it's the outright classic that many of you were probably hoping for after the huge success of "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk".
For fans of Limbonic Art, Ihsahn & Enslaved.
4/5
There are a couple of Emperor classics on "IX" in "Curse You All Men!" and "An Elegy of Icaros", but I agree that it is not an elite black metal album - pretty damn good, but not god tier. I am a little surprised that you don't rate "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk" as highly as "In the Nightside Eclipse" because I get the impression that an awful lot of Emperor fans think "Anthems..." Is a better album. I thought I was the only one who held the view that " In the Nightside... " is much the better release. I do love the four-track s/t EP, though, and would have it in #2 spot.
I've been warming up to this album with each time I hear it. It gets more and more interesting each time, and now it's at the point to.where I enjoy it more than Nightside. What a sin to say.