Saturday, September 29, 2012
Snowfall
been enjoying this after not having listened to it for a long time, and you know what? It's still the best thing Darkthrone have ever done.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Mechanical Mind
Judging by this song we're looking at 2013 album of the year folks. The boys' still got it!!!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
On Repeat
Mille and krew unleashed an absolute stunner from the oft maligned but UNDERrated Endorama.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Christs Nails - Demos 1992-1996
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Top Ten USBM
I've been listening to Judas Iscariot quite a bit as of late, and it got me to thinking that despite the multitude of great releases, most black metal from the States (USBM) gets a bad wrap. To paraphrase the late, great Rodney Dangerfield, "we don't get no respect!" So, here are my personal favorites....maybe a few that might be surprising, but I think that everyone can agree that while the U.S. might not have originated the "classic" black metal sound, we have done quite a bit to contribute and advance the overall sound and continuously mutating aesthetic of black metal.
1. Black Funeral - Vampyr-Throne of the Beast
To describe this album as otherworldly would not even begin to do it justice. Vampyr just taps into as atmosphere that I don't think any other black metal band ever approached. I can't even describe it except to say that it's simultaneously cavernous and cosmic...I don't know how in the hell they achieved this, but it's fucking awesome, and it's why Vampyr takes the #1 spot as my all time favorite USBM album.
2. Judas Iscariot - To Embrace The Corpses Bleeding
This was a tough one...which Judas Iscariot release to pick...all of his releases have that X-factor that make them insanely memorable and powerful. What makes To Embrace so damned good and worthy of the #2 spot is the ramped up technicality of Akhenaten's material. Spicy trem-picked guitars are fueled by the inventively pummeling stickwork of Duane Timlin. Grim funeral dirges will suddenly erupt into passages of expansive fury. Is there any blackened moment more viscerally shocking than the tempo shift halfway through "In the Valley of Death"? A masterwork, pure and simple.
3. Absu - Tara
So I didn't like their last album that much, but Tara is an all time classick for the ages. Proscriptor earned his place amongst the drum gods with his performance.
4. Inquisition - Magnificent Glorification of Lucifer
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Absolutely "Crush"ing. My favorite from the incredible duo of Dagon and Incubus.
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5. Leviathan - Verrater
A compendium of Wrest's multitude of demos. God damn that guy was busy. I fell in love with Verrater the first time I heard it, and I am still just as enthralled as I was on day one (specifically the Kranheit disc). Are Lunarctic has to be one of the best black metal songs ever, without a doubt....well, Blood Red and True is a close second.
6. Averse Sefira - Advent Parallax
Quantum Qaballistic...a mathematical ritual performed in deep space. If ever there were a black metal successor to Voivod's mid-period albums, this is it.
7. Night Conquers Day - The First Snowfall
Droning, powerful frostbitten black metal from the incredibly prolific Mikael Bayusik...I pretty much love all the stuff this guy has done (especially those Tearstained cds), but there is just something very special about The First Snowfall.
8. Vesperian Sorrow - Psychotic Sculpture
A neoclassical keyboard-drenched shredstravaganza....huuuugely underrated album, and they've got a new one out this year that kicks just as much ass!!!
9. Grand Belial's Key - Judeobeast Assassination
Got riffs? Got Blasphemy? Got soccer jersey and camopants?
yes, yes and YES!!!
10. Agalloch - Pale Folklore
Serene meditative beauty, with just enough fury and rasp to maintain the black metal element...perfect music for the approaching autumn. Haughm and company's meisterwerk.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
French Black Metal Top Ten
I loooove French black metal...and so should You! Here are 10 reasons why
A militant evil suffocating 28 minute hellride. One of the most devastating atmospheres of any metal album I've ever experienced....you will want this on repeat for a while.
AN are a strange duck - starting with the band name and moving on to their drastic change in musical direction after this album. In fact, if one knows of this band, it's probably from their later symphonic bombastic Dimmu-esque albums...which are pretty decent in their own right. But it is this one...this surreal Industrial Prog/black metal opus that takes the cake. Fucking scary.
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1. Antaeus - De Principii Evangelikum
2. Anorexia Nervosa - Exile
3. Sa Meute - Hyperborée
The French version of Blackdeath...how is that a bad thing?
4. Deathspell Omega - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum
Maybe the most hyped black metal band in existence, but not without good reason! Fas is by far my favorite DO album...although there is quite a bit of filler, when they really get going it's a total whirlfuck of complex technical blackness.
5. Blut Aus Nord - Odinist - The Destruction Of Reason By Illumination
If you haven't picked up from most of these album titles already the majority of French black metal acts concern themselves with existential topics-no mere "praise Satan" for these folks. Blut has been performing their warped version of existential Black metal for well over a decade and a half now. All of mainman Vindsval's releases are beyond solid, but Odinist has these especially woozy seasick guitars that meld so so well with the idiosyncratic drumbeats. Music to go slipping through wormholes to.
6. Nuit Noire - Infantile Espieglery
The very best of faerical blasting metal. The riffs are so simple but so good that I can't even stand it!
7. Mutiilation - Sorrow Galaxies
This actually isn't my favorite Mutiilation album (that would be the oh so fucked-up Black Millennium (Grimly Reborn) from 2001), but Sorrow Galaxies may very well be Monsieur Roussel's best work....streamlined, more technical, but still just as weird as ever. We're proud of ya Willie!
8. Blacklodge - Login:satan
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Inject pure satan into your veins...drugged up, cyber-fetishist excellence.
9. Wolok - Caput Mortuum
By mutants for mutants.
10. Vlad Tepes/Belketre - March To The Black Holocaust
Couldn't get through this list without at least one LLN release. 2 words. Diabolical Reaps.
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