Black Metal

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Black Metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It often employs fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, double-kick drumming, and unconventional song structure.

During the 1980s, certain thrash metal bands established a prototype for black metal. This so-called "first wave" included bands such as Venom, Bathory, Hellhammer and Celtic Frost. A "second wave" emerged in the early 1990s, which consisted primarily of Norwegian bands such as Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone, Immortal and Emperor. This scene developed the black metal style into a distinct genre.

Black metal has been met with considerable hostility from mainstream culture, mainly due to the misanthropic and anti-Christian ideology of many artists. Additionally, some musicians have been associated with church burnings, murder or National Socialism. For these reasons and others, black metal is often viewed as an underground form of music.

Black Metal Sub-Genres

Atmospheric Black Metal

Depressive Black Metal

Melodic Black Metal

Pagan Black Metal

Symphonic Black Metal

War Metal

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_metal

Sub-genre collaborators:
  • adg211288 (leader)
  • 666sharon666
  • TheHeavyMetalCat

black metal top albums

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black metal Music Reviews

DIMMU BORGIR Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia

Album · 2001 · Symphonic Black Metal
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Kev Rowland
Can it really be more than 20 years since One of Norway’s most creative black metal bands released ‘Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia’? At the time they had gone through some artistic and personnel changes which would shape their future, with the arrival of bassist/singer ICS Vortex, drummer Nicholas Barker of Cradle of Filth and new guitarist Galder fitting in with Shagrath, Mustis and Silenoz. To celebrate the 20th+ anniversary, towards the end of 2022 Nuclear Blast released a limited edition 3 LP set containing remixed and remastered versions of the original 13 songs (as it is includes the bonus songs from the Japanese edition), with another LP (called ‘Dust Of Cold Memories’) which includes extensive bonus material, which includes the pre-production of the album and instrumental rehearsals.

Although I personally do not view this as important as the next album, ‘Death Cult Armageddon’, the addition of ICS Vortex to the band was a major step forward, along with the strong use of real orchestration as opposed to producing it on keyboards. There are some who feel this period of the band does not compare to their early days, bit for me this was when they were at their most interesting, challenging the norms on what was expected from Norwegian Black Metal, and forcing it into the mainstream without ever losing any of the power and atmosphere. Like many, I got this at the time so the question must be is it worth buying it again? Well, it has been remixed and remastered and the sound has been made punchier, plus it is available on vinyl, which is always nice. The third LP is very much for fans only but given they will be the ones getting this I guess that is okay.

SABBAT The Dwelling

Album · 1996 · Black Metal
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SilentScream213
Sabbat is a band who have been at the grind for a long time – never breaking through despite being at the forefront of the first wave of Black Metal. Part of this is probably because they were stuck in Japan, where their raw, Satanic, simple first-wave style never really took hold. They put out many unique, solid albums, but The Dwelling was a bit of a leap in terms of quality and musical depth.

The near hour long, single track of the album has their usual Blackened Thrash with tons of Heavy Metal influence, but it’s also loaded with a bunch of shifts and changes, both in tempo, instruments, and even vocal styles. The only consistency is the evil, occult obsession that permeates all of their material.

The Dwelling is a great collection of what makes Sabbat a strong band. They aren’t the most skilled, nor the fastest or heaviest, hell this is the first time I’d even call them good songwriters, but they just always had so much passion for this style of music. Almost every other band that started in the first-wave scene moved on with the times, but not Sabbat. They continued playing it until they felt comfortable creating what is essentially the only first-wave “epic” that pushes the boundaries of one of the most simple Metal styles into a progressive and multi-dimensional piece.

BURZUM Filosofem

Album · 1996 · Atmospheric Black Metal
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SilentScream213
This may be a bit brash, but I expected a lauded album made by a once nazi, church burning murderer to be a bit more exciting.

I wasn’t a big fan of Burzum’s other albums, but some tracks sat very well with me, and I could see the evolution of the heavily Ambient/Dungeon Synth-leaning Atmoblack developing. The problem was, the styles weren’t being mixed very well, we’d more so get one and then the other. I was expecting Filosofem – considered Burzum’s masterpiece and one of the greatest Atmospheric Black Metal albums of all time – to finally nail that style he’d been developing.

Aaaand no, he drops the ball for me. The tracks are incredibly boring and repetitive, no riffs to speak of, the guitar fuzz being so abrasive and poorly mixed that actual notes are mostly indiscernible. The ambient part has barely been incorporated into the music, with minimal, repetitive synthed notes playing a very minor background role. Once again, the only track that fully incorporates Ambient is devoid of any Metal at all, making this another failure to truly integrate both styles full and well into a single song.

The vocals, are atrocious, in fact the mixing on every front is so bad that nothing really sounds good, and this coming from someone who can enjoy artists like Bathory with no issue. This is considered depressive, melancholic, music… doesn’t really sound that way to me, it’s mostly just droning on and on without evoking much at all.

However, that’s not to say it’s truly a bad album, it’s just immensely disappointing. The compositions are decent, and the Ambient melodies that can be heard are quite nice. The repetitiveness is not so much an issue and does work well with the atmospheric soundscapes created. It’s decent background music if the horrible production isn’t enough to ruin the experience. But that’s where my compliments end.

ABORYM Fire Walk With Us

Album · 2001 · Black Metal
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UMUR
"Fire Walk With Us" is the second full-length studio album by Italian black metal act Aborym. The album was released in January 2001 through Scarlet Records. It´s the successor to "Kali Yuga Bizarre" from April 1999. Attila Csihar (Mayhem, Tormentor, Sinsaenum...etc.) has joined the ranks, after guesting on a couple of tracks on "Kali Yuga Bizarre".

The material on "Fire Walk With Us" is an atmosperic, dark, and pretty intense type of black metal. The drums are programmed, but I´m not sure many listeners would notice that, because the soundscape is as chaotic sounding, layered, and intense as it is. Although the band also incorporate heavier parts, much of the album goes by in a blast beat frenzy, but spiced up with atmospheric keyboards/synths, which provide the music with some accessibility (it´s actually quite atmospheric and accessible at times...even slightly melodic and occasionally epic). Csihar is a skilled and versatile black metal vocalist, and he delivers both extreme screaming black metal vocals and his usual talking/singing raw vocals.

"Fire Walk With Us" featureds a decent sounding production job, which suits the material pretty well. It´s not fantastic sounding, but it´s alright for what it is. For a sophomore studio album "Fire Walk With Us" does exactly what it´s supposed to do. Builds and developts upon the sound initiated on the debut album, shows an increased level of playing skills, and definitely improved songwriting. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

SATYRICON Rebel Extravaganza

Album · 1999 · Black Metal
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UMUR
"Rebel Extravaganza" is the 4th full-length studio album by Norwegian black metal act Satyricon. The album was released through Moonfog Productions in September 1999. It´s the successor to "Nemesis Divina" from 1996, which was a very successful release for Satyricon, considerably heightening their profile on the international black metal scene.

Following up a successful release is always a difficult task, and Satyricon chose to do the only right thing, which was to write and record a totally different sounding release to "Nemesis Divina (1996)". A "Nemesis Divina" number 2, would probably have pleased some fans of the band, but a release like that would always have been measured aganst its predecessor and would probably have been regarded the lesser release. With "Rebel Extravaganza", Satyricon have created a bleak, harsh, and cold sounding black metal release which is pretty unique sounding in their discography. Some people hear an industrial influence, but I suspect it´s the harshness and coldness of the sound production, which make people hear that, because the actual music does not feature industrial influences. This is dark, aggressive, and raw sounding black metal through and through. Definitely the band´s most harsh release up until then.

Most songs on the 10 track, 60:38 minutes long album are pretty long (two even exceeding the 10 minutes mark) and they are generally not easily accessible although all feature recognisable vers/chorus structures, but they also feature many other sections, which make most of them relatively challenging listening material. The word progressive will probably be misunderstood if used here, but I´ll risk it and call some of the material on "Rebel Extravaganza" progressive inclined. The almost 11 minutes long "Tied in Bronze Chains" which opens the album is for example quite the elaborate song, featuring many different sections.

Upon conclusion "Rebel Extravaganza" is a bold and quite adventurous black metal release by Satyricon and it´s overall a high quality album. It´s not through and through the most consistent release, and a few more memorable moments and tighter song structures could pretty surely have made for a more accessible and catchy listen. Satyricon went in the other direction on "Rebel Extravaganza", which is pretty much as uncompromising as they get, and there is a great charm to the harshness and savagery on display here, which can´t be denied. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

black metal movie reviews

ENSLAVED Live Retaliation

Movie · 2003 · Black Metal
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FMOTP
No reviews yet & only 3 ratings for the great ENSLAVED's 1st video production? To quote Will Smith, "That...is unacceptable." Live Retaliation is a very worthy representation of ENSLAVED live. The concert itself is a bit short, but the band shows its skill in playing their varied and fairly complex music. They play a good mix of their oldest songs and more recent ones; Monumension was the band's most recent album at the time.

The audio tracks are a very nice addition, for folks who don't own a lot of their records. Grutle doesn't interact extensively with the audience in concert, beyond introducing the songs & band members. However, that's a problem I have with the great majority of live concerts. The audio quality could be clearer at times, but I'm quibbling. If you love some progressive rock along with your extreme metal, nobody does it better than ENSLAVED. This is well worth your time and money!

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