Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time Special Issue by Red Flag Media

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Of the five Decibel Special Collector’s Edition magazines we’ve released, our

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Black Metal Hall of Fame Special Issue is easily my least favorite. Don’t get me wrong; any publication containing eight Hall of Fame features can’t be that bad. But all of those lengthy HOF stories left space to cover only eight albums in what’s easily the most expansive, divisive and (social and musically) complicated extreme music subgenre of the last two decades. To that end, The Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time sheds considerably more light on the once-impenetrable darkness. What’s more, this might actually be the most diverse list we’ve ever assembled. Sure, Scandinavian second-wave acts dominate the top 20, as you’d rightly expect, but we’ve got more than Norwegian wood here. There’s also the notably high ranking of numerous USBM records, mid-’90s forgotten classics, a couple “commercial breakthroughs” and several deep (self ) cuts from a few kvlt heroes. Such diversity demonstrates just how far black metal has evolved beyond its nascent early ’90s cultural ascent when the words “murder,” “arson” and “suicide” were mandatory in every piece of editorial related to the genre. As if it needed further validation, a dozen of the black metal records featured on this list have now been inducted into our hallowed Hall of Fame, and a few more are in production as I type. You can expect that number to continue to grow over the next decade as third-wave acts break new ground with increasing regularity. And don’t worry—10 years from now, when we publish the Black Metal Hall of Fame Special Issue: The Return......, I’ll be sure to the make that issue 200 pages.

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n 2013, it’s difficult to experience abject, paralyzing terror listening to music. The internet has made outsider artists easily researchable, obliterating their mystique. Musicians who worked so diligently to craft a dread-inducing persona have been reduced to memes. Even the most chilling and abstract avant-extremity this magazine champions can appear redundant stacked next to legions of imitators. But despite all of that and whatever yawning snark remains to pile on top, the global impact of black metal will never be diminished, and certainly never forgotten. The proof is in the pudding: more writers participated in the voting for this list than any one we’ve assembled in the magazine’s history. So, without further ado, remember an era of unrestrained depravity, deplorable extracurricular behavior and timeless tremolopicked compositions, not to mention the scores of modernday practitioners and innovators keeping the genre thriving: It’s Decibel’s Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time. –Andrew Bonazelli

Mütiilation MY TOP 5

DAGON

Inquisition Bathory, The Return......

100

Inquisition Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm He lls H e a d ba n g e rs (2 0 1 1)

Parabellum, Sacrilegio

Immortal, irst to strike is Dagon’s voice-box-onPure Holocaust a-weed-toke croak (and the confoundDeicide, Legion ing “Carol of the Bells” melody on Mayhem, leadoff track “Astral Path to Supreme Majesties”). De Mysteriis Next to sink in is the band’s equally excellent treatDom Sathanas ment of both the lurching shuffle (“Desolate Funeral Chant”) and the speed freak charge (take your pick—”Upon the Fire Winged Demon” is damn good). For an album called—nah, I’m not typing all that—these songs tear ahead with surprisingly consistent forward momentum. Inquisition prove that a dedicated duo can invoke heady religiocosmic meditations within the context of riotous death rock. Their fifth full-length never loses its raucous edge, soaked as it is in the blood of tyrannical gods and the vital humors of the space-time continuum. Song after song drives the hyperdimensional brain pick deeper. Guitars refuse to play the circular saw background buzz vomited out by so many lesser practitioners; instead, tasty riffs act as a supporting foundation for all manner of exciting sonic events, from string squeals to drum flourishes to well-placed spoken-word samples. Travel the unseen paths. Feast on the existential flesh of the illusory universe. Celebrate the Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm. (Shitfucking dammit, I typed it anyway!) Daniel Lake

Vampires of Black Imperial Blood

Dr akkar Pr o d u ct i o n s (1995 )

We need more black metal collectives. It worked pretty well for the Norwegians, except for the dead guys and the racism, and word to the Black Twilight Circle. In France, the weirdest and rawest bands in the early scene (Vlad Tepes, Amaka Hahina) gathered together under the banner of Les Légions Noires. Mütiilation reps LLN on the top 100, and, to go a little meta, Vampires of Black Imperial Blood is ranked exactly where it should be—almost symbolically so. William “Meyhna’ch” Roussel, who plays practically everything here, stands in for everyone who has ever committed a grim vision to four-track or computer, alone, note by torturous note, with a corpsepaint pattern in which every swirl or sharp point has a secret meaning that they could tell you about extensively if only you would ask, and released it in a comically limited edition. I am 100 percent not being ironic—I’m having genuine feelings right now about how cool it is that these guys see these projects to completion. Vampires has the production values of bedroom indie-pop and barely competent drumming, and there are times when the vocals and trebled-out guitars hurt to listen to at the same time. Plus it’s really depressing. But it’s ONE BETTER than one other album. Anthony Bartkewicz

Leviathan Tentacles of Whorror M o r i bu n d (2 0 0 4 )

Leviathan frontman Wrest clearly disregarded Nietzsche’s maxim that “if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” Tentacles of Whorror isn’t so much a gaze into the abyss as it is a full immersion, a psychotic romp in a landscape of Jungian horror, the Scarecrow on the loose with a surplus of fear toxin. Listening to it is like picking away at a cosmic wound, inhabiting a perverse landscape of pain, agreeing to flagellation via songs like “Vexed and Vomit Hexed” and “The History of Rape.” Tentacles of Whorror is an even greater mindfuck that than The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide. There probably isn’t even a language to appropriately describe where Wrest’s songs and images reside in the collective unconscious. Instead, open up the thesaurus and list every antonym for “pain,” “suffering” and “angst.” The Hieronymus Bosch-meetsGiger artwork only reinforces the dread. Psychologists often talk about “triggering” incidents that prompt suffering. This album isn’t a trigger as much as an IED, a one-man symphony of sickness. Justin M. Norton

lack metal, early on, put a high premium on innovation—it was an indispensable part of the aesthetic. Genres that require constant innovation are naturally doomed; eventually, norms get codified. At that point, you can either declare the genre moribund or explore the limits Ordo Ad Chao of the extant Sea son of Mist (2007) traditions. On Ordo Ad Chao, Mayhem take the latter path MY TOP 5 out into deep space and make a late-period album ATTILA that stands with classics of the genre. There’s muddle; but in the murk, there’s texture. The heavy agMayhem/exgression is all non-standard issue. The drum tones Tormentor are claustrophobic; the playing virtuosic; guitars Bathory, Under hang in the air like intricate old webbing. Throughthe Sign of the out, the feeling that an album like this could only Black Mark happen once is palpable. Long stretches pass withSlayer, out much in the way of riffs, but then the riffs arrive Hell Awaits and they’re descending squadrons of hornets (those Celtic Frost, To Mega Therion last 30 seconds of “Deconsecrate”!). Atop all this, surfing the noise, howls one of the most unhinged Sodom, Obsessed by vocal performances in the history of the genre— Cruelty it must be heard. And so we can say something about Destruction, this album that you can’t say about much: it remains Infernal Overkill new. John Darnielle

Mayhem

CSIHAR

Revenge Infiltration. Downfall. Death.

Osmo se Pr o d u ct i o ns (2 008)

Infiltration. Downfall. Death. is. fucking. hateful. Revenge, featuring Conqueror’s James Read on drums and vocals (and Angelcorpse’s Pete Helkamp on bass), brought the dark clouds to Alberta with soiled, mutinous indecency. Written, played and recorded with untold amounts of animosity, try and imagine what would blare in your head as the city burns and the people you love start tearing each other apart. This is a clarion call for the end of humanity. And some of these vocals—they are nothing short of sickening. The main approach is menacing and deranged, but the backups honestly make me a little ill. While pig squeals abound in extreme music, instead feed that pig through a meat grinder headfirst and have someone record the mushy eruptions that stem from the squashing of its insides. This treads dangerously close to crusty death-grind, so it’s understandable that Infiltration. Downfall. Death. may not be high on a black metaller’s best-of list, but when it comes to something that may actually make your speakers gush blood, Revenge won’t fail you. Shane Mehling

Rotting Christ

Triarchy of the Lost Lovers

ot since Tiamat floored metaldom with Wildhoney has a Swedish band so widened its musical scope so unexpectedly. On previous albums, Shining built a reputation as the Grand Poobahs of depressive black. But on V: Halmstad, an ugly butterfly V: Halmstad emerges. No longer content with narrowisms of the genre they O s m ose P ro d u c ti o n s (2 0 0 7 ) helped popularize, Kvarforth and his instrumentally adept backing band unfold song after song of beautifully despondent surprises. They draw from a diverse set of influences, and never do Shining show they’re out of their depth in plucking nuances from black metal, progressive rock and chart-topping Scandi-rock, and making it unmistakably their own. From “Längtar Bort Från Mitt Hjärta”’s breathtaking intro solo and the thump and ponder of “Låt Oss Ta Allt Från Varandra” to the Beethoven treatment on “Åttiosextusenfyrahundra” and the stunning coruscating mid/end-sections to “Besvikelsens Dystra Monotoni,” V: Halmstad is classy to the nth. Surely, Kvarforth’s histrionic vocalizations about dead flowers and relationships gone horribly awry can’t be ignored. To some, he sounds like Grover getting his toenails yanked, but there’s inescapable conviction in his caterwauling and bloodcurdling carrying-on. Since V: Halmstad, Shining have continued to push the envelope. However, the group’s fifth remains a high-water mark not just for black metal, but for all metal. Chris Dick

Cen t u r y Med i a ( 19 9 6 )

Rotting Christ is one hell of an evocative moniker, conjuring images of the bastard Nazarene’s lifeless husk discarded in a field somewhere, vultures pecking at his peeling carcass. By their third album, though, the Hellenic trio was no longer interested in such rote blasphemies. They had a vision for black metal. A vision that eschewed the harsh walls of noise that their northern brethren were constructing. Theirs was a sound that had gestated just as much in the moors of England as in the frozen halls of Valhalla. Learning their lessons well from the despairing wail of the Peaceville Three, they swapped blast beats for funereal dirges, and atonal stabs for mournful melodies. It was still ice-and-wizards nonsense on the lyrical front, though; they wouldn’t start singing about their native myths until the next millennium. Despite that, Triarchy of the Lost Lovers was an amazingly forward-thinking record, one that broke from black metal orthodoxy— instead of just pretending that they understood the chill of the Scandinavian Mountains, Rotting Christ reveled in the classical beauty that originated in their own verdant Grecian hills. Jeff Treppel

Shining

Peste Noire La sanie des siècles— Panégyrique de la dégénérescence

De Pr o fu n d i s Éd i t ion s (2 006)

The debut full-length from notorious French eccentrics Peste Noire is a gracefully disjointed outpouring of broken riffs, strung-out shrieking and debauched gypsy dancing. Spawned of the deranged musical musings of founder/ mastermind La sale Famine de Valfunde and loosely translated to “the sanie centuries—eulogy of the degeneration,” (with “sanie” being pungent, green ulcer discharge), La sanie des siècles—Panégyrique de la dégénérescence fuses all the tenets of traditional black metal with sprawling solos, ominous folk passages, organs and an air of genuine despair. Seriously—this record is perpetually unsettling. In fact, it sounds like it was recorded live in a diseased back alley with broken instruments and the bones of mutilated prostitutes and small children. But therein lies its intrinsic charm. Questionable ethics aside (see first demo Aryan Supremacy), Peste Noire’s blown-out, discordant anti-hymns are somehow decrepitly romantic. Decaying riffs buzz beneath the din of Famine’s lunicidal vocal tirades, expansive acoustic passages swell into blast-laden nervous breakdowns, each track seemingly writhes under the cadence of its own anxiety, and though you’ll need your French decoder ring to figure out what all that wailing is about, La sanie des siècles ’ repugnant beauty is difficult to dismiss. Liz Ciavarella-Brenner

Vinterland

Welcome My Last Chapter N o F a s hi o n (1 9 9 6 )

By the time 1996 rolled around, black metal had already started to splinter, diversify and rebrand itself. The genre was no longer isolationist by choice, but a living, breathing organism, certain in its confidence and capable of moving considerable units. For Vinterland, they only had one chance. Drawing off the work of fellow Swedes Dissection, Unanimated and Dawn, Vinterland’s debut full-length, Welcome My Last Chapter, cemented the Kvicksund-based trio as purveyors of fine melodic black metal. At the time, Vinterland were nearly indistinguishable from legions of others—predominantly Swedes—plying the tremolo riff and framed band photo trade, but over the years Welcome My Last Chapter separated itself from the pack (much like Sacramentum’s lauded if admittedly rote Far Away From the Sun)—and is now considered rarefied air. Produced by the (then) omnipresent Dan Swanö, Vinterland’s sole musical entry is textbook melodic (depressive) black. Songs about vast forests, crystal castles and clear nights are obviously an environmental influence, but musically “Our Dawn of Glory,” “I’m an Other in the Night,” “As I Behold the Dying Sun” and “Wings of Sorrow” are a cut above now that time and dust have settled on ’90s-era Swedish black metal. Chris Dick

aking cues from the raw and abrasive blackened death metal of Canada’s Blasphemy, early releases from Finland’s Beherit or Brazilian neighbors Sarcófago, Mystifier released a string of demos and debut album Wicca before assembling their occult weird-out gem Göetia in the summer of 1993. Blissfully eccentric and strange, Göetia smeared Göetia the band’s blackened death metal O sm ose Produc tions (19 9 3 ) roots with creeping slow passages, mystical keyboards and an overall occult vibe closer to contemporaries in Greece (early Rotting Christ) or Italy (Mortuary Drape) than any band they may have shared a stage with in Brazil. With new vocalist Arnaldo Asmodeus at the helm, the song titles and lyrics get weirder than ever. While Brazilian neighbors Sarcófago, Vulcano or Sepultura were shouting about all manner of vomit, sex, graves or booze, Mystifier were off on their own hallucinated, drug-addled medieval European tangent with tracks like “The Baphometic Goat of Knights Templar in the 12th Century” or the phaser-soaked vocal stunner “The True Story About Doctor Faust’s Pact With Mephistopheles.” Göetia (which saw near-simultaneous release alongside sophomore recordings from labelmates Rotting Christ, Immortal and Blasphemy in mid-1993) is yet another example of compelling and enduring black metal from Osmose’s early ’90s heyday. Scott Koerber

Mystifier

Alcest

Le Secret [EP] Dr akkar Pr o d u ct i o n s (2 005 )

The debate will rage on long after we’re all dead and gone as to whether France’s Alcest are even a black metal proposition or shoegaze played long past its ’90s heyday by metalheads who grew up listening to black metal. Alcest mastermind Stéphane “Neige” Paut doesn’t make debating either side at all easy these days, and even though it hasn’t even been a full decade since Le Secret first washed up on the shores of melancholy, you can imagine the braying and bitching going on when this was first released. Consisting of two songs that shoehorn blackened hallmarks like repetitive/robotic drumming, trebly guitar tone wash and a dreary vocal moan into a cold embrace with early ’90s altrock, Le Secret shouldn’t work on paper, but Neige knows his way around sonic luxury. This is black metal cascading down from the heavens, where it was performed by angels being gang-raped by Deafheaven, towards a ropey hell where bands like Slowdive, Swervedriver and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin snorted the remains off of Slayer-emblazoned souvenir mirrors, proving that black metal had far more potential than the original Norwegian wave could have ever imagined. Or wanted. Kevin Stewart-Panko

Krieg

The Black House R e d S tr e a m (2 0 0 4 )

Almost a decade before his escapades as the world’s funniest record store clerk went viral and ended up on Roger Ebert’s website, Neill Jameson (a.k.a. Imperial) was busy with problems far more pressing than the guy trying to sell back a copy of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors. The Black House is Imperial’s grand guignol, a tour where the host is more inquisitor or tormenter than guide. The Black House is part prison, part warning and irresistibly human—a twisted account of the journey to survive and stay sane. In the liner notes, Imperial says that The Black House refers to the place he goes in his nightmares, a place where he can witness every horror detailed in Psychiatry 101. The Black MY TOP 5 House takes a minimalist approach to this journey; there’s as Krieg much old-school punk Profanatica/ on The Black House as Masacre, Split there is Transylvanian Judas Iscariot, Hunger. In addition Heaven in to songs like “Murder Flames Without the Burden of Beherit, Conscience,” there’s a Drawing Down cover of the Velvet Unthe Moon derground’s “Venus in Leviathan, Furs.” The Black House Massive might be a shack on Conspiracy the Ocean City, NJ Against All Life boardwalk, but it’s Darkthrone, still the scariest fuckPanzerfaust ing building in town. Justin M. Norton

IMPERIAL

or the last decade plus, Marduk has been used as a synonym for speed. And sure, their second record, Those of the Unlight, is fast. For the time it came out, pretty damn fast. But before the Swedish band started trying to set bpm world records and fetishizing about Nazis, they knew how to shred out memorable songs. Casting off the death metal shackles of their previous record, Marduk still retained their technical skill and ethos, with hulking guitars, dive-bombing solos and breakneck turns taken with precision. But the band’s detours into melody, while never harmless, turn what would be a full bludgeoning into something more Those of the Unlight akin to slow torture. And Af Gravf ’s short-lived double-duty as O sm ose Produ ct i o n s ( 19 9 3 ) drummer and vocalist is incredibly impressive, as he shows off polished dexterity behind his kit while screaming gruesomely. But the most noteworthy element on Those of the Unlight is the penultimate track “Echoes From the Past.” The instrumental is an enormous, gorgeous doom piece proving that even without blasting, the band knew how to wrap their music around your throat. Shane Mehling

Marduk

Gehenna

Malice (Our Third Spell) C ac op ho n o u s R e c o r d s (1 9 96)

Before the impending lineup turnover, as they transitioned briefly into death metal, Gehenna conjured some wicked symphonic black magic on Malice (Our Third Spell). Informed by Satanic ideology rather than enslaved by it, band founders Sanrabb and Dolgar shared guitar and vocal duties, while Sarcana’s haunting keyboard arrangements infused a shadowy sense of gothic drama. While “The Pentagram” howls at full speed and “Bleeding the Blue Flame” adds blackened sludge, “Touched and Left for Dead” more closely represents the album’s disarmingly melodic grace, and ranks as one of the most uncomfortably titled ballads in black metal history. Appropriately ending with a blast of bomb strikes, 14-minute industrialtinged centerpiece “Ad Arma Ad Arma” captures the timeless ferocity of warfare with all its deafening fury and interludes of ominous calm between tragedies, a theme explored further almost a decade later on WW. But Malice seems especially interested in the flames consumMY TOP 5 ing the world, both rising from hell in a blaze of Satanic rebellion and Gehenna sparked from our Bathory, own destructive Under the Sign devices. Gehenna of the smirk into the fire Black Mark like clairvoyants Venom, granted that brief Black Metal moment of satThorns, Thorns isfaction as their

SANRABB

predictions unfold with terrible accuracy, a second before the whole world turns to ash. Sean Frasier

Mayhem, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Burzum, Burzum

Aura Noir

Black Thrash Attack Ma l ic ious (1996)

Tormentor

Proof that you can judge an album by its cover—or at least its title—Black Thrash Attack is blackened thrash (i.e., Anno Domini (demo) thrash with blackened vocals) of the highSelf-Released ( 19 89 ) est order, the part of Kreator, Sodom and A few years back, legendary extreme Venom otherwise unexplored in the more music vocalist Attila Csihar told the somber work of black metal’s second Hungary-based webzine Leslie’s Metal wave. The lineup of this “supergroup” he would “kiss the hand or give a Mayremains constant to this day: multihem CD for free to anyone instrumentalists Aggressor who could show me just one (Carl-Michael Eide of Ulver MY TOP 5 positive Tormentor review and Ved Buens Ende) and from the ’80s.” Now, some Apollyon (Ole Jørgen Moe, CARLwould say an invitation to later of Gorgoroth and ImMICHAEL join Mayhem and sing on mortal), plus guitarist Blasmotherfucking De Mysteriis phemer (Rune Erikson, Dom Sathanas would count formerly of Mayhem). Ved Buens as a pretty goddamned posiBlack Thrash Attack alEnde/Aura Noir tive review. On the other ternates between Aggressor hand, it is absolutely true and Apollyon songs; each Venom, that Anno Domini deserves sings on their own comBlack Metal to be more than a minor positions while the other Sodom, footnote in a certain welldrums, although Aggressor Obsessed by publicized Oslo-Bergen relinquished drumming duCruelty saga/feud that Tormentor ties in 2005 after being parCeltic Frost, (founded in 1986) not only alyzed from the ankles Morbid Tales predated, but to which— down. Aggressor is the ensconced in then-comBathory, more aggressive tradiThe Return...... munist Hungary—the tionalist, but all of the quartet lacked even an tracks on Black Thrash Darkthrone, ephemeral connection. Attack are extremely Under a Funeral Which is to say, this is a Moon catchy: Blasphemer kinetic, trailblazing protorips a classic solo on black metal record created “Caged Wrath,” while by a band precocious and bold enough “Sons of Hades” features guttural, to fearlessly build bridges to both death demonic vocals that put Abbath to metal and more traditional forms of shame. It’s also worth noting that heavy metal, even as they explored the Aggressor has the most uncomfortouter limits of aural darkness. Oh, yeah, able laugh in the whole black metal and it also happens to feature the already genre, which he appropriates from incredibly evocative work of a sui generis Cronos on the Venom cover “Heavvocalist. If that’s the idea of torment in en’s on Fire” and drops in between Hungary, someone reserve us a room the verses of “Caged Wrath.” Lock in a Budapest torture chamber, stat. your doors and leave the lights on. Shawn Macomber Nick Green

EIDE

Judas Iscariot Thy Dying Light Mo r i b u n d ( 1996)

It’s not that hard to be a one-man black metal project nowadays. Sure, you need to have the discipline and the know-how, but GarageBand and Pro Tools have made home studios legitimate places for every kvltish desire. Back in 1996, though, about all you had was a fourtrack, some Guitar Center mics and a moonless dream. It becomes even more complicated when you’re trying to pay tribute to the Norwegian black metal gods and you live in DeKalb, IL. But Judas Iscariot (a.k.a. Akhenaten) pulled it off with vehemence, recording everything on Thy Dying Light completely by himself, preaching a nihilistic, hateful gospel while blasting through a blaze of traditional BM. There are plenty of sections on this album that show Akhenaten was not the most technically accomplished musician, especially as a drummer. And some things he attempted in hindsight clash too greatly with the bands he wanted to emulate. But this is a necessary album for those of us sitting on the edges of our beds, holding a guitar and trying to make our own blackened classic. Shane Mehling

Craft

Fuck the Universe Ca r n a l (2 0 0 5 )

If metal is all about the riff, black metal is said riff, cloaked in an atmosphere of dread. These Swedish masters of ominous vibes never forgot where the riff they swear allegiance to came from; i.e., heavy-metal and rock. And rock they do! Just as many times as Fuck the Universe will rape the brain with the most captivating and evil-sounding guitar passages in all of the grim kingdoms, there are just as many moments that will demand spontaneous air-guitar/ headbanging freakouts. Within the legacy of BM, there are few albums that (without cheese and/or irony) embrace the essence of heavy metal—Immortal’s Sons of Northern Darkness comes to mind—while retaining that cold, authentic BM feel. On FTU, guitarist Joakim Karlsson weaned himself off the teat of Darkthrone (far fewer blast beats and typical tremolo passages than previous albums), and cast his songwriting spells toward dynamics. Herein, the songs are more midtempo and vary from blasts to drone/ doom peaks. Take “Destroy All,” where majestic cruising-speed chugs dogpile into artful, spidery tremolo guitars complete with Jeff Hanneman-like solos. Or album highlight “Thorns in the Planet’s Side,” where sky-scraping monoliths teeter drunkenly, eventually collapsing into blurring crescendos and black ‘n’ roll grooves. A tr00 masterpiece. Shawn Bosler

s its title suggests, Colorado duo Cobalt’s Gin is a frenzied black metal treatise in the fine art of getting bombed. More specifically, drummer/guitarist Erik Wunder and vocalist Phil McSorley pay tribute to two well-oiled American authors with brass balls: Gin Ernest Hemingway (depicted on Prof ound Lore (2009 ) the front cover and referenced MY TOP 5 in “A Clean, Well Lighted Place”) and Hunter S. ERIK Thompson (whose gonzo essence is uncorked on “Two-Thumbed Fist”). The lyrics on Gin are profoundly unsettling (“I raped your mind / While Cobalt you were sleeping”), which may be reflective of Mayhem, McSorley’s overall experience being deployed in De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Iraq with the U.S. Army, but the duo’s musical approach is considerably less caustic. Inquisition, Into the Infernal The title track riffs on Depression-era folk muRegions of the sic, and “Dry Body” is built upon a foundation of Ancient Cult/ rhythmic, repetitive drone, with McSorley’s vocals Invoking the Majestic Throne scaled to match. The sum is ultimately a lot closer of Satan to the detail-oriented heaviness of Swans— Nazxul, Totem whose onetime vocalist Jarboe cameos here— Immortal, than any second or third-wave black metal act. At the Heart Then again, Wunder and McSorley have a perof Winter versely different—and wildly inventive—inEmperor, terpretation of what constitutes “black metal,” like In the Nightside the early 1900s field recording of a Negro spiritual Eclipse/ Anthems to the that caps the album. Has Varg Vikernes heard this? Welkin at Dusk He would not be amused. Nick Green

Cobalt

WUNDER

Fleurety

Min Tid Skall Komme Aest het i c Deat h (1995 )

1995 was the year Norwegian black metal officially went weird—with a great debt to fire-starters Arcturus. There’s Ved Buens Ende’s debut, the first In the Woods… album, and this wonderful oddity. Fleurety captivated black metal enthusiasts with their Black Snow demo (1993) and A Darker Shade of Evil EP (1994), but their bird-like vocal screeches and sub-necro aesthetics were only subtly woven into this full-length. While it’s obvious the root color here is seething, freezing, otherworldly Norwegian black, there are lots of other shades coloring the picture: rocking tempos powered by a variety of drum beats, operatic elements thanks to the vocals of guest Marian Aas Hansen, Black Sabbath-y gloom, a hint of shoegaze (long before it became a common trait in black metal) and dorky yet well-placed synthesizer accents. The effect is not unlike a horrible acid trip suddenly gone right, a tipping on the edge of a perilous precipice only to become steady and anchored… and back to peril again. Basically, Min Tid Skall Komme is unsettling and comforting at the same time. Five songs, 45 minutes, and a lifetime of information to gather and discover. True Norwegian post-black metal. Jeff Wagner

MY TOP 5

such an infernal level that it Progressive to the core, San CHRISTY transformed the underlying Francisco’s Ludicra were one gabber beat into an instruof the first American acts to ment of blunt force trauma. both embrace black metal and ex- Ludicra It’s not all blood on the use it as a point of departure. Ulver, Bergtatt dance floor; sometimes they The coed quintet’s third and slow it down to a leisurely arguably best album, 2006’s Immortal, Sons bludgeon, like on “Let the Fex Urbis Lex Orbis boasts of the Northern Kingdom Come.” As far as all the hallmarks of the Darkness second wave of black metal Scandinavian second wave: Enslaved, Frost goes, this is pretty killer raspy vox, tremolo-picked Burzum, Det guitars and lightning-fast stuff, all minor keys and nasty Som Engang Var beats. But—and here’s screeching, and even a memorable song or two. Still, the what sets this avant-metal act Darkthrone, Transilvanian apart from the corpsepainted use of that drum machine Hunger was their true innovation, masses—these elements and it’s impressive how they are sparingly deployed. You’re smacked this technological more likely to hear a labyrinmarvel into fitting with black thine note pattern paired metal’s inherent primitivism. This horwith a syncopated beat—hello, prog rific trio makes the inorganic member rock!—than a blur of manic instruof their tribe pay for its transgressions mentation. against the natural order by driving the Even frontwoman Laurie Sue Shanabeats by raw force out of the little box. man’s haunting caterwaul is counterbalanced by guitarist-vocalist Christy Some may have (arguably) done it better since; Mysticum did it first, and the Cather’s soulful backing vocals. About most brutally. Jeff Treppel halfway through the 12-minute closer

CATHER

Mysticum

In the Streams of Inferno Full M o o n P ro d u c ti o n s (1996)

Scandinavians love two things: super evil black metal and super cheesy dance music. Mysticum figured out how to combine both in a way that didn’t destroy the integrity of the evil side of the equation. The trick turned out to be deceptively simple: They just ramped up the Christ-crushing malevolence to

Ludicra

Fex Urbis Lex Orbis Alt er n at i ve Ten tac l e s (2 006)

“Collapse,” you can hear a wordless vocal melody rising from the haze of melancholic chords and dog paddle beats. The crooning—or some kind of audio mirage—lingers for the remainder of the blistering tune, reminding us that, as late as 2006, the story of black metal was still being written. Brent Burton

Negura Bunget

Co d e 6 6 6 (2 0 0 6)

omanian troupe Negură Bunget had quite a run up to the Om full-length. Zîrnindu-să, Mă iastru Sfetnic and particularly ’n Crugu Bradului saw the Timișoara-based outfit on a serious upswing in Europe and abroad. Packaged in a double-fold digipak and lovingly adorned with Dan F. Spătaru art, Om, however, found Negură Bunget in land popular. Picturesque, hazy, melodically singular, bucolic, from a time forgotten, Om is like an Eastern European interpretation of Filosofem, Times of Grace and Script of the Bridge. At times, Negură Bunget are completely disjointed, but it’s all charm. Like they see the red line and we don’t. “Cunoașterea Tăcută,” for ex-

ample, is essentially two tracks roped together by the tiniest of thematic strings. Nevertheless, it’s absolutely possible to get lost in it. The riffscapes, the keyboard washes, folk bits, and the prog-nerd post-whatever movements enchant and bewilder. Same goes for the 12-minute “Țesarul de Lumini” and “Hora Soarelui.” At some point, they politely draw you in, and once inside, all is well with the self. There are few moments on Om where it feels like you’re listening to black metal, actually. Much of the menace is hidden or sparsely applied (see “De Piatră”). Unless it’s “Dedesuptul.” Negură Bunget’s Om may not have a lot of black metal bite, but it’s transcendentally awesome nonetheless. Chris Dick

ed by fearless vocalist/guitarist Keith “K.K.” Warslut, Australian black/thrash battalion Deströyer 666 are perhaps second only to Immortal in the Blazing Black N’ Roll Riff Sweepstakes. The band’s sophomore thunder slab, Phoenix Rising, is fucking stuffed with fret-burning rippers. From the massive title track (originally recorded by K.K.’s pre- Deströyer death metal outfit, Corpse Molestation) and crushing battle epic “I Am the Wargod (Ode to the Battle Slain)” to the vicious “Lone Wolf Winter” and Amon Amarth-ish “Ride the Solar Winds,” K.K. and his Y2K lineup—Deceiver (drums), Bullet Eater (bass) and Shrapnel (guitar, currently of Nocturnal Graves), all of whom have since departed—deliver nothing short of a black metal masterpiece. It’s worth noting that Phoenix Rising was the last Deströyer 666 release recorded on the band’s native soil: Shortly after it came out, K.K. relocated to the Netherlands while his bandmates fanned out across Europe. The next two full-lengths were recorded in France (2002’s Cold Steel... For an Iron Age) and Sweden (2009’s Defiance). They’re both excellent, but Phoenix Rising remains the band’s finest and most furious hour. J. Bennett

Darkspace

Deströyer 666 Phoenix Rising

Sea son of Mist (200 0 )

Dark Space I

Haunt e r o f the D a r k (2 0 03)

What’s colder than an Alpine winter? How do you dive deeper toward absolute zero, when your permanent inner tundra can no longer be satisfied by sheathing trees in three inches of ice and suffocating the human psyche under the densest snow? If you’re Paysage d’Hiver’s Wroth, you collaborate with likeminded Swiss darkhearts Zhaaral and Zorgh. You set your sights beyond. You leave Earth. Space is fucking cold. Rarely does the marriage of concept and execution delve such a vertiginous abyss, with such breathless results. Whatever sci-fi horror nerd cred the album swallows with its too-obvious choice of 2001: A Space Odyssey dialog sample, it regains in full and then some with its Oort cloud atmospheres and undiluted starbeast aggression. At times, Darkspace’s first record pumps out savage death metal with ripping riffs and tempo shifts. But then the keyboard emanations flash-freeze all the surrounding oxygen and the whole mix red-shifts through the interstellar void, while some world-gnashing apparition leers across the no-longer-safe distance. Hyperbole? Not really. This trio of xenopsychonauts found something in that irradiated vacuum. And it wants to eat you. Daniel Lake

Ved Buens Ende Written in Waters M i s a n thr o p y (1 9 9 5 )

Distinguished by otherworldly vocals and tricky math-rock arrangements, Ved Buens Ende stand alone in the history of black metal. The Norwegian trio left us with only one proper album before breaking up: 1995’s Written in Waters. But it’s a doozy. Opener “I Sang for the Swans” moves through numerous passages resembling hard-edged post-rock (think: Don Caballero and Gastr Del Sol) before, three minutes into the seven-minute song, the vocals begin. To describe Ved Buens Ende’s singers as peerless is an understatement. One vocalizes in a regal croon that seems to belong to an earlier age (it’s easy to imagine him recording on the set of Game of Thrones). And the other employs an inhuman rasp, described as “grim voice” in the liners. Imagine Gandalf and Gollum forming a proggy, folky black metal band and you’ll have a good idea of the sound. Mileage will vary based on the more tuneful vocalist, who does a majority of the singing. But even if you struggle with his one-of-a-kind mannerisms, the music alone is such twisty, evocative fun that it’s hard not to bow down before this totem of self-direction. Brent Burton

Funeral Mist

Deathspell Omega

Maranatha

Fas–Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum

N orm a Eva ngel ium D iab o li

Immortal

(2007 )

The second in Deathspell Omega’s trilogy of albums concerning man’s metaphysical relationship with God and Satan, Fas—Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum provides plenty of grist for the theologically-inclined metalhead. The band refuses to publicly discuss the heady themes running through their lyrics. It’s clear, though, that FIMIIA’s inscrutable texts are inseparable from the dizzying music that surrounds them. The Georges Bataille quote in “A Chore for the Lost” partially illuminates DSO’s modus operandi on the album: “Every human being not going to the extreme limit is the servant or the enemy of man and the accomplice of a nameless obscenity.” FIMIIA is undeniably extreme. But the blast beats on “The Shrine of Mad Laughter” and “Bread of Bitterness” sound more frantic than furious, the stabbing shards of dissonant guitar more disorienting than forceful. Slower passages scattered throughout the album set an even more unsettling tone, while never quite properly foreshadowing what’s to come. In fact, FIMIIA feels even less predictable the more you listen to it. That it conveys so much while its aesthetic logic is so evasive suggests that Deathspell Omega were writing in a new black metal dialect. Etan Rosenbloom

Battles in the North

Osmo se Pr o d u ct i o n s ( 19 9 5)

After solidifying their credentials with two classic albums, Immortal decided to crank the A.C. to sub-zero temperatures for Battles in the North. While Pure Holocaust was a lesson in how to craft bleak melodies, this follow-up is a revolt; an undiluted, unrelenting onslaught. With a heavier, more scathing production, the band was finally able to recreate something closer to the chaos of their live shows as they pushed to overwhelm the listener with bitter, volatile riffs and blasting that pummels like a barrage of stone-garnished snowballs. Abbath’s vocals are a mixture of croaks and sneers, depicting a winter hellscape as the music careens around him. A breather does come at the end, though, as the funereal “Blashyrkh (Mighty Ravendark)” mixes slower riffs with acoustics that brings the album to a close in haunting, momentous form. Thanks to their antics and videos, Immortal are the aesthetic template for what your man on street thinks of when he imagines a black metal band. But Battles in the North is one of the reasons why they’re worthy of tending the gateway. Shane Mehling

No r ma Evan geli u m D i abol i ( 20 0 9 )

It took Funeral Mist six long years to follow up Salvation, one of the handsdown filthiest, most disquieting black metal albums to ever escape the depths of hell. But one need not delve too far into the sophomore effort to realize the delay was not the result of any Road to Damascus conversion: Maranatha is so willfully blasphemous and aurally malevolent, one gets the impression that the band’s sole member and architect, Arioch—a.k.a. Mortuus of Marduk fame—spent the intervening years fearing (actual) salvation more than seeking it. Every heresy is improbably elevated, every barbarity amplified further. Arioch sees the disemboweled-crucified-infants-plus-piles-of-deformedconjoined-twins artwork of Salvation and raises us an obscene spewing fountain comprised of upside-down, enemacharged women and a grotesque droopybreasted lamb-headed lady with a sinister elderly face for a gut. The music is a swirling maelstrom of frenzied riffage, malignant atmospheres and a baleful, inspired vocal performance that matches any of the landmark work Arioch/ Mortuus has laid down for post-World Funeral Marduk. If Funeral Mist ever top Maranatha, the oceans will no doubt turn to blood, the skies will permanently darken, and we’ll all get a firsthand look at the stuff Arioch has been prepping us for. Shawn Macomber

MY TOP 5 ANDERS

“BLAKKHEIM” NYSTRÖM Diabolical Masquerade

Emperor, In the Nightside Eclipse Bathory, Under the Sign of the Black Mark Darkthrone, A Blaze in the Northern Sky Mayhem, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

Blut Aus Nord Ultima Thulée

Im pu re Cre ati o n s (1 9 9 5)

For the past decade, Vindsval has won rebellious hearts as the premier French black metal deconstructionist. Steely, mechanistic end-times musings like MoRT and The Desanctification gave way to emotionally conscious aura-bursters Dialogue With the Stars and Cosmosophy. But before all the genre origami came an undiluted atmospheric black opus: Ultima Thulée. Blut Aus Nord’s debut album emerged from the rubble of demos Vindsval had recorded under various discarded identities, exhibiting all the raw edges and brash juxtapositions of an early master’s developing genius. Bearing a title that referenced a mythical land in the far north, with icy-peaked album art to match, Ultima Thulée has arguably been Blut Aus Nord’s most reverential tribute to their Scandinavian progenitors. Songs declare their veneration of Norse icons like Bifrost and Rigsthula, while the music balances blizzardblurred anguish with curled-in-a-corner melodies and one baritone chant (“My Prayer Beyond Ginnungagap”) that casts the listener untethered into that ancient void. Brittle keyboard mantras limn the outer reaches of otherwise jagged tracks such as “The Plain of Ida” and “The Last Journey of Ringhorn.” Ultima Thulée serves up a feast of black metal mores, heralding the ascent of a whole generation of prolific French misanthropes. Daniel Lake

Celtic Frost, To Mega Therion

Sigh

Scorn Defeat D eathl ik e Sil enc e Produ ct i o n s (1993)

While Sigh don’t defy second wave conventions nearly as much on their first album as on every subsequent release, Scorn Defeat conforms to exactly nobody’s notion of boilerplate BM. The surprises commence (assuming you don’t notice the harpsichord) midway through opener “A Victory of Dakini.” Just as the account of an evil goddess’s onslaught hits the point where her hordes are starting to devour human livers, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mirai Kawashima slides an elegant romantic piano part under his slathering rasp, which he then reprises between the spazz-funk guitar solo and a closing section that hints at what might have happened had Roger Waters and Freddy Mercury ever teamed up to score a ballet about public intoxication. This first manifestation of one of the Tokyo-based quartet-turned-quintet’s best and most enduring tricks— getting massively panoramic without succumbing to the bloat that turns most symphonic black metal to selfparody—leads to others, without the band ever repeating itself. It’s not even that Sigh are all that restrained with keyboards, flutes or whatever. As with other substances, they’re just adept at using them responsibly. Rod Smith

avendusk in My Heart is like the vampire movie you loved as kid. It seemed totally creepy at the time, yet in the sober light of adulthood, it’s pretty fucking cheesy. But, shit, it’s still fun, right? And “fun” was the ultimate f-word for black metal when Katatonia guitarist Anders “Blakkheim” Nyström dropped the debut Ravendusk in My Heart from his short-lived but prolific Ad i po cer e ( 19 9 6 ) solo project in 1996. Okay, it wasn’t totally a solo project. In fact, the ubiquitous Dan Swanö lends his King Diamond-inspired falsetto (which also briefly appears elsewhere on this list via album #36) on the insanely catchy “Under the Banner of the Sentinel”—a three-minute graveyard romp that makes Cradle of Filth sound deadly serious. Meshing mid-paced, old-school Fate and Venom elements with the Scandinavian second wave of BM blueprint, Nyström’s guitar work ultimately steals the show. In fact, there are more memorable metal riffs present on pseudo-closer “Blackheim’s Hunt for Nocturnal Grace” than on the last decade’s worth of Katatonia material. Maybe our man needs to get black to the future. Albert Mudrian

Diabolical Masquerade

Watain Casus Luciferi

Dr akkar Pr o d u ct i o n s (2 003 )

entagram and Antichrist almost made this list—would you believe they ranked #101 and #102? Don’t be hatin’: we acknowledge them as essential. Yet to some ears, 2000’s Incipit Satan is the pinnacle of Gorgoroth’s career. Misunderstood upon release, much like Grand Declaration of War by Mayhem, Incipit Satan gained more acceptance as time and distance allowed its dust to settle, and reappraisal of this record will find opinion turning in its favor. This is the culmination of everything this band achieved in the ’90s, while thrusting forward into new areas—areas they wouldn’t revisit due to lineup fragmentations that weakened the band’s essence. Look at the wild spray of directions: typically Gorgorothian stuff like “Ein Eim Av Blod Og Helvetesild” (only with shitloads more steamrolling bottom-end than before); the Burzum-esque hypnosis of “An Excerpt of X”; the Laibach-meets-Swans-meets-Bathory churn of “Litani Til Satan”; experimental soundscape “Will to Power”; the epic gothic trudge of “When Love Rages Wild in My Heart”; the (gasp!) Swede-flavored melodic death of “A World to Win.” This is eccentricity flowing freely, unharnessed and unabated, a bold expansion from a band that otherwise represented the vanguard of Norwegian black metal cruelty. Incipit Satan uses and abuses black metal’s core spirit to operate outside its self-imposed restrictions. Still hate it? Infernus doesn’t give a shit either way. Jeff Wagner

Gorgoroth Incipit Satan

Nu clear Blast ( 20 0 0 )

In this writer’s opinion, the best and most interesting BM flourished in the 2000s. It makes sense, after second wave influences had time to stew, cross-pollinate and pillage non-BM sources, the genre birthed some extremely varied and novel-sounding creations. Unlike, say, the French avant school or the Finnish folky pagan group, these Swedes didn’t fly too far outside the classic territories mapped out by Mayhem or Bathory, and yet they struck the perfect balance between the raw and dissonant, the polished and melodic. Production- and songwriting-wise, Casus was a huge leap forward for Erik D. and the ghouls compared to their onespeed, one-color debut. Casus showed how sonic warfare (à la Gorgoroth or Marduk) can neatly lock horns with dynamics and harmony, much like fellow countrymen Dissection, one band Watain are frequently aligned with. With relentless barn-burners like “The Devil’s Blood” (yes, that is where those other devil-worshippers got their name), “I Am Earth” and “Opus Dei,” Watain snuck in an air of grandeur and odd accessibility, while staying as frosty and underground as fuck. Shawn Bosler

Bethlehem Dark Metal

A d i p o c e re (1 9 9 4 )

Like Finland’s Unholy or early efforts from Sweden’s Katatonia, Germany’s Bethlehem emerged from the murky, gray zone where black metal aesthetics merged with the underground doom metal championed by early 1990’s British bands like Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride or Anathema. Some saw it, first and foremost, as black metal; others rushed to file it under the doom banner; most settled on the happy medium “black/doom.” More adventurous types sidestepped both genres and nudged the music into its own space, dubbing it “dark metal,” a phrase often used in the mid-to-late-’80s to describe Celtic Frost’s unclassifiable avant-garde heaviness. If this wayward subgenre needed its own mission statement, Bethlehem were ready to oblige. Like products of the aforementioned bands, Dark Metal straddled the black/doom divide with enough creativity and balance to lull devotees of either camp into submission. At times, the album’s tempos accelerate (foreshadowing Bethlehem’s eventual move toward their maniacally deranged follow-up Dictius Te Necare), but Dark Metal’s true magnificence lies in its sparse, despondent doom metal voyages (try “3rd Nocturnal Prayer” or “Funereal Owlblood”), which stand as icy harbingers of the more emotionally anguished, nihilistic strains of funeral doom (Worship, Loss, etc.) that would emerge some years later. Scott Koerber

Samael Blood Ritual

Cen t u r y Med i a (1992 )

Nowadays, Samael are shorthand for the worst music ever. They play unrelenting, hyper-processed guff that sits somewhere in between Dimmu Borgir’s schlocky Black Metal Lyte® and Fear Factory’s risible cyber-nonsense. But, once upon a time, Michael “Vorph” Locher and co. dropped Blood Ritual, a stone-cold classic of mid-tempo noir thrash that was black metal in the same way that Celtic Frost could be considered black metal. Y’know, they were raw and creepy, and despite their influTelepathic With the ences being signposted, they sounded Deceased otherworldly, like a next-dimensional interpretation of underground metal. Mo r i b u n d ( 20 0 4) Tracks such as “Beyond the Nothinghere’s a poignant moment in the documentary short One ness” skimp on the blasts, but go heavy Man Metal where the filmmaker asks Xasthur’s Scott on the atmosphere, mixing WarriorConner about writing Telepathic With the Deceased. “I’ve esque riff doom ‘n’ groove with other made a lot of albums during a lot of terrible awful times—that one parts that sound like you’re playing Slayer’s “Hell Awaits” with your thumb probably was made during a very hard time,” Conner says. He then walks pressed on the vinyl— off camera to regain his composure. “I was remembering really that first riff especially. bad shit,” he says later. “I was really losing my mind, basically.” Vorph’s vocals are seriMY TOP 5 Telepathic With the Deceased is a documentary of Conner’s ously awesome: “Master breakdown and, by extension, a reflection of our collected fears speak, we’re listening! / and uncertainties. It takes the confessional template common Father order, we’ll obey!” Samael Yeah, that’ll give you the in the insular world of American black metal and goes a step Venom, chills all right. Those further; it is the full-on stop at the madhouse, not the casual Welcome to Hell looking for the Earthdalliance with a therapist. Depression is insidious and means Bathory, The scorching orthodoxy something different for each sufferer, but if you want an alReturn...... and the levels of aggresbum that mines what depression feels like, this is the isolation sion of Samael’s black Hellhammer, Apocalyptic metal peers of the time chamber that takes you there. The songs are a blur, sometimes Raids might be disappointed, repetitive to the point of monotony. Then again, pain can be but Blood Ritual exudes Possessed, a trap that makes the world lose focus. Telepathic With the Deits own sense of darkSeven Churches ceased is an intimate journal of a wounded soul, a lost mind ness, as compelling as it Venom, At War crying out for solace, the loner begging for human connection. is sorely missed. With Satan Justin M. Norton Jonathan Horsley

Xasthur

VORPH

Root The Book

Re db lac k P r o d u c ti o n s (1 9 99)

For tape-traders and connected black metallers, Root were a known (and influential) entity. Primitive, weird and nearmythical, the Czech Republic-based outfit hit the scene in 1988 with the War of Rats demo. Fast-forward two years and Root are suddenly, surprisingly prolific, churning out hard-to-find black metal classics on local labels like Zeras, Monitor and Black Hole like they had fire in their pants.

Three years separate Kärgeräs from The Book, however. In that interim, something fucking happened. Like Robert Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads to become a better player, Lord Morningstar must’ve finally responded to Root’s repeated evocations, ’cause The Book is undoubtedly matchless. Doesn’t matter who the band is; on The Book, Root crush them creatively, musically and aesthetically (the original CD booklet felt like a weathered book cover). From the opening title track and the unbelievable brilliance of both “Corabeu” cuts to the riff-o-rama of “The Birth” and the resplendent doomage of “The Message of Time,” The Book is ridiculously inspired. Much of the focus is on frontman Big Boss’s crooning— think David Sylvian meets Danzig meets Elvis—and trademark black metal gurgle, but forgetting the Reb Beach and George Lynch-isms of guitarists Alesh Dostál, Ashok and Petr “Blackie” Hošek is a sin of sins. Drummer René Kostelňák also deserves holy high fives. When I take 10 black metal records to my grave, The Book will be in the Top Five. Chris Dick

Wolves in the Throne Room Diadem of 12 Stars Ven d lu s ( 20 0 6 )

Yeah, the whole “eco-metal”/“Cascadian black metal” thing was horseshit, but no one really knew what to make of these flannel-wearing hippies from Olympia, WA back in 2006. In hindsight, Occam’s razor suggests that the simplest

answer was the correct one: Wolves in the Throne Room worshipped at the altar of Burzum and Emperor, and they were pagan traditionalists from the get-go. The trio’s debut full-length features a 27+ minute epic (“Face in a Night Time Mirror”) split into two parts, sandwiched in between a pair of reworked songs from the band’s 2005 demo (“Queen of the Borrowed Light” and the title track). Diadem of 12 Stars is notable for its use of ethereal female vocals (Jamie Meyers of Hammers of Misfortune), as well as drummer Aaron Weaver’s surprisingly funky fills. Some fans will contend that minor cosmetic tweaks and evolving musicianship allowed the same basic formula to play out in a more dramatic and palatable fashion on subsequent Wolves in the Throne Room records. Of course, a band’s early stuff is not always their best stuff, but in this case, Diadem of 12 Stars is a remarkably evocative and self-assured debut from an outfit that would later advance to the vanguard of the USBM scene. Nick Green

Necromantia/ Varathron Black Arts Lead to Everlasting Sins Bl a c k P o w e r (1 9 9 2 )

Before black metal was hijacked by Norway in the wake of 1993’s criminal exploits and subsequent tabloid sensationalism, the genre’s reach was much more of a global phenomenon. Bands from Brazil, Italy and Finland were equally hell-bent on conjuring Lucifer via audio ritual, each with their own set of influences and aesthetic twist on the black metal sound. Of equal importance to the blast beat and stylized tremoloriffing championed by the Norwegians was the majestic, occult atmospherics wafting from an underground coven of Greek metallers during the late ’80s and early ’90s. In all actuality, the Greek “scene” was made up of less than 10 dudes in total whose overflowing creativity spilled forth into countless incarnations and side projects: Rotting Christ, Thou Art Lord, Zemial, Varathron and Necromantia, the latter two’s first proper release arriving in the form of a split album in early 1992. Necromantia’s inventive sound leaned heavily on a mix of chilling, majestic keys and a guitar-less rhythm section (the band opted instead for an eight-string bass), while Varathron’s offering provided the first hints of the band’s doomier ideals, a sentiment which would find further embodiment on their classic His Majesty at the Swamp the following year. Scott Koerber

Taake

Over Bjoergvin Graater Himmerik Wounded Lov e (2002)

Hoest looks like the Norwegian Jacob Marley on the cover of Over Bjoergvin. He looks like a ghost in the flesh, too, a rangy, wiry specter. How apt, then, that Taake should possess such powers to haunt and chill you to the marrow. Of all black metal’s solo projects— and despite the guests, Taake is very much Hoest’s vision alone—Hoest’s is the most inventive. Recorded with Pytten in Grieghallen, Over Bjoergvin is a mind-warping phantasmagoria, juiced on Norwegian black metal fury, yet surreal and psychedelic, too, changing pace and texture to answer every caprice of its maker. Even Tiresias of Thebes couldn’t second-guess this record, not the riffs, not the weird textural fills, not the occasional piano (courtesy of French BM soloist and Taake contributor Keridwen). Given Hoest’s off-kilter approach to black metal, it’s no surprise he cites the likes of Kate Bush and Roky Erickson as primary influences. Of course, everyone knows about Hoest’s misdemeanors, the time he took to the stage in Germany with a swastika painted on his chest, that awful picture of him onstage, cock and balls to the wind. But give him a break; to look as dead as he does, you’ve got to have lived. Jonathan Horsley

ou get the feeling that when Dimmu Borgir saw their friends slathering black and white makeup on their faces, they thought of KISS, not corpses. Even at this (relatively) early date, you can tell that they Enthrone Darkness weren’t interested in kvltness; they Triumphant wanted to be the coldest band in the world. And they would achieve Nu clear Blast ( 19 9 7) that through taking the sound to its natural, GWAR-like extreme on their third album, penning their odes to Satan in English and unleashing a phalanx of synthesizers. Of course, whereas Emperor used the keyboards as tasteful accents, Dimmu used them to blast a hole in the ramparts surrounding Blashyrkh. Unafraid to embrace the rock ‘n’ roll influence that their more orthodox peers had rejected, they crafted clean, distinctive songs. You don’t have to dig very deep to find the hooks on Enthrone Darkness Triumphant—although you might have to look under several layers of bombast. This, more than any other album, is when black metal went CinemaScope. Forward-thinking fans embraced it, purists rejected it, and a mere seven years later, they would be the first black metallers to have their music used in a trailer for a Hollywood movie. Jeff Treppel

Dimmu Borgir

Abruptum

Enslaved

MY TOP 5

Below the Lights

SILENOZ

Darkthrone, A Blaze in the Northern Sky Mayhem, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Bathory, Under the Sign of the Black Mark Emperor/ Enslaved, Emperor/ Hordanes Land

Fallen Angel of Doom... Wi l d R ag s (1 9 9 0 )

There is little question why Blasphemy are considered pioneers in war black metal. Once the intro on Fallen Angel of Doom lulls the listener into a false sense of security, it’s nothing but primitive decimation going forward. It’s kind of surprising that with a band like this hanging out in the city, Vancouver didn’t rumble off into the Pacific about 20 years ago.

( 19 9 4)

Enslaved’s seventh album, 2003’s Below Even if Øystein Aarseth hadn’t called the Lights, begins with the sound of MelAbruptum “the audial essence of pure lotron, a tape-based synthesizer that all black evil” and Varg Vikernes hadn’t but screams “prog rock.” Except there’s dismissed them as “trash,” Abruptum nothing shrill about it. Rather, as anywould merit a slot in black metal’s extraone who’s studied the ’70s output of Yes musical history, if only because founder, and King Crimson knows, Mellotron vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Tony emits a warm, quasi-orchestral hum. Särkkä’s corpsepainted puss suggests Its appearance is the perfect overture that he might be Grumpy Cat’s grandfor the opener “As Fire Swept Clean the daddy. As for music, Särkkä (It) and moonEarth,” a melancholic masterpiece that, like a burning forest, marks both an end lighting Marduk guitarist Morgan Håkansson (Evil) pursued a very unand a new beginning. orthodox approach to making someBy 2003, Enslaved had been making thing like it on their second album. feints toward a more progressive vision Who knows whether the duo actually of black metal for a few years. But after cut, burned and/or electroBelow the Lights, there cuted themselves during the was no going back. MY TOP 5 session, or whether engineer “Queen of Night” begins with a Genesis-style salDan Swanö really did just turn IVAR vo of acoustic guitar and on a DAT machine and leave? flute. “Ridicule Swarm” What we can be certain of is that the totally improvised, dusts off the MelloEnslaved hour-long, one-track album tron again. And final Mayhem, track “A Darker Place” stands as one of metal’s most De Mysteriis might as well have been endearingly fucked-up docuDom Sathanas ments. In Umbra’s greatest called “A Darker Side Darkthrone, triumph is that everything of the Moon”: the song A Blaze in the culminates with a twoabout it—the gentle piano Northern Sky minute guitar solo that chords and whispering cymBathory, Under pays blackened homage bals, Särkkä’s tortured screams, the Sign of the to Pink Floyd’s David the parts where the duo makes Black Mark Gilmour. What better Moss sound like grindcore, the Master’s way to end one of the ambient section that leads into Hammer, Ritual finest albums by one of the closing noise interlude, all black metal’s most amthe rest of the chaos—makes Morbid Angel, bitious bands? for a perfectly coherent whole. Altars of Madness Brent Burton Rod Smith

Dissection, Reinkaos

Blasphemy

Deat hli ke Si len ce Pr oduct i on s

Osmo se Pr o d u ct i o n s ( 20 0 3 )

Dimmu Borgir

In Umbra Malitiae Ambulabo, In Aeternum In Triumpho Tenebrarum

Production clean as vomit with riffs clear as tar, this is music that aims to be as heavy and monstrous as possible; a flaming boulder flattening all that stands in the way, and scorching its path. When a brief solo glides above the toxic murk, there’s no doubt the musicianship is excellent, but for the most part you’re simply experiencing a behemoth of destruction and blood-caked brutality. There is no room for Blasphemy on the shelf of someone who is overly concerned with hearing exactly what’s going on with the music they’re listening to. This is only for those who want to experience something that makes them feel like any minute the sun will explode. Shane Mehling

BJØRNSON

Anaal Nathrakh The Codex Necro

Mordgrim m (2001)

In the Woods…

With the misanthropic line drawn firmly in the sand via the cantankerous liner notes (“Irrumator: All instruments and broken sound-making pieces of crap,” “V.I.T.R.I.O.L.: Vomiting of utter blasHeart of the Ages phemic stench,” “Fuck everything”), the M i s a n thr o p y (1 9 9 5 ) U.K.’s Anaal Nathrakh ramped up the options for how disgust and hatred for These Norwegians stressed in early mankind and our ways could be artisinterviews that they were just a group tically expressed. Album number one of friends playing music—more like blasted out from a caustic combination a Deadhead collective than your comof hell’s gates, nihilistic psychology and mon one-man black metal “band” or the coming of self-imposed end times. the usual four-guys-in-corpsepaint deal. The scathing commentary and labyThey never took proper photos of themrinthine hatred behind such first-date selves; just pictures of men and women gems as “When Humanity Is Cancer,” sitting around a bonfire or nestled deep “Paradigm Shift—Annihilation” and in forest cover. All of this created an “Human, All Too Fuckappropriately mysterious aura ing Human” were bathed for the earthy progressive black in oppressive walls of spametal found within Heart of the MY TOP 5 cious, hanging chords Ages—spelled HEart of the MICK played at tendonitisAges on the cover for various inducing speeds, drums arcane reasons. programmed to break The raw, natural, cavernous Anaal speed barriers, vocals recording delivered agonizing Nathrakh pushing the limits of the screams, swirling/soaring treMayhem, larynx, and layers upon ble-loaded guitars and percusDe Mysteriis layers of noises and samsive thunder, something like Dom Sathanas ples. We quickly learned the epicenter of a Pink Floyd/ Darkthrone, that there was much Burzum earthquake, with a Under a more intelligence behind helping of Viking-era Bathory Funeral Moon the aural beatdown, and and gothic doom added for good Dodheimsgard, that Mick “Irrumator” measure. As good as Heart of Satanic Art Kenney had a soft spot the Ages is, it merely paved the for the Sunset Strip way for the band to break out Ved Buens Ende, Written side of metal, but when of black metal altogether and in Waters it was all about mystery, sculpt their masterpiece, Omnio, animosity and antagoan epic prog album that remains Gorgoroth, nism, it was all about without peer. Much like In the Under the Sign of Hell The Codex Necro. Kevin Woods… themselves. Stewart-Panko Jeff Wagner

Nifelheim Nifelheim

Necr o po li s ( 19 9 4)

When asked by an interviewer if they would ever consider shaving their balding pates, one of the Nifelheim twins apparently responded, “If there is just one hair left on my head, it will be long!” Which pretty much sums up the true-’til-death dedication of these long-serving black-thrash warriors. No surprise, then, that their self-titled debut embraces the unholy spirit of bestial black metal in the vein of their Swedish forebears Bathory, complete with whiffs of early Slayer and Brazilian speed freaks Sarcófago. Tits to tail, it’s an unhinged frenzy of corpsepaint mania and satanic warlust in which the song titles say it all: “Sodomizer,” “Possessed by Evil” and, of course, “Witchfuck.” Led by twin brothers/Maiden superfans Hellbutcher and Tyrant—a.k.a. Per and Erik Gustavsson, on “deathvomit vocals” and “bestial holocaust bass,” respectively—Nifelheim were aided and abetted here by longtime drummer Demon and session guitarists/Dissection members Jon Nödtveidt and John Zwetsloot. Originally released by Necropolis in ’94, the 2009 Regain reissue includes the band’s killer (and wholly appropriate) cover of “Die in Fire” from the 1998 Bathory tribute comp, In Conspiracy With Satan—not to mention liner notes from Metalion of Slayer Mag. J. Bennett

KENNEY

MY TOP 5 BLAKE

JUDD

Nachtmystium/ Hate Meditation/ Twilight Burzum, Filosofem Dissection, Storm of the Light’s Bane Bathory, Blood Fire Death Sarcófago, I.N.R.I. Inquisition, Into the Infernal Regions of the Ancient Cult

Lurker of Chalice

Nachtmystium

To tal Ho lo cau st ( 20 0 5)

In a layman’s hands, this album would seem like an impossibly dark, searing listen. For listeners familiar with Wrest’s twisted journeys as Leviathan, Lurker of Chalice is a contemplative moment, the misanthrope taking a break from selfsabotage. There are moments where you know Wrest is behind the music, particularly the warbling dark vocal vibrato that colors so much of his other work. But there are other moments when he shows a compositional side that’s far different than the bulk of his music—moments of levity and grace. Lurker of Chalice isn’t as compressed or claustrophobic as Leviathan. In Leviathan songs, notes stack on top of each other like a hoarder’s collected newspapers. Lurker of Chalice has remarkable moments where notes are allowed to breathe and gestate, and Wrest’s voice here is muted and contemplative. Songs like “Spectre as Valkerie Is” dare to flirt with beauty. Lurker of Chalice is a soulful combination of American black and the soundtracks of the Italian band Goblin, the backing to the horror movie in your head. Justin M. Norton

Instinct: Decay

B at tl e Kom m a nd (2006)

eleased on band founder Blake Judd/Azentrius’ own Battle Kommand label, Instinct: Decay is the sound of alien life forms setting distant planets aflame and riding across the cosmos on razor-fanged steeds of sable, crystallized space dust. With an exoskeleton of black metal and smoky cloaks of spacey, psychedelic rock, Nachtmystium unlocked gateways to distant galaxies through gargoyle-guarded wormholes. Building from a stylistic blueprint introduced on Eulogy IV, the album is a meteor storm of creativity pummeling the earth’s crust, ending everything we thought we knew about extreme music. On “The Antichrist Messiah,” Judd sounds like the hungry gurgling of a Sarlacc looking to slowly digest false prophets for a thousand years. Along with the jagged, burnt noise of “Chosen by No One” and the rocketing solos of “A Seed for Suffering” and “Here’s to Hoping,” Judd and his rotating supporting cast of shape-shifting assassins transform suburban Illinois into a trippy deep-space nightmare. On Instinct: Decay, Nachtmystium crafted an explosive album that could erase entire civilizations in a single blast, leaving only the seeds that would later blossom into the poisonous flowers of Judd’s Black Meddle series. Sean Frasier

Deathspell Omega Paracletus

No r ma Evan geli u m D i abol i / Seaso n o f Mi st (2 010)

To say that Paracletus, the fifth album from France’s Deathspell Omega, is a study in contrasts is accurate, yet fails to capture its force majeure wallop. So, yes, for every gloomy scream, there is a breathy spoken word bit; and for every brutal blast beat, there is a slowly picked chord. But there is also a cumulative effect—a certain je ne sais quoi—that hits hard on first listen. Opening track “Epiklesis I,” which evokes the avant guitar wrangling of Bitch Magnet and Polvo, starts in media res: the opening note seems half-missing, as if Deathspell started playing before the engineer had time to put down his croissant. And, less than two minutes later, the following track, “Wings of Predation,” interrupts the fade-out of “Epiklesis I” with an abrupt splice that sounds like the work of an overcaffeinated tape editor. If, on first listen, the overall effect is relentless forward motion, a few spins later you might notice the moody guitar work, or perhaps even a bass riff here and there. (Mais oui, you can actually hear the bass on this 2011 effort). What you won’t hear is the typical blackened wall of tremolo-picking and blast beats. Though the brute-force impact is the same, the music is far more eclectic. Brent Burton

MY TOP 5 MICK

BARR

Impaled Nazarene

Varathron

His Majesty at the Swamp C y b e r Mu s i c (1 9 9 3 )

While Rotting Christ are usually lauded as the godfathers of Hellenic black metal, the band shared a near-identical artistic vision (and a zip code) with fellow occultists Varathron, who also emerged from the underground in the late 1980s. Both bands would release debut albums in 1993—mere months apart from one another—and would each feature a rotating cast of shared members (Saki Tolis, Jim Mutilator and Morbid perform on both LPs). As one might expect, some overlap was inevitable, and His Majesty at the Swamp proudly celebrates the familiar, mid-paced rhythmic approach fraught with occult atmospherics (keys are provided here by Necromantia’s Morbid, who is also credited as the album’s producer and engineer) championed by Rotting Christ. What sets His Majesty at the Swamp apart, however, is the album’s insistence on a more deliberately melancholic, near-doom vibration, which is encapsulated perfectly in the album’s seven-minute centerpiece “Son of the Moon (Act II).” Scott Koerber

Krallice’s Top 5 Darkthrone Albums

Suomi Finland Perkele O sm ose Produc tions (19 9 4)

Goatlord

Impaled Nazarene are a band after Decibel’s heart. They do things on their own terms, but have always understood the value of balancing seriousness and humor, of delivering praise and reverence, but still not being afraid to throw sacred cows off the cliff when deserved. ImpNaz’s third album was part treatise to the rapid-fire spectacle of raw repetition and atonal embrace, part homage to jocularity (“Steelvagina,” “Ghettoblaster” “The Oath of the Goat”), and part poking fun at black metal’s often too serious side. Like most people with a keen sense of self-awareness amid their surroundings, “Sir” Mika Luttinen and crew were able to move beyond the pale, and push buttons and barriers while remaining part of the world that birthed them. The true definition of “troo/trve”? Probably not by bedroom black metal standards, but Suomi Finland Perkele stands as an iconoclastic work for those reasons. Let’s not forget their continued postTol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz improvement and ability to create the sensation of sound having a giant asshole torn in its fabric while employing elements of frosty post-metal (“Blood Is Thicker Than Water”) and Voivod-like weirdness (“Total War—Winter War”). Kevin Stewart-Panko

Panzerfaust Hate Them Dark Thrones and Black Flags Transilvanian Hunger

Krallice Krallice

Pr o fo u n d Lo r e ( 20 0 8)

o hedging, no excuses and no doubt anymore— Krallice’s debut was an invigorating kick in the ass to U.S. black metal. Initially met with skepticism due to the blatant non-trveness of the members, many were silenced after witnessing the scope and jaw-dropping proficiency on display throughout these six tracks. Belligerent and hopeful, technically impeccable and boasting a laser focus on songwriting, the album’s dependence on exorbitant song lengths stems from a need to deliver epics that go to the brink of self-indulgence, but veer away at the last second. Certain sections are a maelstrom of blasting and intricate riffing, which nearly hypnotize until they finally let go and strike from a new, unexpected angle. Mick Barr’s lyrics remain unpublished, but the single lines that accompany each song—such as “Old birds scream of slit throats languages burned by minds”—paint pictures nearly as bizarre and fascinating as the music. It’s not evil; it’s not frostbitten; it’s not even particularly heavy. But Krallice’s debut was a bold, ambitious oddity that in countless ways continues to amaze. Shane Mehling

Arcturus

Aspera Hiems Symfonia

Absu Tara

O s mo s e P ro d u c ti o n s (2 0 0 1)

Relentless from its opening blast, Tara has enough riffs for a lesser band to spread around over three albums, and they’re played with both spirit and laserprecision. The drum performance is a constant revelation; it takes a long time to track drums, of course, but listening, you can’t shake the illusion of one guy sitting behind a kit and just wailing until he feels like he’s knocked enough people down. A few stereo-panning ping-pong tricks here and there feel more death metal than black metal, and at least 2,000 of the 4,500 riffs on the record wouldn’t be out of place on a prime

Tsjuder

Desert Northern Hell Seaso n o f Mi st (2 004 )

When this album first fell from the sky An ci en t Lo r e Cr eat i o n s ( 19 9 6 ) and through the small hole in the roof of Arcturus took black metal to a dramatithe abandoned missile silo we call headcally different place than their peers quarters, we listened to it on nonstop on debut Aspera Hiems Symfonia. And psychotic repeat for months. Months. “dramatically” is the key word. Where We barely ate, slept or stopped for a so many of their Norwegian peers piss break. It was just hunched in the shadows of shitty Desert Northern Hell MY TOP 5 musicianship and shittier producall the time. Which tion, primary songwriter Steinar is why we never bothTsjuder Sverd Johnsen and his mates ered to fix that hole. (band aimed for the cosmos with galacAs the record nears consensus) tic guitar solos, symphonic synth its 10th anniversary, this Bathory, nebulae and harmonies clear as thrash record if you pitched them down razor-winged monoThe Return...... the night sky. If not for Garm’s a little. Which feels like the point, if you lith sounds as killer and Darkthrone, commanding rasp (some of his stop snapping your neck long enough to vicious as it did the day A Blaze in the best work outside of Ulver) and muse about the record: This was— it came out. Tsjuder’s Northern Sky Hellhammer’s double-kicking, and remains—a summary of where third full-length is the you might mistake Aspera Hiems Immortal, metal had gone in the years leading full realization of the Pure Holocaust Symfonia for a lost Yes album. up to its release, and a beacon pointblack ‘n’ roll holocaust No doubt, Arcturus laid the ing the way forward. There’s hardly a the Norwegian power Mayhem, groundwork for many high point from Sabbath trio had only hinted De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas over-the-top symthrough Scream Bloody at on 2002’s Demonic phonic black metal Gore that doesn’t feel Possession and 2000’s MY TOP 5 Marduk, travesties to come. But like it’s been devoured, awesomely-titled Kill Dark Endless there’s more to Aspera digested, absorbed and for Satan. “No synHiems Symfonia than incorporated… and then thesizers, no female Absu the “go big or go home” aesbrought forward into vocals, no fucking compromises!” read Black Oak thetic. It’s also a deeply weird something new. the slogan on the back cover, and Tsjuder Arkansas, Black work, with ghostly clean Some of the tracks, weren’t fucking kidding. Oak Arkansas vocals, full-band fugues or I have to tell you, are Vocalist/bassist Jan-Erik “Nag” Zemial, Nykta keyboard-drenched circus linked by bagpipes, which, Romøren (alleged older brother of music layered over—and I know, it’s 2013 and you’re champion ski jumper Bjørn Einar Impaled sometimes replacing—the Nazarene, thinking, “What the hell Romøren), guitarist Halvor “DrauTol Cormpt Norz black metal fury. Arcturus do I need with another gluin” Storrøsten and drummer ChrisNorz Norz would veer over the edge into damn black metal band tian “AntiChristian” Svendsen carve off BM Trans-Siberian Orchestra from Greenpoint trying to huge, meaty slabs of prime riffery like Bathory, Under the Sign of territory on later albums. On show me how cult they are the doom-drenched “Lord of Swords,” the Black Mark Aspera Hiems Symfonia, they with their fucking bagpipes slaytanic power-anthem “Mouth of expertly navigated the line or whatever?” Well, smart Madness” and epic closer “Morbid Morbid Christ, between overwhelming and guy, Tara came out in 2001 Lust.” They even slice into a righteous None More Evil (he might have cheesy, creating an album and these guys are from cover of Bathory’s “Sacrifice” in tribmade this one that’s at once extreme, bizarre Texas, and nobody’s caught ute to Quorthon, who passed away five up—ed) and totally accessible. Etan up with them yet. So there. months before the album was released. Rosenbloom John Darnielle J. Bennett

PROSCRIPTOR

Thorns Thorns

Mo o n f o g (2 0 0 1 )

Snorre Westvold Ruch (a.k.a. Blackthorn) is one of those unsung heroes (or villains) of black metal. He contributed music and lyrics to Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, he’s considered the co-inventor of the groundbreaking Norwegian black metal riffing style (along with Euronymous), and he was also an accomplice to that icon’s murder. But after serving eight years in prison for his crime, he resurfaced with a vision of black metal that was unlike anything else. Along with old bandmate Hellhammer, Ruch created an album that combines the savagery of black metal with the inhumanity of industrial. Tense and discordant, songs are reliably unreliable, constantly changing tempos and tactics, ranging from anthemic chugs to twisted renderings of traditional BM. And while there are plenty of caustic riffs and Hellhammer’s near mechanized assault on his kit, the record is also packed with sinister atmosphere, inflating each song and creating standalone sections that fuel images of a desolate, pollutionchoked dystopia. This moniker has only released a few spare recordings since, but the innovation on Thorns suggests that when he comes around again, it’ll be to present something equally as brilliant. Shane Mehling

Blut Aus Nord

Samael

The Work Which Transforms God

Worship Him

Adipoc ere (2003)

Osmo se Pr o d u ct i o n s ( 19 9 1)

Almost certainly the only band on this list that’s on record as clamoring to collaborate with noise-rap crew dälek, Blut Aus Nord started out in thrall of Norway’s first wave, then mutated into something weirder and somehow even colder. The Work Which Transforms God, the French band’s fourth full-length, runs on nightmare logic, with song structures that suddenly give way to electronic noise or decay into long, glacial passages of torturously bent single notes crashing into dissonant melodies that sound like they’re constantly melting and reshaping themselves. And yet it’s still too brutally real for people who think they like black metal that kinda sounds like My Bloody Valentine. Maybe that’s because some of the many wordless stretches are interrupted by guttural vokills that could hang on a goregrind record. Maybe it’s the way Blut Aus Nord offer no hook or seam for the listener to find his or her way in, and instead insist that you take The Work on its own terms: Accept the self-contained logic; trust that “The Supreme Aspect” and “Our Blessed Frozen Cells” deal in weighty concepts even though they’re vaguely alien and completely unexplained, and that 18 seconds of near-silence warrants the title “Density.” Or maybe it’s just because it ends with the “Procession of the Dead Clowns.” That shit’s terrifying. Anthony Bartkewicz

Depending on your vantage point, Samael’s Worship Him (and to a greater extent, 1988’s Medieval Prophecy EP) is either the first example of what is now referred to as “second wave black metal” (recorded in March 1990, Worship Him predates the recording of Darkthrone’s Blaze in the Northern Sky by over a year, and Mayhem’s Live in Leipzig by eight months) or the logical conclusion of the first wave’s storied run. Defenders of the latter option point to Worship Him’s quasi-death metal characteristics or its wrung-out doom tempos where pioneering Norwegian bands had opted for blistering blast beats and stylized tremolo riffing. From my personal memory, however, the arrival of Worship Him (alongside early offerings from Rotting Christ and Beherit) in the spring of 1991 was, in fact, the guillotine blow that simultaneously executed death metal’s bloated corpse and announced the arrival of black metal’s second coming. Worship Him’s unrelenting, occult ambience foreshadowed black metal’s infatuation with evil (vocalist Vorphalack famously insisted “the music of Samael is the voice of Satan spoken through me”) while foretelling aspects of early Immortal or Burzum (see “Morbid Metal”’s 2:42 guitar-break for a foreshadowing of the infamous passage that closes Varg’s “Black Spell of Destruction”). Scott Koerber

Master’s Hammer Ritual

Mo n i t o r ( 19 91)

Bathory The Return......

Black Mar k Pr o d u ct i o n ( 19 85)

It was all about that fucking pin, man. Back when The Return...... (full title: The Return of the Darkness and Evil) was originally released, yours truly was already—despite having just entered my teens—a good five or six years into my (what’s looking to be) lifelong headbanger’s journey. Thus, I was already deemed to be sent-from-hell trouble by local educators, God-botherers, classmates and their overprotective parents. Upon spotting a button with a reproduction of the eerie moonscape of The Return......’s cover at a local hesher emporium, I reasoned it would give those who feared me ever more cause to run to the hills. I just wanted to experience my metal in peace. Granted, I hadn’t actually heard the album at the time, but when ears finally came around, good golly mother of fuck was that peace temporarily shattered! As far as refining their self-titled debut was concerned, there was only one way but up, with various ways to do it. Quorthon, drummer Stefan Larsson and bassist Andreas Johansson (yes, Bathory were actually a band at this point) figured it out by melding their Motörhead and Venom obsessions with nascent Teutonic thrash and offering a demonic twist via torture chamber vocals and frantic Slayer-esque leads propping up riffs that have been ripped off thousands of times over in the last three years alone. Kevin Stewart-Panko

orway always takes precedence when charting the second wave’s evolution, but arguably the most profound advancements in black metal’s iconoclastic aesthetic took place in Prague, back when the Czech Republic was still part of Czechoslovakia. Not that lying east of the Iron Curtain was any obstacle to the populace accessing metal—Master’s Hammer guitarist/vocalist Franta Štorm has gone on record before to state that there were more thrashers per capita than in western Europe. Ritual, Master Hammer’s debut after four years musing on Bathory and Mercyful Fate, took metal and made it darker, and divined the quintessence of what makes black metal great. Or powerful, transcendent, dangerous—whatever any extreme art form should hope to be. Ritual and its successor, Jilemnický Okultista (1992), were seminal albums, among the first of their kind, but their primacy belies a sound built from fully realized ideas; all trailblazing albums are created from inspired ideas, yet many lack refinement. Ritual’s power arrives undiminished, perfectly articulating a dark, occultist message within, despite the lyrics being all in Czech.Jonathan Horsley

Leviathan The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide Mo r i b u n d ( 2003 )

When approached to help shape this list, I suggested that “something shitty-sounding should make the cut.” This record never crossed my mind when I said that. As lo-fi documents of innerhell torment go, The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide never sounds shitty. Wrest’s genius finds clarity in the mud; he makes you feel every nettled chord progression while dousing each soul-souring song in gristly-bad production (the good kind). Drum terrorism surges in hateful blasts, then flags in nauseous waves of self-loathing. Negatively charged halfmelodies writhe around psychotically reverbed shrieks that sound like violent poetry recited by some crystal-caged poltergeist. At times (as in the album’s semi-title track and the brilliantly titled “Sardoniscorn”), the music crumples into a dour groan, sharing the mournful arpeggios and deep-cavern vocal elements with the personality that would become known as Lurker of Chalice. And motherfuck! That art! Anyone not already contemplating the razor solution can take one look and join the movement. The mask of pain, the creepers of matted hair, the body’s prone crawl, the suggestions of filth in otherwise utter blackness… One-man USBM might forever be the genre’s red-headed stepchild, but this little ginger punches back. Daniel Lake

Drudkh

Burzum

(Blood in Our Wells)

Hvis Lyset Tar Oss

Su per n al Mu si c (2 006)

M i s a n thr o p y (1 9 9 4 )

In a May 1994 interview with Deprived zine transcribed and cataloged on the current official Burzum website, Varg Vikernes declared, “What others call light, I call darkness. Seek the darkness and hell and you will find nothing but evolution.” A month before Vikernes uttered these words, he had, under his black metal nom de guerre Count Grishnackh, unleashed Burzum’s third full-length, the majestic black metal game-changer Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. Two days after the interview, Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the murder of Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth and various church burnings. The more we get caught up in the details of the latter, the harder it becomes to give Vikernes credit for the former. Yet Hvis Lyset Tar Oss rewards those constitutionally equipped to set aside the very real “darkness and hell” surrounding Burzum with a soul-stirring, transcendent experience. I write this as a man wed to a Jew under a chuppah by the gayest rabbi you’ve ever seen: As exquisitely visceral as Det som engang var (1993) is and remains, Hvis Lyset Tar Oss is the beginning of Vikernes as a creator of new worlds and a true work of evolutionary genius, however hard Pundit Varg strives to sully it. Shawn Macomber

Dissection

The Somberlain No F ashi o n ( 19 9 3 )

here was precious little metal like this in 1993. Dissection leader Jon Nödtveidt was a metal fan who had no problem combining his love of Mercyful Fate and Iron Maiden with a predilection for the madness of Morbid Angel and the enduring influence of fellow Swedish enigma Bathory. Hence The Somberlain, a mash-up of terrorizing black metal chord progressions, ghastly vocal cries and death metal’s ferocity, with added texture thanks to a highly refined melodic sensibility. Add a few moments of true metal vocal histrionics (courtesy of producer Dan Swanö) and an album cover that looks like an alternate version of King Diamond’s Abigail, and you have a totally classic album that was only bested by the band itself when they released follow-up Storm of the Light’s Bane. What helps The Somberlain deliver time and time again is not only the bewitching production aesthetic, but Nödtveidt’s songwriting talent. The dude knew how to sculpt a gem. “Black Horizons,” “In the Cold Winds of Nowhere,” “Mistress of the Bleeding Sorrow”: pretty much every track on here. Even the shorter segues bind and strengthen. A short life and career was made eternal by this masterful and still-influential work. Jeff Wagner

Despite their long-term insistence of not printing their lyrics, not giving interviews to explain themselves, rarely playing live and even rarer sightings of any sort of official band photo, Ukrainians Drudkh (Sanskrit for “wood”) have somehow managed to forge a connection with a broad base of black metal fans. They may be singing exclusively about topics related to pride in, and love for, their Ukrainian heritage—or they could be caterwauling about squirrels gathering nuts for winter for all any of us know. But it’s the masterful injection of towering melodies into an epic, chord-strummed war cry that draws folks without any interest in Ukraine folklore into the fray. Folks like us; though, regardless (and admittedly), Drudkh took a giant leap forward from their more Burzuminspired beginnings with Blood in Our Wells, their fourth. It’s not that they altered their approach very much from previous albums’ atmospheric drone, but it was the tacking on of distinctive gothic doom (“Solitude”), heavy metal (“When the Flame Turns to Ashes”) and classic rock (“Furrows of Gods”) sensibilities to their Ukrainian folk black metal base that saw them take a massive step forward and set the stage for a future wealth of awesome output. Kevin Stewart-Panko

34 Von

Ulver

Nattens Madrigal— Aatte hymne til ulven i manden

Deathspell Omega

Cradle of

Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice

The Principle of Evil Made Flesh

No r ma Evan geli u m Di ab o li

Caco pho n o u s ( 1 994 )

( 20 0 4)

Filth

Before they were ridiculed for selling out If the ritual occultists have it right, if (oh, Dark Ones of controversial mersharing Satanic knowledge is synonychandising), the U.K.’s Cradle of Filth mous with relinquishing power, then were the epitome of cool in 1994. True, Deathspell Omega would have to be the they had some beef with (then) teenage most potent musical entity in the InNorwegians over the silliest shit imagformation Age universe. Retaining any inable, but long before Dimmu Borgir more inscrutable magickal had fans in makeup and dominance could only be Juggalo pants, Dani Filth MY TOP 5 achieved by never allowing and company lorded over their music to be heard, black metal like Venom PAUL which would be a damned over Raven. They were god shame. dark, gothic, well-versed Having spent a few years in erotic lit and had the Cradle of Filth battering ears with boileraesthetic taste of FranEmperor, In the plate, Xerox-friendly black cis Ford Coppola. The Nightside Eclipse metal, DSO switched tactics young Filthies were absoDarkthrone, for album number three and lutely in galvanized form. A Blaze in the set out to praise Lucifer with To underfunded Northern Sky the same depth and daring Scandinavians, puritan Immortal, as the forward-thinking but musically moronic Diabolical death metal scene. The reAmericans, and EuropeFullmoon sult—an abyssal rumble ans learning how to string Mysticism underscoring the knotty, two notes together, CraImpaled undulating riff structures dle of Filth were heresy. Nazarene, and rotted-out growls— But the Brits didn’t care. Tol Cormpt Norz carved a wholly new avenue They made The Principle Norz Norz (and attitude) for buzz ‘n’ of Evil Made Flesh all the Bathory, Under blast Satan worship. same. From the kickoff the Sign of the SMRC stands as a towtitle track to “hit” songs Black Mark ering monument, but is “Forest Whispers My conveniently organized Name” and “Summer into relatively accessible segments, a Dying Fast,” Principle is an album of firsts. triumph for the conversion-minded. One, it was probably the first black metal The layered convolutions of next-level produced like a death metal record. Two, it DSO immediately thrust the band to married sophisticated songcraft, brutality, the tip of every extreme Francophile lyrical smarts and filmic grandeur. And tongue, proclaiming the arrival of this three, it’s probably the best-selling, mostdarker, sinewy form. Critical consensus discussed black metal record of the era, is elusive when trying to crown DSO’s despite the shittiest distribution possible. finest work, but SMRC remains a definThere’s a reason The Principle of Evil Made ing moment in the evolution of the band Flesh is in the Hall of Fame. It ruled then, and their dark art. Daniel Lake and does now. Chris Dick

C entury Media (1997)

Ulver only unleashed the wolves a couSatanic Blood (demo) ple times over their long, varied career, s e l f -re l e a s e d (1 9 9 2 ) but the damage done each time was considerable. After a fairly orthodox debut, Let’s be frank: The influence of Von’s they took a trip through the dark and Satanic Blood demo and its value as a histwisting words of neo-folk with Kveldstorical artifact far outstrips the music sanger. Nattens Madrigal was, in a lot of contained therein. The first incarnation ways, a reaction to that. of Von hewed a lot closer to death metal, This sucker captures black metal in Goat’s vocals are mostly unintelligible its rawest, blackest form; it’s like they (except in the spoken intros to “Lamb” plugged their instruments straight into and “Veadtuck,” where he sounds like Satan’s scrotum and hit “record.” The Grover from Sesame Street), and the booklet credits people with mixing and production is fucking dreadful. And, yet, mastering, but I, for one, am skeptievery time something new and original cal—Xasthur demos sound better happens with black metal, the roots than this. While you can maybe make trace directly back to Von. out some blast beats here and some The California trio was an early inmelodies there, for the most part it’s spiration for Varg Vikernes and Fenriz, cloaked in a miasma of feedback. It’s ground zero for the USBM scene, and like they looked back they remain a popular cover at the beauty they’d choice with forward-thinking created with Kveldsartists like Watain and Taake. MY TOP 5 and, sickened, Why? There’s an undeniable KRISTOFFER sanger decided to light a pool charm to the frank, straightforof sludge and human ward presentation of the demo’s filth on fire in order eight songs, and the hypnotic Ulver to both obscure that blast beats cast a spell even when Bathory, misbegotten creation the guitars become repetitive or The Return...... from view and make the bass drops out entirely. The Celtic Frost, Into their definitive statesame sense of wonder does not the Pandemonium ment on black metal. accompany 2012’s Satanic Blood They more than LP, which features an entirely Master’s succeeded, and, different lineup playing reHammer, Ritual having done that, worked versions of songs from Mayhem, moved on to entirethis self-released ’92 demo. BetDe Mysteriis Dom ly different sounds, ter to approach the record as it Sathanas leaving the reeking was initially discovered—on Darkthrone, result behind for a third-generation cassette dub. Transilvanian everyone to admire. The shittier the sound quality, Hunger Jeff Treppel the better. Nick Green

ALLENDER

“GARM” RYGG

Bathory Hammerheart

Emperor/ Enslaved

No i s e (1 9 9 0 )

Emperor/Hordanes Land

Aside from “A Fine Day to Die” and the title track, Bathory’s fourth full-length, Blood Fire Death (1988), served more as a harbinger of the grandiose swaggeringheavy-metal-meets-Romantic-era-classical-bombast evolution to come than an actual transformation. The fleeting “clean” vocals, melodies and acoustic guitar atmospherics might have thrown kvltists for a loop, but Under the Sign of the Black Mark-style savagery remained the unequivocal order of the day. Hammerheart, released two years later, provides the true fulfillment of the prophecy, exchanging hectic, unrelenting grind for Ride the Lightningesque palm-muted chunks and tranceinducing elliptical driving riffage, inhuman growls for a slightly off-key yet wholly triumphant warble ‘n’ shout, a few symphonic flourishes for a full-on mid-album Baroque-ish chamber music piece (“Song to Hall Up High”), and a purist sonic attack for a perhaps more subversive brutality of spirit and vision. Hammerheart is Quorthon’s crossing of the Rubicon, an album that irrevocably changed everything—for Bathory as well as those contemporary and future extreme metal musicians who felt a connection to the raw, recalcitrant primal power of black metal, but wanted to believe it was possible to channel that potency in different ways that would allow them to create their own ends. Shawn Macomber

Originally released as two EPs, Candlelight realized that combining them would summon Satanic black wizards and Viking lord Oðinn in one fell swoop. In all seriousness, Emperor—unlike their peers in Mayhem, Darkthrone, Immortal and Burzum—were more influenced by classical music than, say, Bathory. And it shows in leadoff track “I Am the Black Wizards” and “Night of the Graveless Souls.” While the orchestral aspects may sound thin and dated now, back in 1993, their incorporation into black metal was unquestionably novel. Cultists may swear by the Wrath of the Tyrant demo, but it’s Emperor’s debut EP that set in motion not just the Norwegians’ storied career, but that of many, many others. Equally heady were young trailblazers Enslaved. Pivoting on long songs, heavy synth engagement, strange chord arrangements and high repetition of theme, the then-Haugesund-based trio immediately set themselves apart on Hordanes Land. The key differentiator, however, was that Enslaved weren’t black metal. They were something else. Viking metal, actually. Though that label would officially come with the Frost full-length, the epic quality of Hordanes Land afforded listeners either a journey through the Dead Marshes of Middle-earth or a fjord exploring adventure in pre-Christian Scandinavia. Chris Dick

C a ndl el ight (1993 )

Celtic Frost Morbid Tales EP

No i se ( 19 84)

ear, Old-Guy-Still-Living-In-Mom’s Basement: We received your past hate mail regarding this mag’s tendency to label Celtic Frost “black metal.” Yes, you are not the only old guy around to remember the time when Tommy G’s morbid “heys” and “oohs” were called “thrash,” “death metal,” “speed metal” and “sludge.” However, let the record (or better yet, all the past records from BM waves 1-3) reflect that few extreme metal albums have had more of a direct influence on the canon of grim than the seminal Morbid Tales. The imagery, barely-legible logo, corpsepaint, ominous atmospherics, overt occultism, doom/thrash inbreeding, black ‘n’ roll/punk buzzsaw riffs, ham-fisted experimentalism, croaky, cocky and hate-filled vokills, and that much-copied, most unholy noisy guitar tone—all swam together in that primordial debut, which begat so many of our favorite shadow-loving beasties. Can we at least agree to call them “proto-black,” and then bang heads together in unison over coveted masterpieces such as “Procreation of the Wicked,” “Into the Crypts of Rays” and “Nocturnal Fear”? Raw and regal, apocalyptic and creepy, Tom G. Warrior’s Tales are the bedrock of kult, and in much agreement with said Old Guy, if you do not own and worship this record, you are a total fucking poser! Shawn Bosler

Watain

Sworn to the Dark S e as o n o f Mi s t (2 0 0 7 )

Darkthrone

No proper black metal list would be complete without multiple mentions of Swedish cultists Watain. Arguably the Master of Puppets of their irreverent catalog, 2007’s Sworn to the Dark is an oppressively catchy, rhythmically Welcome to Hell punishing exhibition of warring riff torN eat (1981) rents, anthemic crescendos and elegiac odes of heresy. Led by the looming echo August, 1981, Newcastle, U.K.: Conrad of frontman/bassist Erik Danielsson’s Lant (Cronos), Jeff Dunn (Mantas) and Anthony Bray (Abaddon) enter tyrannical rasp, the record is ceremoImpulse Studios. When they emerge nial in execution; a ritualistically primal, three days later, extreme metal’s Big poetically articulate manifestation of Satanic reverence, societal disdain and Bang is tracked and mixed. What took universal disgust. ’em so long? Who can say? (Haters, insert Where many later BM legions sound comments here.) The important thing purposely orchestrated to fit some preis that Welcome to Hell’s December ’81 defined unholy mold, Watain—Danrelease came not a moment too soon. ielsson, guitarist Pelle ForsRaw, ragged and defiantly berg and drummer Håkan lo-fi, Venom’s first album MY TOP 5 Jonsson—are unsetmarks the point when mettlingly convincing. From al starts kicking its way out ERIK the cryptic utterance of “I of corporate rock’s tainted ascend” in the Jon Nodtwomb and standing on its veidt-dedicated “Legions own eight legs. Watain of the Black Light” and the In the course of pushBathory, monolithic riff cascades of ing themselves to be more The Return...... “Satan’s Hunger” to the than just another troupe Mayhem, epic cacophony of “Storm of pampered NWOBHM De Mysteriis of the Antichrist” and the lapdogs—louder, faster, Dom Sathanas disharmonic subtleties of sicker, more evil—the Von, band opened portals to a “The Serpent’s Chalice,” Satanic Blood fuckload of other. Thrash Watain wield a devotion to the dark side that is paland death metal both start Dissection, pable. Loosely traditional here, and while Venom had Reinkaos verse/chorus song strucyet to deploy the tag desFuneral Mist, tures, sophisticated compotined to become their secSalvation sitions (Sworn to the Dark ond album’s title, their first is instrumentally flawless) might be the blacker of the and a coffin-coated Necromorbus protwo—if only by dint of desecrating duction to give things that cold, harnew ground. Unrepentant and unafraid, rowing ambience makes the 11-track the band consistently depicts Satan as offering that much more efficient in an ally, and eternal damnation as a viits world domination. able–even desirable–after-lifestyle Liz Ciavarella-Brenner option. Rod Smith

Venom

Immortal Pure Holocaust

Osmo se Pr o d u ct i o n s ( 19 9 3 )

In the long lineage of songwriting duos, Abbath and Demonaz Doom Occulta may not have Simon and Garfunkel’s wall of Grammy awards, but they could sure as hell outlast those city boys in a Norwegian snowstorm. Plus, they actually like each other. After their primal Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism in 1992, Immortal launched into black metal’s league of extraordinary blasphemers with their iconic corpsepaint aesthetic and an album that felt like an ambush of frenzied arctic wolves in a sunless winterscape of red snow. While tour drummer Grim scowled on the Pure Holocaust cover, Abbath actually provided the drums—as well as bass guitar and diseased snarls—on this release. With gauntlet spikes freshly sharpened, he and lyricist/guitarist Demonaz seem ready to lead a legion of armored demons into apocalyptic combat. “The Sun No Longer Rises” and “Storming Through Red Clouds and Holocaustwinds” prepare the listener for a dark December, filled with tremolo whiteouts and mid-tempo hooks, while the album’s namesake welcomes damnation like an old, cold friend. With a wintry mix of hail-pummeling blast beats and icy, buzzing riffs, something wicked lurks in this blizzard as the black clouds speed overhead. Sean Frasier

DANIELSSON

Under a Funeral Moon Peacevi lle ( 19 93 )

Transilvanian Hunger (to which, rightly, pretty much any cold black metal album has to be compared) breaks out of its gates like a crazed horse and just keeps going. It deserves its reputation. Under a Funeral Moon, on the other hand, feels a little halting at first—the flat-sounding cymbals stutter, the rhythm fails to bludgeon. And then it happens: the mood takes hold, or you get your head around it. I’ve been listening for years and I’m still not sure which; I’m pretty sure that much of what accounts for its distinctiveness is down to production choices. But by the time you get to “Unholy Black Metal,” anyway—a title which on anybody else’s record would be a complete bore—you’re immersed; the single distortion pedal in play begins to feel like a whole separate language requiring its own vocabulary. The darkness opens up, and it’s ugly, and its terms feel foreign, different, off. Compositionally, these are simple songs: riff, verse, riff, verse, break, riff—but the riffs are manifestos: they dictate the terms of the genre going forward. There are still bands basing their whole careers on the groundwork laid by Under a Funeral Moon. The same is true of Transilvanian Hunger, but Moon’s weirder, less focused, more confused. Its atmosphere doesn’t pulverize; it suffocates. And even though its aftereffects are still visible everywhere, you still feel adrift listening to it. People who aren’t 100 percent clear about what they’re doing are usually scarier than people with plans. John Darnielle

Burzum

Dissection

Storm of the Light’s Bane N u c l e a r B l a s t (1 9 9 5 )

Straddling the usually stark demarcation line between black metal and the melodic death metal espoused by their Gothenburg rehearsal-space mates At the Gates, Dissection forged a formidable sound and intriguing image. Mainman Jon Nödtveidt and guitarist Johan Norman were early members of the shadowy satanic organization Misanthropic Luciferian Order and claimed to be practicing black magicians. The intrigue slanted sinister in late 1997, when Nödtveidt was arrested for and later convicted of murdering a 37-yearold gay man, an act for which he would spend just six years in prison. Brutal hate crimes aside, Storm of the Light’s Bane is a masterstroke of icy melody and venomous riffage. With its almost Gaelic/Thin Lizzy-style twinguitar harmonies, album centerpiece “Where Dead Angels Lie” remains one of the most recognizable black metal songs of all time. Meanwhile, “Night’s Blood” and “Soulreaper” serve up frosty, highly satisfying blasts of epic evil. And let’s not forget that iconic cover art courtesy of Necrolord. Released two years before Nödtveidt’s arrest, Storm infected many a young corpsepaint commando—including the likes of Watain, Naglfar and (probably) Funeral Mist. In fact, Watain mastermind Erik Danielsson played bass for Dissection’s live shows after Nödtveidt’s release from prison. J. Bennett

Burzum

Deat hli ke Si len ce Pr oduct i on s ( 19 9 2)

Yes, the guy’s undoubtedly a total a-hole with far-beyond-questionable politics. And even if you buy his O.J. Simpsonlike retort, he is a convicted murderer. Just saying. Ugly truths (and ubiquitous LOTR references) aside, the one-manband/isolationist/lo-fi archetype affilif you change geograated with much of modern black metal phy, you change the can not be discussed without giving seriapproach of black metous props to ol’ Count Grishnackh, a.k.a. al. There are some perennials: Varg Vikernes. It was this groundbreaking debut hellfire, Satan, blasphemy and (featuring a foreshadowing guest appearmisanthropy. The specific brushance by Euronymous on solo guitar), strokes will vary wildly dependthat tr00-ly lit the genre’s guideposts: ing on country of origin. In many evil-assed tremolo-and-treble-OD’d Northern European countries, guitar riffs, next-level larynx-ripping I.N.R.I. Hell is an icy abyss populated with shrieks, spooky keyboard-driven atmoC ogum el o (1987) spherics, frosty-cum-shitty production castles and ghouls—think the values. Herein, it was all about the vibe cover of Storm of the Light’s Bane. Travel to South America and Hell and the attack over refinement is a different place: It’s a step down from the gutter, a and craft; the resulting rawness Trainspotting trip through the underworld, a noir with and bleakness have become styMY TOP 5 religious overtones. It’s not much different than everylistic benchmarks. WAGNER day life: poverty, struggle, suffering and oppression. 1992 was the year second wave BM came into its own. Sarcofago’s I.N.R.I., which has been repressed on If you consider the Count’s s/t specialty vinyl more times than can be counted, might Sarcófago alongside that year’s big guns, be the most influential South American black metal Sarcófago, A Blaze in the Northern Sky and album ever. Written by kids with minimal music skills I.N.R.I. Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism, and threadbare instruments, it established the template Burzum was like that weirdo Hellhammer, Apocalyptic for raw, punk-infused black metal that is so common in Children of the Corn kid who Raids wasn’t just clowning around in South America now. Songs like “Deathrash” do their corpsepaint in the graveyard, Bathory, The dirty work in about three minutes and with a minimum but was actually getting the Return...... of flourishes, and a full listen leaves you feeling like Venupside-down cross tattoos, killVenom, At War kman after he was slimed in Ghostbusters. The Hall of ing cats and, um, burning down With Satan Fame-certified I.N.R.I. is the train stop where the Hell churches. And it sounds like it. Inquisition, of imagination meets the Hell of human experience. Here’s an overture to the loners Obscure choosing the path left of the left Justin M. Norton Verses for the hand path. Shawn Bosler Multiverse

Sarcófago

ANTICHRIST

Rotting Christ

Weakling Dead as Dreams Tu m u lt (2 0 0 0 )

A lone album, released after the band had evaporated into the atmospheres of very different entities. Rumors (probably seeded by record label sensationalists) spread that only a single physical copy existed, somewhere in Europe; no, multiple copies were buried in locations only accessible to people who had acquired maps indicating the whereabouts of these musical graves. On such perceived obscurity, legends are built, while the jaded cry “Gimmick!” Well, the jaded can cry all they want—a dozen years and several Krallice and Liturgy records later, who will deny Weakling’s throne among the mighty? Not us. The album title alone deserves a semester of philosophical investigation. Track lengths achieve geological time, with distinct compositional sections that weave a stunningly savage tapestry. Fat guitar tones fill all the sonic caverns, martial drums crack in double and quadruple time, synth textures underline every advance of the tormented campaign, and John Gossard’s piercing wail etches the landscape with grisly terror. Limiting the album’s scope to black metal is a mistake—the 20-minute title track certainly doesn’t lie neatly within the boot-prints of old Norwegian giants—but Weakling’s experiments have made an indelible imprint on the style’s progress and endurance as a rich, organic musical language. Daniel Lake

Hellhammer

Thy Mighty Contract Osmo se Pr o d u ct i o n s ( 19 9 3 )

Apocalyptic Raids [EP]

Little do contemporary hordes realize that the Norwegians—the firebrands of black metal’s second wave—were In the beginning, they laughed at Hellgreatly influenced and informed by what hammer. Laughed! Barely took ’em was happening musically and countermore seriously than Venom! It says spiritually in Greece. Rotting Christ, here on the Internet that Kerrang! who covertly entered the Hall of Fame called them “truly execrable” and said via Decibel’s Black Metal Hall of Fame they “suck on the big one.” Well, let’s special issue in 2010 with this very resee who’s on the cover of Kerrang! this cord, were top of Satan’s chops to many month. Hey, it’s some shit called Sleepa blue-eyed northerner. The ing With Sirens! Looks group’s Satanas Tedeum lame! demo (1989) and Passage Okay, you could argue MY TOP 5 to Arcturo EP (1991) effecthat Hellhammer weren’t SAKIS tively put Rotting Christ in actually very good at playing the good disgraces of many, music and technically not but it was debut long-player be incorrect. They still laid Rotting Christ Thy Mighty Contract where down some of black metal’s Venom, the Greeks became true Maliving documents, and ApocBlack Metal lefics of the Mediterranean. alyptic Raids, their single Mayhem, From opener “The Sign commercial release, is one Deathcrush of Evil Existence” to hookof them. Haul “Triumph of laden closer “The Fourth Death” up on the autopsy Bathory, Under Knight of Revelation (Part table and really check out the Sign of the Black Mark 1 & 2),” Thy Mighty Contract the guts. The shaky guitar is a two-sided beast. On one intro that sounds like it’s Celtic Frost, hand, it’s savagely unrelentterrified of itself, joined by To Mega Therion ing. The quickest songs the anguished howls of SaDarkthrone, pound like Lucifer’s hamtanic Slaughter (soon to beA Blaze in the mer, while the dual roars of come Tom G. Warrior). The Northern Sky guitarist Necromayhem and way the song slowly wakes keyboardist Magus Wampyr up and lumbers around, Daoloth have clearly been appropriated confused and crashing into shit, before in modern times by Behemoth. On the it turns into a screwed-down version of other, Rotting Christ had keyboards, a Mötley Crüe’s “Looks That Kill” with sense of harmony and an understanding a guy moaning over it. Hellhammer is of compositional dynamics lost on most ground zero for extreme metal’s most Scandinavians. Take “Fgmenth, Thy regressive mutants; it’s noise rock and Gift,” for example. Catchy as the black late Black Flag and Nirvana’s Bleach; and plague with a rock-like tempo to boot, it’s black metal’s weirdo idiosyncratic it’s certainly not the most common black and depressive wing, all at the same metal template in use at present, but 20 time, into eternity. The misguided reyears later its spirit remains powerful and pent, but it’s a bit late. inimitable. Chris Dick Anthony Bartkewicz N oise (1984 )

TOLIS

Darkthrone Transilvanian Hunger Peacevi lle ( 1994 )

The final installment in Darkthrone’s “unholy trinity” pared down the Norwegian black metal cult’s sound to its bare bones, then ground those bones to dust. After guitarist Zephyrous quit the band, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto were left to tend the graveyard by themselves, and the result was Darkthrone’s most elemental record yet. Fenriz’s guitars buzz in droning, repetitive patterns; his drums putter in unrelenting lockstep. Nocturno Culto rasps blasphemous hymns and eerie folk tales, half of them penned by Varg Vikernes just months after murdering Euronymous. The bargain basement production swaths the entire frequency spectrum in funeral shrouds. All of these qualities have since become de rigueur for black metal, but that fact hasn’t diminished any of Transilvanian Hunger’s power. The record feels essential, almost archetypal. Darkthrone themselves realized that right away, emblazoning “True Norwegian Black Metal” (often misinterpreted as “Norwegian Aryan Black Metal”) right there on the back. The iconic cover art says it all: Transilvanian Hunger record is a crude, unforgiving howl from the inky blackness. Etan Rosenbloom

Mayhem

he three minute Live in Leipzig synth overture Ob scu r e Plasma ( 19 9 3 ) that introduces No disrespect to the great Attila Csihar, Frost would not have been out of but had Per “Dead” Ohlin actually lived place on Angelo Badalamenti’s long enough to record vocals for De Myssoundtrack for David Lynch’s teriis Dom Sathanas, it’s likely that album would occupy the pole position on this early ’90s television soap/mindlist. Instead, this roughly recorded live fuck Twin Peaks—and considalbum will serve as the definitive docuering what transpires during the ment of the “classic” Mayhem lineup subsequent eight songs, it appears Frost (filled out by the equally dead Euronythe intent, too, is simmous, and merely corpselike O s m ose P r o d u c ti o n s (1 9 94 ) patico: Though sumHellhammer and Necrobutcher). Surely, the what-sounds-like MY TOP 5 moned forth by easily recognizable instruments within 15 or so people on hand that night a familiar overarching conceptual “rock ‘n’ roll” frameGRUTLE at the Eiskeller club in Germany work, Frost nevertheless employs these tools in such a had no idea that the Norwegians way as to transport listeners to a heightened, off-kilter wielding pig heads, huffing from Enslaved alternate plane of existence wherein distorted guitars and dead bird-filled bags and mutilatMayhem, ing themselves (at least, Dead manic rhythms can reasonably claim to project the sense De Mysteriis anyway) onstage would redefine and sensibilities of pagan gods and the sword-wielding Dom Sathanas extreme metal’s cultural landscape Eighth Century Norsemen who did their “touring” Darkthrone, for years to come. While suicide, aboard wooden longships. Soulside murder and arson had a significant Journey In this way, Enslaved’s self-described “Viking metal” hand in that, the material on dismay be closer in spirit to Wagner than Lynch, but whatever Mercyful Fate, play from De Mysteriis and debut Don’t Break EP Deathcrush evokes an aura of allusions one chooses to pile on, the bottom line is this harthe Oath chaos, death and decay on its own. rowing-by-way-of-triumphant epic black metal masterwork The raging “Funeral Fog” and Celtic Frost, sends chills down the spine even as the fist instinctively Morbid Tales “The Freezing Moon,” in particpumps. And just for the record, when it comes to appropriular, not only showcase Mayhem Darkthrone, ate raiding-party soundtracks, the ineffable darkness and in their, um, truest form, but also Under a seething power of Frost buries the vast majority of circa-now mercilessly tease with what might Funeral Moon have been. Albert Mudrian chainmail-humpers. Shawn Macomber

Enslaved

KJELLSON

Bathory Blood Fire Death

Un d er On e F lag (198 8 )

Blood Fire Death is like an expanded Under the Sign of the Black Mark, stretched to the limit and taken into the beyond. It went even faster, and planted the seeds of “Viking metal” that reached full fruition on Hammerheart. When it speeds, it is with ridiculous breakneck chaos; when it goes epic, the vistas are cinematically humongous. It’s the mastery of extremes that makes Blood Fire Death the be-all/endall Bathory album [well, for three more entries—eds]: the vile-spitting intensity and unhinged chaos of “Holocaust” and “The Golden Walls of Heaven” versus the stately glory of epics “A Fine Day to Die” and “Blood Fire Death.” Quorthon even wrote an ode to playing as fast as human limitations allow in “Pace ’Til Death.” In so many screechy words and about 300 beats-per-minute, he describes the lust of “speed overdose” while taking a stab at Venom with the song’s final lines (“who’s the fastest of them all?”), reeling off that “Ring Around the Rosie” silliness Venom themselves referenced on 1982’s “Teacher’s Pet.” More tongue-in-cheek mischief comes in “The Golden Walls of Heaven” and “Dies Irae”: If you have the original lyric sheet, you’ll see they’re acrostics, spelling out “CHRIST THE BASTARD SON OF HEAVEN” and “SATAN.” One foot in Valhalla, the other in hell, fuck you all very much, and have a fine day to die. Jeff Wagner

Emperor Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk

C a n d l e l i g ht (1 9 9 7 )

The structure appeared in the woods one night, erected by the high priests of a blasphemous religion: a grand, twisting edifice, a paean to otherworldly elder gods constructed from the bones of the earth in a cruel mockery of the very planet they intended to tear apart into formless chaos. The gods had been here before, in a more primitive form, one that their worshipers swore by. However, this new cathedral represented their evolved state, and while the building would be torn down later in the name of progress, for the moment it was a shining monument, the pinnacle of man’s attempt to grant physical form to nameless cosmic evil. It was awe-inspiring. It was unnatural. It was, for lack of a better word, art. Or whatever the reverse would be. Art implies creation; this was destruction. Although lesser beings would attempt to copy it, they never succeeded in recreating its unique combination of horror and beauty. Still, its legacy remains, a cancerous blot on history whose shining darkness remains a beacon in the mist-shrouded ether of time and space. Jeff Treppel

attens Madrigal (#33 on this list) might be the better choice for black metal purists, but Ulver’s official debut Bergtatt— Eteeventyri 5 capitler (“Taken Into the Mountain— A Fairy Tale in 5 Chapters”) is unquestionably the band’s masterpiece. If Nattens Madrigal was Garm’s attempt to recreate the Bergtatt— sound of Darkthrone’s TransylEteeventyri 5 capitler vanian Hunger, Bergtatt was ScanHea d N ot Found (199 5) dinavian folklore filtered through the lens of Fairport Convention and Sol Invictus: expertly crafted folk metal with a neo-classical twist. The lyrics are entirely in an archaic dialect, thus impenetrable, but the narrative—it’s basically about a woman abducted by a group of forest trolls—is a relatively minor detail in the overall canvas. More important is Garm’s unique phrasings and delivery, as he alternates between “clean” vocals, shrieks and layered Gregorianstyle chants. The fastidious approach towards arrangements became a hallmark of Ulver’s sound even as the band ventured into far more avant-garde territory on subsequent releases, but the attention to detail on Bergtatt is staggering. The guitar arpeggios at the 2:50 mark on “I Troldskogfarenvild” are magical, the use of acoustic interludes throughout is refreshing (especially the finger-picking at the end of “Bergtatt—IndiFjeldkamrene”) and the overall contrast between light and dark elements represents a high-water mark for mid-tempo black metal alchemy. Nick Green

Ulver

Bathory Bathory

Black Mar k Pr o d u ct i on (198 4 )

In which a Swedish teenager geeked up on early Slayer proves himself to be a genuine musical visionary by any definition of the term that counts. Not the very first spark, but the one that ignited the flame that made the rest of this list possible; and not number one on Decibel’s chart, but definitely number one in this writer’s heart. Bathory’s first and third LPs play like demos for the second and fourth—all four are on this list, and while The Return and Blood Fire Death may be more technically accomplished than their predecessors, the charm’s in the odd numbers. Bathory is the cave painting, then: buried in fuzz and sloppiness, still in thrall to those Slayerisms and some semblance of traditional metal riffing. Listen through to “In Conspiracy With Satan,” though, and hear the future. It’s in the way the trebly riffs subsume themselves into the fuzz, transforming into a swarming entity, and in the voice that isn’t Ozzy’s fear of a horrifying unknown or “normal” ’80s metal’s valiant battle against that horror in the form of a dragon or an oppressive society, but a full-throated endorsement of straight up fucking evil. Thomas Forsberg died far too young. Quorthon will live forever, and Bathory is why. Anthony Bartkewicz

Beherit

Drawing Down the Moon

spinef a rm (1993)

eherit’s Drawing Down the Moon is a cosmic mutation of a primitive, earthly ideal. No, seriously. Dig it out and spin it again. It is black metal, but there’s diabolical extra-terrestrial voodoo going on. Whatever black metal was back in 1993, crudely constructed and rooted in brutality, Beherit rewired it according to some esoteric astral circuitry, as though huffing moondust from Titan was a crucial step in their creative process. The band’s debut LP shares the turbulence of black metal’s early aesthetic—and Beherit’s, for hitherto their output was ultra-raw and necro—yet the Finns augment that fury with wacko

sci-fi synths and disembodied computer voices, the latter sounding just as chilling as any of Nuclear Holocausto’s screams and growls. As left-field approaches to singing go, Holocausto’s performance

on Drawing Down the Moon is perhaps only rivaled by Attila Csihar’s sinewy sneer, or Dagon from Inquisition’s toad mating call. Nuclear Holocausto contributed vocals, guitar and synth to Drawing Down the Moon, but he should still be considered an unreliable witness. He’s sketchy on the details; apparently, Beherit’s sound and set-up was always lo-fi and a Marshall Mosfet—a mid-’80s solid-state alternative to the JCM800—was probably used on the vocals. What Señor Holocausto can remember is this: Drawing Down the Moon was nearly never released, and when it was, it was at great personal cost. “Turbo Records didn’t send the money to pay the studio rent,” he says. “We agreed with the studio to have a raw mix, a cassette copy so that I was able to look for a new publisher. And, at the same time, I got extra time to tweak effects and the structure of the album. After a couple of months, there was still no deal and they started to

push me from the studio, so I had to sell my car and some gear to make a final mix and do the mastering. That I lost [my] home and relationship at the same time was indirect consequence from these decisions I was forced to make… but this seems to happen with every album.” Drawing Down the Moon never sounded like a debut; it sounded like an experimental third album, of a band outgrowing a genre whose aesthetic was soon locked down by rules. It foreshadowed 1994’s wantonly experimental and ambient H418ov21.C; “Summerlands” sounds more indebted to Throbbing Gristle than Bathory. As Holocausto puts it, “Musically, I have to mention Coil. But the devil worship had now turned into practice, pagan rituals, [a feeling] that we are among the gods, sacrifice. This was a case of not trying to be the most brutal band on the scene, as on The Oath of Black Blood; this time it was all about getting spiritual.” jonathan horsley

Burzum

Filosofem

m isa nthropy (1996)

he point was to calm you down or get your attention, wear you out, and then finally make you relax and fall into sleep, dreaming. It was a sleep spell, enabling your mind to escape in a certain mood and live in a dream world for some time.” That’s what Burzum mastermind Varg Vikernes told Decibel about Filosofem in the Hall of Fame feature we wrote on the album for the May 2011 issue. Sure,

he’s a convicted murderer and notorious racist crank, but the man makes black metal for the ages. Which is precisely what Filosofem is. Recorded in 1993, just

five months before Vikernes drove eight hours across Norway to stab Mayhem guitarist and Deathlike Silence label boss Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth 23 times in the hallway outside the latter’s Oslo apartment, Filosofem wasn’t released until nearly three years later. By that time, Vikernes had been in prison for two years, fulfilling his Scandinavian tabloid role as Norway’s answer to Charles Manson, but worse: Vikernes actually killed someone. All of which only compounds the legend and aura of Filosofem, which would be an indisputable black metal classic regardless of Vikernes’ sordid history and questionable extracurricular interests. Fact is, Burzum’s fourth album towers above the vast majority of Scandinavia’s second wave on its musical and sonic merits alone. Purposely recorded with some of the shittiest equipment available, the

album’s six songs exude a deeply narcotic effect. Hypnotic, mesmerizing, tranceinducing—all such adjectives apply to Filosofem’s pinging synth, humming bass and buzzing guitar tones. Even Vikernes’ otherworldly vocals seem to emanate from the thick barbiturate ether of a primordial Scandinavian landscape. While “Dunkelheit” (the quintessential Burzum track), “Jesu død” (“Jesus’ Death”) and “Beholding the Daughters of the Firmament” inculcated hordes of corpsepaint commandos and laid much of the foundation for the isolationist black metal movement that followed (Leviathan, Xasthur, etc.), songs like “Decrepitude II” and the 25-minute “Rundtgåing av den Transcendentale Egenhetensstøtte” invoked the electronic astral-traveling of Tangerine Dream or Vangelis, and even foreshadowed some of the more minimalist work of Scottish electronic duo Boards of Canada. Despite its excellence and influence, its creator sees Filosofem as an inherently flawed album, revealing that all six songs were culled from the writing sessions for previous records, making this black metal landmark—incredibly—an album of “leftovers.” Iconoclast to the last, Vikernes told Decibel that he only likes the first half of Filosofem. And if he could do it over again? “I would have included only tracks that I was truly happy with. I’d include at least one fast track and I’d make sure all the lyrics were in the same language… And out of spite, I’d call the music ‘elf metal’ or something, just to make everyone understand how I felt about the development [of ] the black metal scene.” j. bennett

Immortal

At the Heart of Winter o s m ose produc tions (1999)

t the Heart of Winter almost belongs in the top 10 for the booklet alone, a series of images that helped define black metal for a mainstream audience as much as church burnings and Lords of Chaos. The sight of Abbath Doom Occulta and a shirtless, beer-bellied Horgh lifting an invisible Heisman Trophy and throwing theoretical fireballs at an unseen enemy are forever etched in the annals of the blackened arts. Of course, those photographs’ inclusion was an accident—according to Abbath, in his interview for Decibel’s Hall of Fame feature on the album, “We were experimenting with photos, and through some stupid mistake, the pictures ended up at Osmose. They weren’t supposed to be on the album at all—we were shocked when we saw them in the booklet.”

Still, if their grimacing, clown-painted visages earned them notoriety, the music inside made them legends. Immortal had been cranking out quality black metal for close to a decade, but 1997’s Blizzard Beasts was a huge misstep, a poorly produced burst of hyperspeed metal that ignored their strengths and gave guitarist/lyricist Demonaz severe tendonitis—a devastating condition that nearly finished the band. Fortunately, the terrible trio regrouped, and with Abbath now on guitar and Demonaz (literally) faxing in his epic tales of storms and sorcery, they hooked up with producer Peter Tägtgren at the Abyss and channeled their frustration into their most fully realized work to date—one that threw open the gates of Blashyrkh to outside influences. While there’s something to be said for purity (Varg Vikernes has a lot to say about it, in fact), by 1999 it was clearly time to get some miscegenation going. “We decided to go in a different direction because Bliz-

zard Beasts wasn’t working,” explained Abbath. “Me and Horgh worked out this groove—I put in more of my oldschool influences, before I started listening to extreme metal. For example, one of the riffs on ‘At the Heart of Winter’ is inspired by ‘Hells Bells’ by AC/DC.” And in a way, this is their Back in Black or Hysteria: a record inspired by loss; harnessed by the perfect producer; one that captured the essence of the band while pushing the music to its mythic extreme. The six songs here reaffirm what Slayer had learned over a decade before with South of Heaven: it’s not all about unrelenting aggression. Melody can be a vicious weapon when used in Satan’s service. And Abbath himself agrees: “[It’s so] pure and clear somehow… We felt like we were opening up a new world, and with At the Heart of Winter, we kind of set a new standard for ourselves. It was the beginning of a new era, and it saved us somehow.” jeff treppel

Marduk

Opus Nocturne o s m ose produc tions (1994 )

arduk’s masterstroke Opus Nocturne started the way so many classic albums do: kids in a rehearsal room in the middle of nowhere with a boatload of anger and aggression. What Marduk channeled, however, is far from juvenile. Opus Nocturne is one of black metal’s landmarks, an album that features an orchestral touch and some of Marduk’s most infectious riffs. Opus Nocturne was Marduk’s third album and their last with producer Dan Swanö. The bandmates were living close together in Sweden and traveling 30 minutes to the small city of Finspång to record. The album was birthed in a moldy basement. “We always focus on channeling the energies and making the most of every-

thing we do,” guitarist and band founder Morgan Håkansson says, fresh from an Asian tour. “I consider all songs to be classic in their own way. It’s flattering that those old hymns still stand strong and continue to gain respect and enthusiasm.” Håkansson says Opus Nocturne was a natural progression from their second release, Those of the Unlight, and better

showcased the band’s violent, dark preocto a future set list. “It’s an extraordinary cupations. The songs were written and rehymn. We should do that live again, as we hearsed in advance, so recording took just haven’t done it since 1995.” Opus Nocturne ended up being a bit of a a week. There was, however, tension with Swanö, and both band and producer knew eulogy for a fallen friend, as album centerOpus Nocturne would be their final project. piece “Untrodden Paths (Wolves Pt. II)” “He was a great companion, but we was included on Nordic Metal: A Tribute all knew that it was the last album we to Euronymous. For many, that album was were going to do together,” Håkansson their introduction to the second wave of recalls. “We had a great experience workblack metal. ”We were offered to be on it, as ing with mastermind Dan we were Euronymous allies,” and learned a lot from him, Håkansson says. “We were MY TOP 5 and I assume he learned a working very close together lot from us as well. But evand Marduk was planning MORGAN to team up with [Euronyerything comes to an end, and Opus Nocturne was the mous’] label [Deathlike Siend of that era.” lence Productions]. But we Marduk “The Appearance of all know how it ended.” Bathory, Spirits of Darkness” preHåkansson says that Under the Sign of pares listeners for a jourafter almost two decades, the Black Mark ney to the underworld. he is still proud of the “unMayhem, Some of Marduk’s best polished and grim” album. De Mysteriis songs are part of Opus Noc“I listened to it with some Dom Sathanas turne, including concert friends a year ago and was Darkthrone, perennial “Materialized in struck by how much the A Blaze in the Stone,” “Sulphur Souls” music and lyrics still mean Northern Sky and “Autumnal Reaper.” to me, and how it still Abruptum, represents the orchestra Håkansson is considering Obscuriatatem adding “From Subterraknown as Marduk.” Advco nean Throne Profound” justin m. norton Amplectére Me

HÅKANSSON

Celtic Frost, To Mega Therion

Satyricon

Nemesis Divina m oonf og (1996)

his is Armageddon!” Sigurd “Satyr” Wongraven growls at the outset of Satyricon’s exquisitely cacophonous landmark third album Nemesis Divina (1996)—and, indeed, what follows carries black metal to its glorious apotheosis. “That time, those days… it can never be relived,” Satyr says today. “Everything was so small, everyone was so tight. I had rented a small cottage on a farm. Nocturno Culto was living far in the north, and I

told him he should move down to where I was living, which he did. We would see each other all the time. Frost would come out to the village, and we would go for long walks in the woods and rehearse and

stay out making a campfire, drinking beer, hanging out until the morning. Though things were calmer than in ’92 or ’93, police were still showing up at the door asking all kinds of questions about things we in reality had nothing to do with, which created a tension and vibe very unusual and very different from today… You don’t sit around and say, ‘We are making a classic!’ but there was something special about the atmosphere at the time.” To say the dark stars were aligning is an epic understatement. “When I first began working out early keyboard parts, it was actually with Ihsahn, but then all the trouble where he was living became too complicated,” Satyr says. “So, I just continued with a session guy. I don’t know if I’ve told people that before, but I guess with Nocturno Culto from Darkthrone, Ihsahn from Emperor, and Frost and myself, there was some sort of black metal dream team or whatever when we started.” The eventual sessions proved intense. Satyr and Frost butted heads amidst creative churn, and striving to perfectly ex-

ecute intricate riffs left Satyr’s tendonitiswracked fingers looking “like bratwurst sausages.” Still, the reward and scope of the coming triumph revealed itself during early Nemesis tours, as songs like “The Dawn of a New Age” and especially “Mother North” forged a near-instantaneous connection. Almost two decades later, festival audiences 40,000-strong will still sometimes drown the band out singing along to those same black metal anthems. “We never dreamt of such things,” Satyr says, “so I can only feel humble, thankful and privileged.” The post-Nemesis Satyricon continue to confound expectations and blaze new trails, but to Satyr as an artist, it’s all part of the same continuum. “People ask about sources of inspiration, and I always say its not about the music that a band made; it’s the courage in expressing themselves however they want in a freespirited, unlimited way,” he says, citing the evolutions of Bathory and Celtic Frost. “That is an idea and goal Satyricon took on early, and it was no different with Nemesis.” shawn macomber

was a general roundup of anybody playing anything heavier than mainstream pop,” original Venom drummer Tony “Abaddon” Bray says. “We said [to a reporter interviewing us] that if Bon Jovi were heavy metal, then we were not that; we were speed metal, black metal, death metal. The reporter nearly had a fit trying to write down all the subgenres that we were inventing on the spur of the moment in one outpouring of hate and vitriol.” Which is the beginning of that demonic black metal thread that has snaked its way through three-plus decades of sonic malevolence. Both Black Metal and its predecessor Welcome to Hell clearly were graphic/visual precursors to the “real” black metal movement that emerged more fully formed later in the decade with bands like Bathory and Mayhem (who both reportedly took their names from Venom songs), but musically, there’s little connection. Venom’s early material

Venom

Black Metal neat (1982)

he problematic thing about Black Metal ending up at number five on Decibel’s list of the Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time is that no one really considers it a black metal album. It barely qualifies as proto-black metal musically, and most would lump it in with the NWOBHM and thrash. But there is a thread, no matter how ephemeral, from Venom to modern bands like Watain. Venom’s ascension from the primordial metal goo of the NWOBHM coincided with the splintering of “heavy metal” into an ever-growing number of subgenres. Loath to be lumped in with lightweights

like Ratt and Quiet Riot, bands and fans sought new ways of describing the darker, heavier emerging styles. “Black Metal was a kind of rebellion to the term ‘heavy metal,’ which at the time

41  PHOTO BY FRANK WHITE

could be best described as sloppy, punkinfluenced thrash, and it wasn’t always particularly kvlt. “There’s a fucking 12-bar blues track on there, ‘Teacher’s Pet,’ so it’s a little bit of a mixed bag,” original Venom guitarist Jeff “Mantas” Dunn admits. “It was just us doing what we wanted to do and not sticking to the rules and having every song sort of genre-specific.” What we can give them full credit for—even if they were way less serious about it than Watain—is daring to sing so blatantly about dark topics (Satan!) and putting fucking goat heads and pentagrams front and center on their album covers. Mantas agrees: “I think the only connection is the subject matter,” he says. It’s all that that inspired the tr00 first-wave black metal bands. Black Metal is a fantastic and groundbreaking album in many regards, but it’s arguably not even really a black metal album. adem tepedelen

MY TOP 5

SAMOTH Emperor

Bathory, Under the Sign of the Black Mark Mayhem, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Celtic Frost, Emperor’s Return EP

Emperor

In the Nightside Eclipse ca ndl el ight (1994 )

t’s important to remember that when Emperor’s debut, In the Nightside Eclipse, was released in winter 1994—licensed for North America by the Century Black imprint a year later— Norwegian black metal was far from fledgling. Darkthrone, Burzum, Satyricon and Immortal were well off to their respective starts, issuing startlingly inspired and unique efforts while the rest of the extreme metal world watched in distrust and unease. Talk of death and destruction was one thing, but acting on it was altogether surprising, if not condemned. The Norwegians, to most, were more interested in media headlines and sensationalism than music. But that’s not the case. At all. Looking at In the Nightside Eclipse, Emperor (and their peers) were definitely more about music than tabloid spotlights. It’s a complex affair, roaring and majestic, evil and subversive. Musically, it draws from classical composers

like Grieg and Wagner, while remaining spiritually aligned with vintage Bathory. In 1994, it was black metal’s most accomplished work—compositionally and thematically—something Decibel acknowledged a decade later with J. Ben-

Tveitan recalls, “I find it nett’s well-penned Hall of Darkthrone, almost strange how easily Fame piece. A Blaze in the Make no mistake— we related to the fact that Northern Sky Emperor did ham it up in we were to record our first Tormentor, print as much as they did full-length. Obviously, we Anno Domini in corpsepainted countewere very excited, going to demo nance, but their true goal Grieghallen Studios and was advancement of craft. all that, but everything just “In the Nightside Eclipse was a very imporseemed to float together at that time. Like it was just the natural step after tant album for Ihsahn and myself, and having done the EP, toured the U.K., has sort of built the foundation of our musical careers,” says Emperor guitarist etc. Probably it was because we were so Tomas “Samoth” Haugen. “It has today young and so soaked up in this whole been picked up by a new generation, and it black metal way of life. The beautifully is regarded as a classic album in the realm naïve subjectivity of youth [let] us create with 110 percent conviction and authenof extreme metal. We are definitely proud ticity, with no regard to our lack of skills of that, and have for a while been talking and experience.” about doing something special to mark the 20-year anniversary of this album.” The mere thought of Tveitan and Haugen coming across as humble and Let this thought not be lost: Emperor were just teenagers when they wrote and appreciative is almost laughable. In the recorded In the Nightside Eclipse. That’s mid-’90s, they would’ve given you pure atright. While most of us were working titude from atop their (black) ivory tower, minimum wage jobs and getting smashed but now, as the years have worn away the edges, Emperor’s chief creators seem alon the weekends, Emperor were in the midst of crafting a genuine black metal most incredulous of what In the Nightside classic. They had a paradigm shift in their Eclipse has done for them—and, most respective hands, little did they know. importantly, for music. O’ mighty Lords “Looking back,” Vegard “Ihsahn” of the Night indeed. chris dick

MY TOP 5

FENRIZ

Darkthrone Bathory, Under the Sign of the Black Mark Celtic Frost, To Mega Therion (everything ‘84-’85, really)

Mercyful Fate, Don’t Break the Oath Destruction, Infernal Overkill Sodom, Obsessed by Cruelty

Darkthrone A Blaze in the Northern Sky

pea c ev il l e (1992)

arkthrone plays unholy black metal exclusively.” That was the slogan on the Norwegian masters’ second album, released just 13 months after their death metal debut, Soulside Journey. As drummer, lyricist and all-around metal maniac Fenriz tells Decibel, the legendary Blaze was a major stylistic shift in Darkthrone’s sound. In fact, the band abandoned a nearly-completed album—later released as Goatlord—in order to pursue their nascent black metal muse: “The writing process was transitional, breaking out of the dark technical death metal and, because of the time limit [due to their contractual deadline], having to ‘blacken up’ a lot of riffs that were really death metal.” The result is nothing less than a stonecold classic. In six songs spread across 42 minutes, Fenriz, guitarist/vocalist Nocturno Culto and then-guitarist Zeph-

yrous—who appears on the album’s iconic cover—bask in a glorious lo-fi hell of their own design, stacking riff after torrential riff into what would become

(Steamhammer vinyl the first studio fullbeyond the album’s early version—very important!) length of Scandinavian 1992 release date before black metal’s notorious being stabbed to death But it’s insane not to second wave, beating by Burzum’s Varg Vikmention Mayhem, Live in Leipzig; the first three Burzum’s self-titled ernes. As of this writing, Burzums; first Master’s debut to the shelves by Blaze’s legacy has outHammer, Bathory’s mere weeks. lasted Euronymous by first, second and fourth, It’d be hard for us to 20 years. If Darkthrone Hellhammer; Sarcófago, pick our favorite track, had stuck with death I.N.R.I. and so on. but Fenriz has no such metal, things might be difficulties. “It’s obvidifferent. ously ‘In the Shadow of the Horns,’” he “I think we would be respected as an replies. “It was good teamwork between outlandish death metal band,” Fenriz ventures. “Many—mainly death Zeph and me—we brought in the Motörhead vibe for the first time [on metal fans—believe our black stuff was the] first half-time quicker riff. During bullshit and that the death metal stuff was our career, we have many good songs that good. But these are too ‘new’ fans for our just don’t sit right/well, and many not so taste. We come from a time when [there good that really sit well. This one ticks were] no clear boundaries between death both boxes. But whole B-side, I can take and black and thrash... but in hindsight I it or leave it.” spurred this new thinking on because I Recorded in less than a week during like to state the difference between black and death on the A Blaze in the Northern August of 1991 at Creative Studios in the band’s hometown of Kolbotn, Norway, Sky album. It’s clearly a mix of those Blaze was “eternally dedicated” to Maystyles, but in a new way. People seemed to hem guitarist/founder Euronymous, think that it was pure black. And that was “the king of black/death metal underone of the building blocks that destroyed ground,” who lived about a year and a half black metal.” j. bennett

Mayhem

De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

d e athl i k e sil enc e produc tions (1994 )

o warning, no bullshit: “Funeral Fog” rips open a chasm of caustic sound that doesn’t relent until the title track licks the blade 46 minutes later. No spooky intro, no spooky outro, no spooky sound effects whatsoever—the music itself delivers horror enough. Even the most desensitized extreme metal fanatic cannot help but be affected by the eccentric, maddening torment of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and its mayhemic din. The scorching guitar sound and odd chord voicings of Euronymous provide a relentless swirling hypnosis, well-supported by rumbling bass notes and a drumming barrage that defines the tumult of True Norwegian Black Metal. Then

there’s the voice and the sound. Avoiding black metal’s patented screech entirely, the inhuman croaks of Attila Csihar are like some Lovecraftian monstrosity come to haunt Grieg Hall. And that space, a.k.a. Grieghallen, is a valuable catalyst in

the Norwegian aesthetic, with engineer Pytten helping numerous bands attain the same cavernous, reverb-laden, otherworldly aura captured on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas throughout 1992 and 1993. Brought in as a session member after intended vocalist Dead made good on his name and offed himself in 1991, Csihar remembers: “We were young, we were enthusiastic, we were all on fire. Everybody was crazy and into different occult philosophies and stuff like that. In the studio, I had this big vocal room—or ‘death room’—where they set up the mikes, and I asked for curtains so no one could see me. I put a lot of candles around myself to make a darker and [more] cryptic atmosphere.” While the supporting members added much to the originality of the music, leader Euronymous steered things toward the unconventional and away from Mayhem’s primitive early approach. “He was full of ambition,” recalls Csihar. “One might say he was a megalomaniac and had fucked-up surreal visions, but he could

see the future pretty well. And the music sounded very advanced, even back then. New, futuristic and technical. I think the music was ahead of its time.” By the time De Mysteriis was released in 1994, there was no more Mayhem. Arson, murder and imprisonment reduced the lineup to one: a lone drummer left standing in the ashes, wondering what the fuck happened to his band. Controversy still rages as to whether drummer Hellhammer made the right decision in keeping bassist Varg Vikernes’ bass tracks on the album, but if the Burzum leader’s lines throughout the title track and the cool counterpointing melodies in “Pagan Fears” and “Life Eternal” are considered, we should be thankful the original recording was kept intact, despite the diabolical doings that later occurred. Csihar believes that “all those things added a lot to the album, so it’s not only the music but the whole history, the whole spirit and definitely the people who gave their lives and blood for this band.” jeff wagner

EYES SET TO KILL MASKS

WATAIN THE WILD HUNT

Get your music from a real record store. Find them at facebook.com/metalclub

Bathory

Under the Sign of the Black Mark bl a c k m a rk produc tions (1987 )

Intimidated. Powerful. Inspired. That album somehow sums up all the important ingredients that made Bathory into something legendary and completely unique. ^

athory’s Under the Sign of the Black Mark was released May 11, 1987. It’s not difficult to remember what I was listening to at the time: it wasn’t Bathory. Had I heard the unapologetic brutality of “Massacre,” “Equimanthorn,” “Chariots of Fire” and “Of Doom......” I would’ve dismissed Bathory outright as talentless, resourcestrapped drivel. And I likely would’ve been afraid. Not just by what my parents would’ve thought—they were already highly skeptical of Metallica, Testament and especially Slayer. Throughout the ’80s, Satanic music was taken at face value and very seriously. There was no dispelling of myth or “Oh, they’re just trying to sell records” sentiment. But continued exposure to Celtic Frost (and Hellhammer by extension), early Death, Kreator and early Sepultura started the acclimation process—beginning with Blood Fire Death—whereby I was able to appreciate not just Quorthon’s (born Ace Börje Forsberg) rampaging din, but the uniqueness of his art. Turns out Darkthrone’s Fenriz was also in the same pre-Viking longship. “I got that album back when it came out,” he recalls. “I was 16 and getting into the global underground scene. But the sound was still too cold for me at the time. The next year, I bought Blood Fire Death and started listening to that more and more. and so it came to be that I loosened up a bit to Under the Sign of the Black Mark. You see, it was a monotone album in a decade where all metal was hectic. Cold and monotone, which was something we Norwegians took with us four years later when we could build more black metal albums from the spare parts of the ’80s black metal vibes. And Under the Sign of the Black Mark was the engine.” What many don’t realize, however, is that Quorthon, specifically on Under the

Sign of the Black Mark, blueprinted modern-day black metal in sound and sight. Take “Massacre” or “Equimanthorn” or “Woman of Dark Desires”—whether it’s the Norwegians, the Swedes, the French or anybody else for that matter, Bathory’s black mark is indelible. The sound of Quorthon’s guitar, the riff presentations, the production values— admittedly much better on Under the Sign of the Black Mark than albums previous—his croaking vocals and absolute conviction are all firmly embedded in the Second Wave of Black Metal, and every wave thereafter. Similarly, showmanship was not lost on Quorthon. His fire-breathing routines, bone necklace, real ox bone prop (replete with rotting flesh), various “indecay” outfits and wild hair captured the

Erik Danielsson

imagination. His image matched his musical and lyrical aesthetic. And it was all firmly believable. Quorthon was the one your mother, your pastor and your fears warned you about. “Intimidated. Powerful. Inspired,” beams Watain’s Erik Danielsson. “And proud of having been a die-hard Bathory fan for many, many years. That album somehow sums up all the important ingredients that made Bathory into something legendary and completely unique. Music, lyrics, song titles, artwork, atmosphere—everything with it is perfect, and yet so totally backwards and unnatural. Truly marked by the Sign...” The inconvenient truth about Bathory’s third long-player is that it’s far more diverse than most black metal purists are willing to admit. “Massacre,” “Equimanthorn,” “Chariots of Fire” and “Of Doom......” rage with fiery abandon, but the other half is remarkably mature in composition and emotional heft. It’s this other side of Quorthon that intrigues. The way the primitive transitions into the insightful and how tunes like “Call From the Grave,” “13 Candles” and particularly “Enter the Eternal Fire” are paths for future Bathory classics. “During Under the Sign of the Black Mark, Quorthon’s songwriting [is more developed],” concurs Quorthon’s father, Boss (a.k.a. Börje Forsberg). “The production was mostly created in-studio, and [it] is an honest, emotional and uncompromising album that was groundbreaking in

metal history. My personal favorite track, ‘Enter the Eternal Fire,’ opens the door for Quorthon’s innermost feelings and [the] greatness of his performance.” By being cold and distant, brutal and confrontational, Under the Sign of the Black Mark was an infernal template from which legions of inspired and influenced musicians borrowed and plundered in an effort to continue the Dark Lord’s good work. Whether Quorthon knew or recognized the impact is a debate for another day, and though we may never know the actual sales count—Boss confirms Bathory’s catalog has long since passed the two-million mark—for Under the Sign of the Black Mark, we do know that it’ll forever be the best (and most revered) black metal album ever. Hard to believe Side Darkness and Side Evil are 26 years old this year. And that Quorthon would’ve turned 47 had he not exited this world prematurely. Strange how time flies and legends are created. Equally bizarre how a record that was loathed and loved at it's time of release and issued on a small Swedish independent is now sitting at the acme of our Top 100 List. “Strange? Not at all!” Boss exclaims when Decibel asks what he thinks of the album’s chart-topping dominance. “Under the Sign of the Black Mark has been topvoted as best-ever metal album in many magazines over the years. It is exactly what the album deserves. Thank you!” Rest in Peace, Quorthon. Your call from the grave is ours. chris dick

Enslaved BELOW THE LIGHTS

SAILIN’ ON the making of

Enslaved’s

Below the Lights story by chris dick

hile the trio of albums Blodhemn,

Mardraum: Beyond the Within and Monumension afforded Enslaved a very wide and superbly deep palette from which to draw, sculpt and splatter their blend of black, Viking and progressive metal, something wasn’t quite right. The feelings and intentions of the aforementioned albums were pure, but the Norwegians had corrupted their DNA along the way. Founding members Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson realized that after the touring cycle for Monumension had ended, change needed to take place. And fast. They needed to right the longship, make her sail true again. For the better part of five years, Enslaved had democratized the songwriting process and, illogically, entropy ensued—for as much as Bjørnson and Kjellson relish uncertainty, they also look at Enslaved as a literal and metaphorical extension of themselves. Similarly, internal turmoil threatened to blow apart what little organization Enslaved were clinging to. Guitarist Roy Kronheim had entered a new headspace and, so the story goes, was asked to leave. Meanwhile, drummer Dirge Rep (a.k.a. Per Husebø) had different intentions for his future. They didn’t include Enslaved.

But the key component to Enslaved in present form was Bjørnson reining in the songwriting duties on Below the Lights. This can’t be overstated. Actually, prior to Blodhemn, the riffmaster had owned song creation and conceptualization, so stepping back into the spotlight full-time was an area of comfort, not concern. With Bjørnson and Kjellson helming Enslaved again, the DNA lost to the evils of chaos and ambition received a welcome restructure. The line back to debut EP Hordanes Land and first LP Vikingligr Veldi was redrawn on purpose. But Below the

DBHOF

Enslaved Below the Lights OSMOSE PRODUCTIONS,

APRIL 14, 2003 Lights was no rehash of old. In fact, it was quite tones and phrasing are undeniably so. Same with the opposite. Enslaved’s seventh album was their Kjellson’s uncompromising snarl. Put him up Fire swept clean the earth, all right path forward. They were following their hearts. against any caw of abyssal origin and he’ll triTo be a real functioning, professional outfit or to umph. And Dirge Rep’s drums? Possibly the most sit back in the confines of Bergen and make alferocious and calculating display of skin-poundbums for smaller and smaller sets of ears was a simple question ing ever captured at storied Grieghallen Studios. So, it’s with a to answer. Enslaved chose the former. dead stare and pallid clap of hands that we, in the fall of 2013, Arguments can be made on both sides of the fjord if this verwelcome Enslaved’s Below the Lights to the Hall of Fame. Ut av mørsion of Enslaved is black metal enough, but Bjørnson’s guitar ket og inn i lyset, Enslaved. []

Enslaved BELOW THE LIGHTS

 Lights, camera, oranges

Kjellson (c) and crew usher in Enslaved’s modern era

We had one tour on this release, and that was a nine-show tour in the States, including Milwaukee Metal Fest, where we got cut off after four songs because the headliners Body Count needed to play their fantastic show in front of maybe 200 people.

G RUT LE KJE LLSON

Only two years separate Monumension and Below the Lights. Yet there’s a noticeable change in writing style. Why is that? I wonder if you felt Enslaved had lost the connection to the past and wanted to restore it without full-on regression. IVAR BJØRNSON: Monumension was both a leading up to and a conclusion of where we had been going. Monumension is the last one before I took full control over the songwriting again. Up to and including Eld, I had been writing everything. The albums between—Blodhemn, Mardraum and Monumension—were more of a collaboration project, with Grutle chipping in and Kronheim contributing to songs. With Below the Lights, it was back to me doing the music and Grutle doing the lyrics. I guess that’s the most significant change. We really needed to move on as a band. You can view Blodhemn, Mardraum and Monumension as

a sidetrack in one sense. It was really necessary for the band. We had to find out, experiment a little bit, to define not necessarily the boundaries, but where the band would sound the best. With Blodhemn, one fast blast album was enough. We got that out of our system. Monumension, I think, was too fragmented. There were a lot of individual points of view on where to take the band. It was time to rediscover Enslaved’s sound, in a way. We didn’t want to be the eternal black metal-sounding band that wasn’t really black metal, if you know what I mean. We wanted to do something on our own, and we were ready to do that. We wanted to work a lot harder to go in the direction of Below the Lights. GRUTLE KJELLSON: I think we sort of had too many ideas and too little focus on Monumension. It resulted in a couple of good songs, like “Convoys

to Nothingness” and “The Voices.” But there were far too many loose ends, too many really undeveloped ideas that were put together quite too fast. The chemistry in the band wasn’t the best either. I cannot remember a single moment we spent together in the studio. It was all one by one. On Below the Lights, almost half the band was gone. Roy was out, and I think Dirge had already made up his mind that this was his last album with us, his swan song with Enslaved. A very good one, I might add. I think he wanted to give us a goodbye present. So, basically it was just me and Ivar left, and in many ways we felt like we were back in 1991. A fresh start and a completely different focus! This is perhaps the biggest turning point for Enslaved; maybe not commercially, but who cares about that in the long run? ARVE ISDAL: I’m going to say what I think. I really don’t know. [Laughs] I guess it was more about what Ivar and Grutle wanted to do. More of a bridge between Monumension and the albums that came after it. Did the lineup changes, starting with Roy Kronheim, also facilitate the change in direction? BJØRNSON: It’s more a consequence. First, we decided to go in that direction. With Roy, it became evident it wouldn’t work out in the direction we wanted to go. With Dirge Rep, it was the other way around. It became obvious he didn’t want to go in that direction. Both were pretty clear cut. KJELLSON: Roy was, and probably still is, a good musician, and also creative. But at the time,

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 How below can you go?

Practice makes progressive for necro drummer Dirge Rep

Enslaved BELOW THE LIGHTS

We’ve been in the studio before with computers … like, “Oh, go back 20 seconds.” With Below the Lights, it’s like, “Oh, go back to where the lines are all jaggy. That’s the chorus.” Grutle [Kjellson] said he wanted the lines to Arve [Isdal]’s leads to look like an erect penis.

IVA R BJØ RNSO N

he had to leave. We felt like we could no longer use his contributions in the band. Such things just happen, you know, for one reason or another. We don’t have to go deeper into the actual reasons for his departure. Let’s just say that a lot of things happened in his life at the time, and they were hard for him to handle the right way. We have many good memories from the time with Roy in the band. Both musical, social and completely nuts! I would not say that the lineup changes facilitated an actual change of direction. It was more like a rough spring cleaning to get us back on track. What happened with Kronheim? I seem to remember him wanting to add stoner rock-like elements to Enslaved. BJØRNSON: In retrospect, most elements would fit in a sense, but it’s the way it’s presented that counts. The same when you draw in influences

from completely different sources. It’s how they’re interpreted through the Enslaved sound. What Roy really wanted was to change that around. He wanted Enslaved to sound like something else. I don’t think he was comfortable with the core sound of Enslaved. He wanted to change that. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen. Not even if we wanted to. To be honest, I don’t think Roy would’ve been a member of the band after that. Even if we were musically aligned. He was going through some very heavy personal stuff. At that point in time, he wouldn’t have been able to work with anybody. The split was totally amicable. The way we presented it to him, he just agreed. We were just one corner of his life tapestry that was unraveling. I think it was a sense of relief for us, ’cause it’s something you dread doing. Making that phone call is never easy. Also, I think from his side, as much as things were a mess, he felt a bit of relief, too. Judging from the relationships we have today, we made the right decision, I think. It must’ve been the right thing to do for all parties involved. KJELLSON: Roy went and started this stoner/hard rock band called Obscure. They have released an album and played some gigs here and there. I think they are still around. Yeah, Roy was eager on doing so. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. [Laughs]

You replaced Roy with Arve “Ice Dale” Isdal. How did you know he fit the Enslaved mentality? BJØRNSON: We were doing Below the Lights. Roy was out. What Roy brought into the picture was to underline the value of proper leads in songs. It didn’t seem right to go back to my Quorthon/ Slayerish solos. The only reason they were like that was to cover up the fact I didn’t really know how to play solos. [Laughs] We needed somebody to help us out with that. I had been in touch with Torgrim [Øyre], the guy who ran the Hole in the Sky festival and is now doing the Beyond the Gates festival in Bergen. He used to be the singer in Malignant Eternal. [Torgrim and Arve] were roommates. He was a talented guitarist. He liked to work across projects. So, we asked if he could listen to the album, stop by the studio, and perhaps put on some leads. He agreed. There was a little bit of trickery involved. At first, it was session-only. We were like, “Okay, that’s good. But now that you’ve done it, would you agree to be a member of the band full-time?” When we rehearsed the rhythm parts together, the way it sounded between the two of us, was like nothing I’ve had before. We were totally in synch. He was more or less pushed into the band. [Laughs] ISDAL: I lived with Ivar at the time. We were friends. They just asked me to step in. I was a guitar player, so… Ivar was doing the Hole in the Sky festival, along with a friend of mine, and

IN THIS MOMENT BLOOD

QUEENSRYCHE QUEENSRYCHE

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Enslaved BELOW THE LIGHTS he asked me to help them out with a few gigs. They needed somebody to replace Roy. Basically, I kept on going. [Laughs] When Per, the drummer, left the band, it was just me, Ivar and Grutle. They just asked me if I wanted to be in the band and I said yes. KJELLSON: At the time, he wasn’t very experienced with the whole extreme metal thing, but neither was Roy when he joined us. So, we decided to give it a try. First as a session member, and later as a full member in the fall of 2002. Lineup turmoil aside, Below the Lights is seen as the entry point for modern-era Enslaved. Would you agree with that assessment? BJØRNSON: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a good place to start. There are hints of Below the Lights in the earlier catalog, but Below the Lights is a more complete statement. For me, it’s the early days up to the Eld record, then there’s the middle section that ends at Monumension, and then there’s Below the Lights, which marks the new era. If you like newer Enslaved, that’s as far back as you should go. With your first purchase of old Enslaved. Then, ease yourself back. Listening to the new album and then going straight into Hordanes Land requires a bit of knowing the band. [Laughs] The production and music—well, not necessarily the music; it’s surprisingly coherent—are too much to digest. The presentation wasn’t the best. KJELLSON: Yes, absolutely. A lot of people seem to think that the “new era” came around with Isa, with the new lineup and everything, but it all started on Below the Lights, really. ISDAL: Absolutely. Even though there were lot of prog elements on Monumension, Below the Lights, I think, mixed them in a new way. It’s kind of been the same ever since.

Are there songs that you feel particularly close to? Have they changed over time? BJØRNSON: There are various songs on the album that are important. For me, “As Fire Swept Clean the Earth,” as a songwriter—or, more pretentiously, a composer—I feel we reached a new level with the band with that song. It felt like I had broken some kind of code for the band in terms of communicating something emotional, atmosphere. We kept the rawness and aggression, but we managed to sneak in something more tender, a bit more fragile into the body of destruction, aggression and madness that extreme metal is about. That was an achievement. I felt we added more words to the vocabulary. It opened the doors of what could be written after that. I feel that way about the whole album, but specifically “As

When I first started in the band, a lot of the old black metal fans were still trying to cling to Enslaved. Over the years, I think a lot of them gave up.

A RVE ISDA L Fire Swept Clean the Earth” is the Below the Lights song, even though it’s not the title track. KJELLSON: I have to say “As Fire Swept Clean the Earth.” It has more or less been in our set list since 2002, and I still feel the magic when we play it more than a decade later. Everybody in the band seems to agree, too. There are some good tunes on Below the Lights, but this one in particular seems like one of those timeless ones. Always hard to pinpoint why it is so, but some songs feel like they have their own life, like an organism. Something that hits you deeper than just music that fills your ears with sound. ISDAL: I’ve always loved “The Crossing.” That’s a great song. “Queen of Night” is a unique tune. Where’d the intro come from? Very ’70s prog. BJØRNSON: It was a very liberating moment. We had a prog thing going on. It was on Monumension. But we had taken a huge step forward with this track. Instead of just thinking about doing it, we did it. It gave us confidence. If we want to do a prog intro with a flute—much like Jethro Tull— well, why not? Those were very symbolic sounds of ’70s prog. You’re saying a lot by including the flute and mellotron. Oh, I remember something. The girl [Gina Torgnes] who did the flute was put in touch with us. We wondered what she was doing [with us], ’cause she was totally a little “Miss Do-Good.” She probably read prayers before dinner. White pearls. Probably from a posh home. This was the first thing we recorded for the album. We gave her the notes. It was different for her, a bit atonal. It was me and Herbrand [Larsen] in the studio. We’re nice people to be around. She said he wanted to hear the album when it was completed. When the time came, we sent a copy to her. We never heard from her again. [Laughs]

When Ivar played the intro riff on this song, I just instantly felt a strong folk rock vibe from the ’70s, you know—that Jethro Tull feeling. Then, I came up with the idea of having someone playing the flute over it. Ivar would agree, and suddenly—cannot remember just how—we came in contact with this chick called Gina from a local music academy. She agreed on playing some tunes, and one evening she came to the studio. I remember she looked a bit scared, but she nailed it in like 15 minutes or so. Since that evening in 2002, we’ve never heard or seen her. [Laughs] ISDAL: I like “Queen of Night,” even though it may be a bit typical of Enslaved. I remember Ivar telling me, “Oh, this song’s going to start with this kind of intro and a one-and-a-half-minute solo.” That was news to me. I was like, “Uh, okay, I guess I’ll make something.” [Laughs] It’s also in the beginning of the song, which was new for me. I’m so used to playing solos after the second chorus. Typical rock stuff. It was a real challenge, but it turned out great. I was surprised when I first heard [the flute]. It was like, “Whoa, this is cool.” KJELLSON:

And “Ridicule Swarm” has a different feel. It’s a Dirge Rep lyric, but reminds me of something off Frost.

It’s still important to maintain the raw, aggressive side of the band. It’s something we do to this very day. I wrote the music. Per wrote the lyrics. The lyrics influenced me, going along with his idea. It’s very fitting. It was his last creative input. More or less, the first thing he did after the album was done—outside the studio—was to notify me and Grutle that he was leaving the band. He had made his mind up. I’m so glad we got him to do, at least, those lyrics. KJELLSON: Dirge Rep did the lyrics, but Ivar made the music, as usual. But, it has a different feel, more old-school death metal in a way. DIRGE REP: First with “The Dead Stare,” a split lyric with me and Ivar, I believe I have the first two verses and Ivar the last two. It is a direct reference to Liber MMM [IOT] concerning object concentration. Which involves “staring” at and extracting occult secrets from stolen or found magickal weapons, talismans, etc. Every attempt the eye gives to distort the object is a sign of thought and must be eliminated. “Ridicule Swarm” is a direct anti-Christian lyric, as the “assembly” in the lyric is the holy trinity and its interpretation of the cross/crossing of the abyss. There is an excerpt from Haavamaal verse 71—7+1=8, 8 another symbol of the glorious eight pointed radiant star of chaos—concerning battle and fighting, also the Ver kappi Kristni BJØRNSON:

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 Bittersweet viking symfoni

Enslaved attain a darker place on the road

Enslaved BELOW THE LIGHTS

verse there I believe is an old back-print of an Enslaved T-shirt? I can’t remember anymore what it was, but Enslaved used that verse somewhere in the past. Below the Lights isn’t a concept record, right?

It’s not an actual concept. Okay, maybe it’s a kind of a conceptual album. We have two variations on conceptual albums. There’s the linear story. Ruun is the one most like that in recent years. Then there’s conceptual over-building, where the title is reflective of a certain mood or color. Below the Lights is sort of like that. It’s all tied together in the title and cover painting and atmosphere. We also had a lot of changes at the time. It was pretty drastic. There was a feeling of liberation, of finding something of great value. All the experimentation we had done—we had learned a lot. With the personal stuff and amicable breakups and all that. We felt—through all this—we had found our way. When you discover the solution is right in front of you, it’s more satisfying than annoying for some reason. You’d think the logical thing would be that you’d be annoyed. Like it’s there all along, on the tip of your nose. It dawned on us that we were a band for 10 years and that we had come a long way. This felt like a new beginning. The title describes the music. It’s dark and atmospheric. Maybe it’s also describing a certain feeling. That things were going on, hidden in a dark place. KJELLSON: You are right. It is not a concept album like Monumension was, at least not as much woven together lyrically. But still, they do somehow relate to one another. The lyrics, I mean. All of the lyrics deal basically with exploring and understanding the very depths of the human mind. Musically, it is also far more homogenous than Monumension ever was. BJØRNSON:

But the Truls Espedal cover and the runic inscription, “Voluspaa Seks og Ti,” tie the music and lyrics together? BJØRNSON: That’s exactly what it is. The cover and the inscription are the little roof that ties it all together. KJELLSON: “Voluspaa Seks og Ti” is a little code we made. And, surprisingly, no one has cracked it yet! [Laughs] ISDAL: Well, it’s always a discussion between Grutle and Ivar and Truls. They tell him about the lyrics, the concepts. They get into it pretty deep. That’s how it starts.

What were the studio sessions like? I’m sure by this stage a visit to Grieghallen Studios was a bit like visiting the grandparents. BJØRNSON: [Laughs] I remember having a great time. It sounded really good. It felt like being back on track. I remember getting to know Arve, but also Herbrand, who was an assistant to [recording engineer] Pytten [a.k.a. Eirik Hundvin]. He was doing tracking. I knew those guys a little bit outside the studio, but we were really getting to know one another in the studio. There was something about being the sole guitarist that was really satisfying. I felt like I was getting lost with Roy. He’s not a two-guitarists-ina-band kind of guy. The stuff he’s doing now in Obscure is classic one-guitarist kind of thing. It felt good on Below the Lights to be back, working on voicing the subtle harmonies between guitars. I had a great time with that. I remember doing the lead melodies on “As Fire Swept Clean the

Earth,” and Pytten really reacted to that song. For some weird reason, it reminded him of a theatre play. A lot of the ideas on how he mixed that song came from him trying to use simple left, right, reverb techniques. He wanted to create, I think, the sound of many voices. Some are distant. Some are closer. I remember falling asleep while Arve was recording the leads to “Queen of Night.” I was sitting in a chair behind Herbrand. They heard me snoring, so they woke me up and said, “Hey, the lead is recorded. Want to hear it?” It was awesome. [Laughs] I remember Grutle trying to explain to Arve one of the leads to be more something that he couldn’t understand. This was the first time we looked—actively—at the computer in the studio to explain song structures and stuff. We’ve been in the studio before with computers, but it was more like, “Oh, go back 20 seconds.” With Below the Lights, it’s like, “Oh, go back to where the lines are all jaggy. That’s the chorus.” Grutle said he wanted the lines to Arve’s leads to look like an erect penis. Then, Arve understood what he meant. [Laughs] KJELLSON: As I told you, the chemistry in the band was like going back to 1991, with all the enthusiasm we had. And Pytten, the engineer, is a good friend and always a pleasure to work with. He’s even a cool guy to have fights with! He enjoys a good fight over things, because then you show some resistance and enthusiasm—crucial for a good result. ISDAL: I came into the album when it was almost done. The rhythm guitars were done. I just played some solos and melodies. I remember the solo on “The Crossing.” It was a pre-production

chimaira Crown of Phantoms

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Enslaved BELOW THE LIGHTS track—no vocals. I made a solo, but when I came back I found they had put a vocal where my solo was, so I had to do it all over again. My solo didn’t fit anymore. I’m like, “What?!” That was a new experience for me. I learned to wait until all the vocals are done to write solos. [Laughs] It was a nice recording environment. I had known the studio and I knew Pytten. Dirge Rep left after the recording of Below the Lights. What happened there?

It was heading there. I was expecting him to quit the band before we went into the studio. That didn’t happen, so I thought he had changed his mind. I was positively surprised when he said he was leaving after the album. Recording an album with a band isn’t easy. I guess it was more his sense of responsibility, finishing what he had started. I’ve seen the opposite. Once Roy was out of the band, we knew we were going to rehearse a lot harder, play live a lot more, set the bar higher for what’s expected of us—individually as well. I spent a lot of time with my instrument. I felt even though the rest of the guys weren’t composing, there was no reason to only touch your instrument during rehearsal, and back then the only connection with rehearsal was before we were going out to play or before we were going to go into the studio. I was quite clear on picking up the reins again. A less democratic direction in the band. [Laughs] I know how to make Enslaved sound like Enslaved. Obviously, if better ideas come up, we’d discuss them, but I wanted the control. Per is more a musician out of consequence of who he is. He plays drums out of ideological reasons, in a sense. Pure black metal. Pure music. The instrument itself doesn’t get him going day to day. I also think black metal was calling him from the grave, to use a cliché. [Laughs] But Below the Lights is his finest work. Absolutely. KJELLSON: Actually, yes, that is correct. Months after the actual recordings, sometime in the fall of 2002, we did some background vocals for the song “Havenless.” The three of us and a bunch of friends gathered in the studio, and did some shouting for a couple of hours. The minute we went outside after that session, Dirge said to me and Ivar that he was leaving. We had a good talk, and no hard feelings. He had basically just ended his journey with us, and felt that he couldn’t contribute anymore. Very honest, and as I mentioned, he did a very good job on his last recording. He deserves respect for that. DIRGE REP: A band is like a relationship. One knows when it’s time to go. I’m far too necro for Enslaved. BJØRNSON:

I’m far too necro for Enslaved.

D IRG E RE P For me, personally, and I don’t know what else has been said here, but the band has always been about expansion and tearing down walls and boundaries within what is “allowed” in metal. There are no rules to what is allowed in Enslaved. I have a poor example, but I don’t give a shit. Let’s say the world or reality is a clock, and inside it a very complicated machinery; find out how it works and control it to work your own pace in accordance with your own will or band’s will, to expand and stretch. I’m in on all up to the point of expansion. I just want to destroy that clock, and I’m all about annihilation. All in all, I’m in 1992 still, and I’m not going anywhere. A very special thing Enslaved have is their contact with the audience. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience that from seeing them as a fan—Enslaved/Gorgoroth Slakthuset, Haugesund 1994—to being behind the kit at big festivals and tours. ISDAL: I think he just got tired of touring and playing live. In general, at the time, he might’ve been tired of music. Go more black metal. More underground. He didn’t do much right after that. I think he rejoined Gehenna. Do you remember how Below the Lights was received? BJØRNSON: Yeah, it was a bit weird. Obviously, in years before, we were actively responding to when people didn’t like this or didn’t like that. There was a lot of Frost preferring back then. It would make me a bit upset. It felt weird ’cause we knew if we started recording Frost again, it would be the end of the band. There’s two kinds of bands: You have the preservers like AC/DC and Motörhead, and then you have the explorers, which most bands are in the last category. To be in the first, you have to have an unbelievably strong formula if you’re going to record the same album forever. That happens very seldom. To me, it’s more impressive when bands have that formula. We knew we weren’t one of those bands. We knew on Below the Lights where we were going, and nothing was going to stop us. If it drives us into the ground, then so be it. At least it’d be a fun funeral. [Laughs] People started responding to us, though, on Below the Lights. People were on the fringes, sitting back a bit and waiting to see what we’d do. I

mean, if you bought Eld in ’97 and Blodhemn in ’98, you got to be pretty insane to not think, “What the fuck are these guys doing?” You got to be pretty psychotic to think there’s a logical progression between those albums. It was on Below the Lights that the positive feedback from the fans provided the momentum to do an album like Isa and the new era of the band. We went from being a band who were, mostly, fantastic live, but occasionally pretty terrible, to a band people think are pretty awesome all the time. [Laughs] KJELLSON: Yes, the press loved it. That’s true. However, this was our last album on the contract, and the label knew that we did not want to sign up for another album. So, their effort on the promotion was maybe not the best. Fair enough. We didn’t tour much either, due to lineup issues, so for us it kind of quickly came out and disappeared really. The fans seemed to pick it up some five, six years later, and nowadays people talk a lot more about it than they did when it was originally released. ISDAL: It got more or less great reviews everywhere. What were the tours like for Enslaved at this point? BJØRNSON: We didn’t make it out of Norway properly until 2004. We did the occasional weekend tour. We had a fantastic weekend in London with the current lineup. Cato [Bekkevold] and Herbrand were session members. KJELLSON: [Laughs] The tours?! I remember that we had one tour on this release, and that was a nine-show tour in the States, including Milwaukee Metal Fest, where we got cut off after four songs because the headliners Body Count needed the time to play their fantastic show in front of maybe 200 people. The rest of the tour was not promoted the best either. I remember we did a show in some dump outside Cleveland in front of 12 people! [Laughs] All-time low, actually! I called an old friend of mine in Cleveland and asked him if he’d come to our gig in Cleveland. He replied, “That’s not in Cleveland, my friend; it’s like 1.5 hours outside!” Nobody seemed to know about this secret tour. ISDAL: I don’t think we did many tours for this album. I remember it being very quiet. We didn’t have a band right after Per quit. [For] half a year, we didn’t play any gigs at all. Then Cato joined, and then Herbrand—more or less at the same time. I think their first tour they did was a year after in the U.S. But I wasn’t on that tour. I was away with my parents on holiday. I remember the tour came up quickly, so I couldn’t do it. In total, we didn’t tour very much on Below the Lights. That came with Isa.

Enslaved BELOW THE LIGHTS A decade separates Below the Lights from the Norwegian black metal scene of 1993. Do you think a record like it would’ve been tolerated back then?

Below the Lights was the last album with Osmose Productions. Looking back, what did you make of the partnership leading up to the album? BJØRNSON: It was great! Pretty much I don’t see a lot of things that could’ve been done differently. They’re Osmose. They do what they do well, but we wanted a change in direction. They have a limited scope. We knew what we wanted to do. They were totally fine with it. They accepted the explanation just fine. We said, “What we’re looking for now is a label who’s got the energy to run around and find the people who haven’t heard of Enslaved.” That’s why we went somewhere else. They were massively happy with Below the Lights. With that change, actually. Blodhemn is Hervé’s [Herbaut, Osmose labelhead] least favorite Enslaved album. He liked one slow part. He kept nagging: “Turn the tempo down. That’s when you sound good.” He turned out to be right. He was a big inspiration for us turning things around. He sends me pictures of his kids. I send him pictures of my first kid and all that. We tend to have pretty good working relationships with everyone we’ve ever worked with. Well, everyone who hasn’t ripped us off. [Laughs] KJELLSON: Osmose was a hard-working and honest label. We did many good things for each other back in the ’90s, and I have only good things to say about them. They never ever screwed us, and we are still friends with those guys. ISDAL: I wasn’t really into any of that because I came in pretty late. I believe we were already talking to Tabu about the next album.

BJØRNSON: It’s a good hypothetical question. It would’ve been quite divided. On the whole, I think it would’ve been accepted. A lot was lost in those days: all the controversy, all the crime. If you knew where the Norwegian black metal scene came from, it’d surprise you, I think. The first time I heard Swedish neo-prog was in Oslo. They more or less forced me to buy Änglagård. If you want to expand on the voicing and phrasing of guitars, well, first you need Voivod. Then, you need all these Swedish bands. There were the German synth players like Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. Straight-up prog classics. Van der Graaf Generator and King Crimson. All that stuff was part of us, I think. The focus felt massively wide back then, we thought. In retrospect, it was pretty narrow. [Laughs] If you went into a time machine and went into the homes of guys in Mayhem or Enslaved or Darkthrone or Emperor, you’d be quite surprised at what was being played. Looking at those bands today, I think it would explain a lot. KJELLSON: Tolerated by the fans in 1993? No way! It would be too drastic, I think. But I think it is purely logical that a band that releases Hordanes Land in 1993 releases Below the Lights in 2003. Musical development and evolution isn’t boring, is it? ISDAL: Hard to say. Enslaved has always been to the side of the black metal genre. It’s more the fans that are concerned about what is or what isn’t. If it’s not, then it’s wrong. Enslaved’s always been about the music. When I first started in the band, a lot of the old black metal fans were still trying to cling to Enslaved. Over the years, I think a lot of them gave up. [Laughs] For them, we’re too crazy and not black metal. They just didn’t understand what the music was trying to say.

Below the Lights was nominated for a Spellemann Award. It was your second nomination before winning consecutive awards. Was recognition ever a driving force behind Enslaved? BJØRNSON: This was before we discovered the mechanisms of bribery. [Laughs] I guess you could say we fell into that trap during the middle section. Not to say we did things in order to receive recognition, but at some point, the weird experimentation was underappreciated. With Below the Lights, it signified a change in attitude. We learned to appreciate recognition whenever

and however it would appear. But it was never something we went looking for. That made it easier, I think. I remember meeting this girl in Bergen. She was hardcore black metal. She had opinions and I’m glad I don’t know her now. She’s the kind of person to fill up your Facebook newsfeeds to the point where your computer melts. I didn’t see her for a while. Then, we did Below the Lights. I saw her in a shop a little while after. I said, “Oh, it’s been awhile. How have you been?” She replied, “I don’t want to talk to you. Where you’ve taken Enslaved with this new album is just… going from Frost to this is just horrible.” Then, I felt really, really happy. If following your heart makes it certain you don’t have to talk to those people, well, let’s do more of this! [Laughs] KJELLSON: Not at all. Being a band emerging from the scene in Norway in the early ’90s with all the media focusing on everything but the music— murder, arson, corpsepaint—made us feel like a sort of underground music resistance cult, totally independent of the tabloids. So, we were really surprised when the big papers suddenly acknowledged extreme metal and gave reviews based on the music! I think that turning point came around 2000. I guess being Norway’s #1 musical export, they could not ignore the fact that the metal bands were actually pretty good. But don’t get me wrong, recognition is nice enough—it just isn’t necessary for us! ISDAL: No, never. [Laughs] It’s always nice when people appreciate what you do and you get awarded, but I don’t think it’s a driving force for any musician or band. How can you make music if you’re trying to make music people like? You always have to make music for yourself. It has to be what you want to say. The award nominations were nice, though. If we were looking for awards, we’d be playing a completely different style of music. Is there anything you’d change in hindsight? BJØRNSON: No, honestly, no. It’s a very accurate framing of where we were at the time. It’s totally fine as-is. We could’ve done more with some things, but for what it is, it’s pretty perfect. KJELLSON: I’d change the name to Below My Tights. ISDAL: No, I don’t think so. For me, an album is what it is. I think re-recording albums is stupid. Below the Lights is Below the Lights. If we changed something, it wouldn’t be that album. Of course, we could change the production or drum sound or this and that. Maybe something different with the songs. But I don’t think we should change anything. Nor would I want to. A

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