Legendary Black Metal Albums # 1

Mayhem- De Mysteriis Dom Sathanus

This album is legendary within the second wave of black metal for a number of reasons, obviously one of them being the incredible controversy surrounding the murder of Euronymous, their famed guitarist, often credited with creating the black metal tremolo guitar style. This album had his very murderer playing the bass parts. But to me this album is legendary for other reasons, mainly the fact of it basically being a template for the black metal sound. It's as genre defining as Bathory's early albums, and as evil sounding as any black metal album has ever been.

Obviously the guitar riffs on this album are very awesome, sometimes I find this album boring simply because some of the songs tend to bleed into each other because the tremolo riffing is used so extensively, but on days when I'm in the mood for some sinister sounding guitar I can always turn this album on and enjoy Euronymous' tremendously influential guitar style. Euronymous' playing on this album is yet another reason I consider it legendary, because this style was as I said hugely influential for the entire genre.

Hellhammer's drumming is as always pretty stellar, the weak point being overusing blast beats, but he redeems himself with his awesome use of some almost inhuman drum fills and patterns. Yet another reason for this album to be called legendary.

Far from being my favorite black metal album, still it deserves legendary status for its sheer amount of influence within the genre, and the fact that the sound on this album is a sound that pretty much defined, and still defines the genre of black metal today.

Autopsy- Severed Survival- A Brutal Piece of Death Metal History

Burning from the inside out
Bloody foam spews from your mouth
Smell the putrid stench of flesh
As it burns you to your death

These words start off one of the most brutal albums I've heard in my experience with death metal. This album is a insane, the riffs range from slow and crushing to fast tremolo riffs and even those mid-paced headbangable ones. The structures of the songs are ever changing and the whole album has a great bass presence. I also feel like the production is perfect, not overly polished, but not terrible every instrument has its place. The vocals are your typical old school death metal growls and sometimes the occasional higher pitched scream. The solos on this album sound like they were pulled straight off of a thrash metal album, those squeedily fast legato phrases that I love so much. The drumming also has a good bit of variation, he isn't just using blast beats the whole time. Maybe my favorite aspect of this album is the lyrics, which are nice and brutal, my possible favorite being the title track about being stranded and having to eat his own limbs to survive. I'm also fond of the story about the cannibal mortician in Service for a Vacant Coffin. This album has everything an old school death metal album should have, headbanging riffs, thick basslines, fast solos, and brutal lyrics.

Final Rating 98%

Moonsorrow-Kivenkantaja my thoughts

I decided for this album not to do a formal review but instead to just write about how much I love this album. Moonsorrow is one of those bands I discovered by looking at random metal reviews and surfing on the metal archives. I saw that this album was highly loved by almost everyone who reviewed it so I decided to give it a listen. It has become one of my favorites. It has this massive sound to it because of all the instruments that are used. Moonsorrow create some of the greatest triumphant pagan atmospheres of any folk metal band I've heard, their mesh of folk and black metal is flawless. They have a perfect blend of all the instruments they use and this gives it a really (should I say it, yeah, I should) epic feel, this epic feeling permeates the entire album until things finally come to a tranquil close with the last track Matkan Lapussa, which is just a really peaceful sounding song, almost like a lullaby. I have heard other Moonsorrow albums and I like them all, but something about this album just stands a cut above the rest. If this were a formal review 98% would be my rating.

Darkness has been Enthroned

Dimmu Borgir is one of those bands that catches a lot heat for being too commercial, and thus shunned by the majority of the black metal community, and with the last release I heard Death Cult Armageddon I can see why, they delved into cheesy electronic vocal effects and riffs that just don't go anywhere. But before they went off into uttery cheesy black metal they released some pretty good albums this one being one of them. Enthrone Darkness Triumphant falls short of being called a masterpiece, but nonetheless it is a great album. The album starts off with a bang, with furious guitar riffs accented by majestic keyboard work. The first 3 tracks are top notch they have perfect infectious black metal riffs, and keyboards that add a ton melodic atmosphere. But around the fourth track and onward things get a bit lackluster. The riffs seem to be monotonous and not in the good hypnotic way either. The biggest example of this is in Tormentor of Christian Souls, the main riff bores me, and the lyrics seem like they're trying to hard to be evil. Entrance is where the album pics back up, the keyboards play this really otherworldly riff and the whole song has an atmosphere of dark beauty. The rest of the songs are pretty great too. Summarizing, this is a great album despite its flaws.

final rating 78/100

So Pure...So Cold

Abysmal production, repetitive riffs, and drumming that hardly varies from track to track, sounds like one of the worst albums known to man, or does it? Darkthrone's Transylvanian Hunger is hardly the type of music you would think of when the word masterpiece is spoken, but that's exactly what they've managed to achieve with this offering, and its nothing short of astounding.

To be quite honest upon first listen, I hated this album, its everything that makes a shitty album, the production is so bad its almost unbelievable, there are probably demo tapes out there with better production. Secondly the guitar riffs are sparse, with maybe 2-4 riffs a track. The drums are pretty much the same throughout the entire album, and the bass pretty much mirrors the guitar. So why then have I called this album a masterpiece. Its very simple, despite the shitty production, despite the lack of variation, and musical technicality, this album simply creates one of the darkest, hypnotizing and evil atmospheres of any black metal album. The riffs may not be varied or very technical and mind-blowing but they are incredibly infectious and the way they are produced with that very thin fuzzy sound makes it just sound so dark and evil. The repetition actually works in favor of the albums atmosphere because it produces a sort of hypnotic effect where the listener gets drawn in. Even the terrible production works in favor of the atmosphere, making the album sound like it was recorded right in the middle of a winter snow storm.

The reason this album works is because it captures the essence of true black metal, it sounds genuinely cold, dark, evil, and menacing. Its rough and unpolished, and has all the trappings of a shitty album and yet it winds up being one the greatest black metal albums ever released, how they accomplished this I will never know, all I can say is there are no substitutes for the real deal when it comes to raw black metal, this is Darkthrone in their purest, coldest form. If you are new to raw black metal, I would advise giving this album ample time before chucking it aside as just a terribly produced bore, and take some time to let the atmosphere soak in.

Final Rating 95 %

That Metal Blog

Let this serve as sort of an introduction. The purpose of this blog is to rant, review, and discuss my opinions about anything metal related. Hopefully someone can use this to enrich their own experience of heavy metal or to lead them to another great band or album. For this first post let me tell you a bit about my tastes. I am a pretty eclectic metal head. I enjoy the old school metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Judas Priest and the like. I also really enjoy extreme metal, particularly black metal, and some extreme gothic metal. Some of my favorite bands besides the obvious, are Burzum, Bathory, Atheist, Darkthrone, Mayhem, Moonsorrow, Ulver, Mastodon, Intronaut, and Cradle of Filth. Looking forward to reviewilng many albums and hearing your comments.

JAB