genocidal king wrote:o...k...so, I am normally a straight up death metal fan, but Im looking to get into black metal a bit more, so can anyone (Forkboy and Nimrods I looking at you here), tell me some essential black metal songs I should buy on itunes? looking for 10 to start off with.
Fuck that, ALBUMS all the way. You've got to do things properly and listen to them in the context of how the artist originally wanted it to be heard man. I mean Det Som Engang Var has these songs you wouldn't listen to on their own like Han Som Reiste, but within the experience of the whole album it manages to become a hypnotic change of pace. So yeah, I'm absolutely an advocate of "albums bitch" haha.
Now, this is just my own opinion, but these are some of my favourite black metal records, though some of them straddle the line between black metal and other styles, a lot of black metal is about the atmosphere created.
My number one all time favourite b/m record is
Burzum - Filosofem. Easily the best of the second wave albums, it's just got that oppressive atmosphere down to a fucking tee, and almost all modern interesting black metal groups owe their existence to this album and its predeccesor Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. I ask only this. Don't buy it. Download it. Don't give a penny to the nazi fuck :-)
Next up, well, there is Emperor, one of the true giants of the whole shebang. Ignore all the controversy (fuck, that goes without saying for all black metal groups) around Faust and Samoth, just listen eh? It's hard to pick out just the one record by Emperor, they are all pretty fucking stellar, but I'll go and recommend
Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk. You can't go wrong with any of them though, get whatever the fuck you see is on sale!
Darkthrone are some what of an institution of Norwegian black metal. They started out as an uninspiring death metal band but ended up one of the most important black metal ones just for that real lo-fi sound that has been ripped off a thousand times since, at least. For pure black metal you can't go wrong with any of the trilogy of
A Blaze In The Northern Sky,
Under A Funeral Moon and
Transilvanian Hunger. I probably prefer Under A Funeral Moon myself, but any of them are great and most decent record stores should sell them for about £8 a shot. Then zip forward to the past decade, Darkthrone mashed black metal with crust punk and a wicked sense of humour which is well worth hearing as it is vastly different from the rest of their material. Personally,
F.O.A.D. is my favourite, but Black Flags and Darkthrones and The Cult Is Alive are both grand.
So that's three Norwegian albums but to suggest that black metal has to be all Norwegian is wrong. But there's two more Norwegian groups I want to big up first, slightly more esoteric.
First you have Enslaved, formed when their lead songwriter was fucking 13 man. They've always been one of the more intelligent black metal groups, and rather focusing on the anti-Christianity and Satanism espoused by many of their peers they've focused on Norwegian mythology, without making a horrid "Viking metal" gimmick out of it.
Isa from 2004 really mixes progressive rock influences with black metal into a sublime album that just hasn't gotten old.
And then there are Ulver. Who were black metal in the loosest sense in the early days and now are sort of...it's experimental music. They are still associated with black metal and so if you've got a desire for something really different then get stuck into Ulver. As they said themselves in 1999 in an exceedingly pretentious manner, "Ulver is obviously not a black metal band and does not wish to be stigmatized as such. We acknowledge the relation of part I & III of the Trilogie (Bergtatt & Nattens Madrigal) to this culture, but stress that these endeavours were written as stepping stones rather than conclusions. We are proud of our former instincts, but wish to liken our association with said genre to that of the snake with Eve. An incentive to further frolic only. If this discourages you in any way, please have the courtesy to refrain from voicing superficial remarks regarding our music and/or personae. We are as unknown to you as we always were." So I'm going to recommend
Perdition City but honestly it is hard to find anything band for me among the later Ulver albums from Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell until the present day. Jazz, prog, trip-hop, drum and bass and other electronic forms of music really influenced this stuff.
Blood Inside is one of those albums that really revolutionised how I listen to music, totally different to anything else I'd ever heard.
Away from Norway, we cross the border to Sweden. Shining.
V - Halmstad. Miserable fucking album. Listen.
Ukraine give us Drudkh. A lovely band that owe everything to Burzum but are worth listening to on their own merits.
The Swan Road and
Blood in Our Wells were the first two I got into.
Romania has Negura Bunget. Newest album
Vîrstele Pamîntului is one of the best albums of 2010 so far. Some kind of "folk" elements, but not in a Finntroll kind of silly way. It's dark, but at times beautiful.
The UK is kind of a black hole for interesting black metal on the whole, our most famous group being Cradle of Filth who you should avoid like the plague. So I'll suggest Anaal Nathrakh. These days they are more a mix of grindcore and industrial, their debut
The Codex Necro. Submission Is For The Weak is an awesome song.
North America is pretty happening with groups like Woods of Ypres, Wolves In The Throne Room, Xasthur, Absu and plenty others are worthy of mention. Investigate any of them if you like black metal. But the one stand out in the genre to me is probably Cobalt with their album
Eater of Birds one of the best black metal albums of the decade.
That should do you to start with :p
