Cradle of Filth - Haunted Shores

Riff mark: 3:10

Hear me now: if black metal sounded this polished more would listen somehow. Cradle’s third outpouring (no nudity on this cover? For shame) is a sheen of shiny onyx, the antithesis of an unwritten black metal manifesto, boasting tremendous recording sensibilities instead of mimicking the lo-fi deliberations of old. Downright beautiful if you ask me, these inclusions and perfections of reverb and treble invoking the true gothic nature of this European-housed subgenre, FINALLY justifying black metal as a marketable, classical art form of baroque, Wagnerian, and Venomian-tinged extremity. Dusk and Her Embrace is a symphonic treat, not to be quickly declared a cheap cash-in commercial entryway into the black, but rather a definition is what is capable when an image positively affects its music. Make-up, powder, mascara, nail polish, finger gauntlets, ruby goblets, and beautiful bloodied women across pages of luscious linear notes are mere teasers to the superb, spectral, twisting tremolo-picked Thin Lizzied guitar melodies soaring through songs, keyboards fetching Maiden-esque 3^rd guitar parts in pompous homogeneity. Dani Filth proves the looks and sounds for a requested front man of this strain, fluctuating shrieks and howls with narrative baritone, the latter often more effective. Most surprising is the harkening to new wave the Cradle tips towards, sly British winks to early minimalist foundations made by drab blokes such as The Cure and Sisters of Mercy (especially). Evolutions in directions that stretch away from a conventional black and towards a conventional crowd, yet refusing conformity, embracing perfectionism instead. A terrific, winning approach. Coincidentally released a month after Manson’s Antichrist Superstar, of which graphic similarities exist at face-value.     

Mayhem - View from Nihil I and II

Riff mark: 1:09

Grand declaration of something, all right. Maybe the most wayward, ADHD-driven black metal recording I’ve heard since an Abruptum single. The ideas are plentiful and barely contained, exploding leftward in clusters of supernova riffs, which are segmented by some really large energy-sucking black holes, big enough to ruin fucking everything. How far do these event horizons stretch? At one point (and I had to verify my copy with a recording on Youtube just to make sure my CD wasn’t screwed) there’s five minutes of complete recorded silence. It’s not a space for an impending bonus track; this deliberation spans two songs. This isn’t meditative; it’s insulting, but nowhere as much to the purist fanbase as the trip-hop track carelessly plopped in the middle of everything (it’s tremendously bad, both here and as standalone trip-hop). More stylistic mishaps: WAY too much “drummer boy in civil war” snare rolling. Vocalist Maniac…fuck it, just listen to the guy. Half of the time he’s doing this this quasi-aggressive commander/preacher deal that comically sounds like David Byrne (I’ve actually read the David Byrne comparison from more than one critic, but it’s true. Hey, while on topic, why not listen to Talking Heads? Nothing but great albums and songs. One of my all-time favorites. Be a Talking Metalhead). There’s so much shit to sift through just to enjoy anything on Grand Declaration of War, its schizophrenic sandblasters minutes apart for seconds at a time. A real black metal blue-ball. Worth a spin for Hellhammer’s inhuman drumfest (sans parrrr-rum pum pum pum).

Darkthrone - In The Shadow of the Horns

 Riff mark: 4:06

Okay…the self-induced production sucks, for starters. There, 80% of the potential audience has fled to the greener pastures of Tampa. If you stuck around and bundled up in your bullet belts, the spoils of braving such winters is one of the more adventurous, and ultimately better black metal albums to come from that Norwegian genesis. Blaze is the polar opposite of Soulside Journey, the group shivering its death metal origins and a bassist in the process, intent on howling under the same freezing moon of native corpsepainters Mayhem. More chances taken here than on De Mysteriis, especially in 10+ minute saga Kathaarian Life Code, its sprawling middle a belly of doom before a final magnificent eruption of warpspeed black thrash (world without end). That’s just the opener! Five additional songs averaging 6 minutes apiece, standout of choice being In The Shadow Of The Horns, a so-Celtic-Frost-it’s-not-funny grinder in which Nocturno Culto actually screams his own name before singing. Arguably some of the mosh-iest BM riffs of its time, here. Eventually the remainder of Blaze semi-degenerates into blurs of thrash beats and quarter-note tremolo picking, but the album’s first 20 minutes are rather remarkable. A deliberately raw recording, simple in riff but broad in scope and idea, A Blaze In The Northern Sky remains the grittiest Renaissance figure to represent an awakening of mangled, evil thought.

 

Darkthrone - Transylvanian Hunger

Riff mark: good luck

At these chilly, grim crossroads we approach the antithesis of all heft and riff, this near-40 minute cassette master that was obviously dropped in too many piles of goat blood and treated with improper tongue cleaning. Chamber music recorded from the chamber pot, Darkthrone now a duo, their discography thinning like their roster, a victim of tape degradation, the acceptable recording values from Soulside Journey stretching through two more albums then snapping, remnants piecemealed into slivers of occasional voice and maybe a snare. Eight songs all alike, Nocturno Culto tremolo-picking one or two measures for five minutes apiece, Fenriz slumbering through monotonous thrash beats by stylistic choice, throwing away all prior talent heard in the echoes of Soulside. One of maybe three defining statements of the black metal genre but A Blaze in the Northern Sky is more tolerable and versatile, and better. Easier to accept as a blurred cluster of ambient musings, a masochistic recording for masochists.

Encircling Sea - Yearn

12:32 mark.

Icey wind cuts through your body as you race through the dense forest of the taiga. A pack of wolves drawing closer with your every step. No, you aren't dreaming that you're Liam Neeson, you are taking in the breathtaking majesty of Encircling Sea's A Forgotten Land.

Yearn is the first of 4 tracks that when combined add up to almost 70 minutes of beautifully crafted, meandering black metal. The song builds slowly over 12 minutes, creeping along like an invasive vine, working its way around the trunk of a mighty oak. Suddenly the riff bounds away like a startled fawn, plodding along like the rhythmic pulse of hoof beats, galloping, leaping over stump after moss covered log. 

It pauses eventually in a clearing, as to re-evaluate its surroundings. Heart racing, a look of terror in its eyes. Slowly it wanders into the thickets, eventually reaching safety among the underbrush. A calming wave passes through the wood as all is again right with mother nature.

Stream "A Forgotten Land" on bandcamp

Akercocke - Enraptured by Evil

:08 mark

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BURR BURR BURR BURR BUR

TELL YOUR KING WEVE COME FOR HIM

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BURR BURRR BURR BURRR BURR BURRRR BUR BURRRRRRRRRRRRRR

BURR BURRR BURR BURRR BURR BURRRR BUR BURRRRRRRRRRRRRR

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BURBURBURBURBURBURBURBURBURNAME OF SATAN
BURBURBURBURBURBURBURBURBURNAME OF SATAN

Akercocke is what the ladies call me

What is her butt doing