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The Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time PUBLISHER
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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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To order by phone: 1.215.625.9850 (10 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST) To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials.
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ISSN 1557-2137
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presents
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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
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Mütiilation MY TOP 5
DAGON
Inquisition Bathory, The Return......
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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
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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
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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
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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
96
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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
97
Mayhem
CSIHAR
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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