It's been a while...

Jesus its been some time since i've posted anything on this blog, but, unfortunately, i've had some serious issues with my health that have come as bit a shock as i'm not an old man. Anyways the resulted of all of this is that i need to make some changes to my lifestyle.

Downloading against actually buying a CD?

I believe the advent of the net and the digital revolution has made my love of Black Metal, a minority music genre just a little more accessible and especially so because - and this is my excuse - i live in a (large and still rapidly growing) town that doesn't even have a record store, and the only opportunity i have usually to buy cd's is online - such as Falls of Rauros, The Crevices Below, Infestus and Drowning The Light - or at gigs, when i see a band i like live - Dornenreich and Gorath being recent examples, but for every physical release i do purchase, i probably download a hundred, and the price always seems to be less than any shop bought cd's. So for these reasons i always look forward to getting my music magazines (Zero Tolerance, Terrorizer, Metal Hammer and Powerplay) to read the album reviews so that i can go searching online for what might look worthy of downloading, which in turn might lead to recommendations to similar bands or artists and so on.

So if i'm perfectly honest, the majority of the lists that i post of my most recent acquisitions are downloads, i just love the convenience and quickness of downloading music in general, i am now totally sold with the concept, as with the MP3 format, it is so much easier to store and of course play all of my music. For i like also the instant access i get to my entire collection, as currently i've got just shy of  2,200 Metal albums stored on my laptop and external hard-drive - just think of how much wall space that would be needed if i had them all on CD or vinyl. And you can also buy an MP3 player thats the size of a lighter nowadays that can easily store a few hundred songs but obviously you can go for the all-singing all-dancing versions and walk around with most if not all of your music collection in your pocket. Maybe the only drawback is the sound quality compared to a cd, but as i'm only listening to the music via my laptop and a set of speakers i don't personally consider it much of an issue.

So where do i go for my downloads, well i have a few that i consider essential, indispensable almost, that i check every other day. (Mind it could be said any music you want is out there if you know where to look). Personally i have always found the iTunes store to be next to hopeless (never understood the hype) so i've been using eMusic for over seven years now it is a small but good site - http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/browse/album/metal/: - as i always find plenty to download here and then theres Soundike - http://www.soundike.com/tags/black_metal.html - which has a massive BM catalogue, unbelievably cheap downloads that it seems almost too good to be true but been using it for over a year now, and theres a couple of others i've used on occasion such as Metal Maniacs - http://www.klicktrack.com/metalmaniacs/search?c=Black+Metal - plus Metalhit.com - http://www.klicktrack.com/metalhit - and also Bandcamp - http://bandcamp.com/tag/black-metal - and god no doubt theres others. I'm sure some labels must also have websites from which you can download and buy their band's music - think i'll investigate that for a future blog, but obviously just those labels that are generally geared towards Black Metal.

Then there are sites - great sites - like the Get Metal website - http://getmetal.org/black-metal/ and Darkport - http://darkport.org/genre/black-metal - and also but to a slight lesser degree Bunalti - http://www.bunalti.com/?s=Black Metal  - which are all run by individuals who in my humble opinion provide a better service as they are primarily geared towards Heavy Metal music (and its many sub-genres) and who provide links to many many fantastic albums, almost on a daily basis, granted with a request that you should delete the album from your computer after review - which is basically a form of disclaimer. Finally of course there then is the method of downloading music using a torrent file and manager, which i should admit to have never used, but sometimes you just cannot find that elusive release and occassionaly the only means of finding it is through a torrent search. Rockbox is the only place i check and only then if i can't find it, i'll resort to ebay or Amazon, or try some mail-order sites, as there are some that are specifically Black Metal.

Also worthy of a mention at this point is the Encyclopaedia Metallum (The Metal Archives) website - http://www.metal-archives.com/ & http://www.metal-archives.com/release/upcoming - which i find is the essential reference point (the Bible in fact) for information on Metal bands of all genres and which is generally one of my first points of call when i need to check upcoming Black Metal releases or to check a band that i've never heard of before - as long as it has an entry of course, as the rules are strict - bands must "be Metal enough" and have a physical release.

Astonishing - A Masterpiece

 Hypothermia - Rakbladsvalsen (2007, Total Holocaust Records)



Tracklist

1. Del I     34:25
2. Del II    09:50
3. Del III   06:09
4. Del IV   11:00

Total Running Time: 01:01:24

This, i now firmly believe, after quite a substantial number of repeated listens, is and i can't stress this enough, one of the best (and dare i say even greatest Black Metal) albums i have ever heard, and also an essential for any fan of Black Metal music, and of the sub-genre that is sometimes labelled Depressive/Suicidal Black Metal which this record possibly belongs to. Now i will admit i've only just discovered this band, (through a release by Kyla, the singers Kim Carlsson's previous band) and it's actually an album that was released five years ago, (but since it's for me a new discovery i'll consider that it's new Black Metal, which was the original idea behind starting this blog page), but anyways i'm totally fucking amazed by its sound, melodic, depressive but yet simply beautiful, and its atmosphere, which is cold, full of darkness, claustrophobic and yet very very bleak. I can't help thinking also that this band really know what they are doing and so have achieved something unique musically (but without losing the Black Metal feeling that every such release should have). The opening thirty plus minute track is truly masterful, it might be considered long and maybe a tad repetitive but it holds on to me (as does every track) without never ever been boring, it is simply an astonishing piece of music. The album only consists of four tracks but is in all an hour of awesome, glorious and possibly unique underground Black Metal that will most certainly remain seared in the back of my brain for a long long time.

Examples of the possibilities of modernizing and evolving Black Metal



Hellsaw -"Trist": Wild's Reprisal - "Cascadia Rising": Ahnengrab - "Omen"

Hellsaw, Wild's Reprisal & Ahnengrab are most certainly my favourites from the list posted below, and as for Ahnengrab i've had it on repeat since Saturday gone and it just gets better with every listen, its definitely an original and powerful record, pagan/power metal for sure but the vocals are Black Metal in style and flavour and delivery which seem out of place at first but with each listen less so. Now i will admit that i took a chance on Wild's Reprisal, but as soon as i heard the howling wolves and the solid rolling intro of beating drums on the opening track "A Fierce Green Fire Dying In Her Eyes" i was hooked, to me this is how modern/new black metal should sound, atmospheric and slightly meanacing, even a touch venemous. This is again perfectly accomplished on the track "Tragedy Of The Commons". The sound is also not a million miles from either Wolves In The Throne Room, Chasma, or Ordo Obsidium for it certainly seems something has be said of the Black Metal scene from the United States, (especially the the northern regions) as it is definitely in a good state of affairs and this certainly is a debut of the highest order. While, finally, Hellsaw simply play proper storming Black Metal that is intense and powerful, with the vocal rasps, riffing and blasting that any fan of Black Metal music would appreciate.

Black Metal Band Logos [Part II]

Here is, as promised in my original post on Black Metal band logos, six more pictures i put together using MS Paint, with another six to follow soon, would just love to get these on a couple of T-shirts.

London gig [Part II]

Have just purchased a ticket for Agalloch, Velinas and Fen again for The Camden Underworld on Wednesday 11th of April, and i must admit i'm really excited, plus i've been told to check out a pub called The Black Heart which is located on one of the streets behind or near the venue, i usually go to The Crowbar in Soho before any gigs i attend when in London but since that stays open till 4 a.m. i'll go afterwards, long as i'm still capable of course.

Absu and Impeity also play the Underworld the following night and i am still tempted to buy a ticket for that also, I would like to hear both bands, they play a Blackened type of Death Metal which does appeal to me.

London gig [Part I]

Will also be attending the Infernal Damnation Fest IX at the Camden Underworld on Saturday 19th May 2012, was at last years and once again the line up is amazing:

ENTHRONED (Be); GORATH (Be); FROSTMOON ECLIPSE (Ita); SATURNIAN (UK);
CTULU (Ger); FUNERAL THRONE (UK); FEVER SEA (UK) & THE FURIOUS HORDE (UK).

Black Metal Logos

I've been thinking about doing a post about Black Metal logos for a while, as i'm intrigued about both the style (as for example Death Metal has a visual style with blood, gore and colorful illustrations, whereas traditional Black Metal is usually dominated by legend, fog, nature, darkness and black and white photography) and the design of Black Metal band logos, and why is it that it seems that the more illegible the logo the better. Most also seem to have a homemade feel to them, quite possibly even hand drawn (some probably at least initially) but remain effective all the same.

Others simply just use a font, none are unique, but generally look like old-fashioned script (such as Burzum and Gorgoroth) but are as equally effective. Though most are made, i'm sure, with no intention whatsoever for anyone to ever be able to tell their band name from the logo, or at the least to make it extremely difficult to read.

Indeed some of the Typography appears to be complex, as sometimes some symbols (like an inverted cross or a pentagram, the numbers 666) or images (such as the devil, goat horns, skulls, trees, branches, the moon) are incorporated into the logo and illegibility is achieved. Also for it to look authentic it must be drawn almost symmetrical, (but even that is not totally necessary), and obviously works (and looks) best if drawn (and presented) white on a black background.

Some of my favourites are the logos for Ashdautas, Dark Fortress, Exiled From Light, Drowning The Light, Faustcoven and Satanic Warmaster. Christophe Szpajdel, a Belgian but now living in England, is probably the most well known designer of logos for Black Metal bands, having created those for Emperor, Moonspell, Nachtmystium, and Enthroned amongst many.

I have put together twelve of these pictures using MS paint, will add the other six in another post.

Black Metal Bands and "So Hideous, My Love..."

My first post on this blog listed all the Black Metal bands that i enjoyed listening to and had music by, so now i've decided to list all the bands that i have discovered since and whose music i've either purchased or downloaded, they are as follows:

Acherontas, Amesoeurs, An Autumn For Crippled Children, Angantyr, Aosoth, Archgoat, Austere, Battle Dagorath, Beherit, Brunanburh, Burning Church Forest, Celeste, Cult Of Erinyes, Deafheaven, Demonaz, Dornenreich, Enslaved, Falloch, Falls Of Rauros, Faustcoven, Forteresse, Gorath, Hrizg, Hyperborean, Kyla, Lapageria Rosea, Licht Erlischt…, Make A Change...Kill Yourself, Mgla, Midnight Odyssey, Myrkr, Nadiwrath, Negative Plane, Neige Et Noirceur, Neige Morte, Niflheim, Nine Covens, NunFuckRitual, Nyktalgia, Old Silver Key, Old Wainds, Owlscry, Paragon Belial, Pest (Sweden), Pest (Germany), So Hideous My Love…, Stutthof, Syn Ze Sase Tri, The Crevices Below, Thrall, Thy Light, Trollskogen, Wisdom Through Agony Into Illumination And Lunacy (W. A. I. L.), Weakling, When Mine Eyes Blacken, Wold, Worship, Zinumm.

Some of the bands listed above might not be classed strictly as Black Metal bands, such as Brunanburh, Enslaved and W. A. I. L. as they might have other elements such as Death, Doom, Folk and even Shoegaze within their music but still retain a strong Black Metal influence or sound. And all but one of the above list have an entry at Encyclopaedia Metallum (http://www.metal-archives.com) and which one is it they think is not "Metal" enough.........

http://store.playtheassassin.com/album/pta004-so-hideous-my-love

......personally i can't believe they don't think the band is "Metal" enough, check links below.

http://www.welovemetal.com/newsite/wordpress/2011/07/29/so-hideous-my-love-to-clasp-a-fallen-wish-with-broken-fingers/
http://www.metalsucks.net/2011/06/28/so-hideous-my-love-not-so-hideous/
http://exclaim.ca/Reviews/Metal/so_hideous_my_love8230-to_clasp_fallen_wish_with_broken_fingers
http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2011/06/23/so-hideous-my-love-are-actually-quite-glorious/
http://blog.timesunion.com/marshall/a-little-ambient-hardcore-never-hurt-nobody/5466/
http://occultblackmetalzine.blogspot.com/2011/06/so-hideous-my-loveto-clasp-fellen-wish.html

http://www.decibelmagazine.com/featured/streaming-so-hideous-my-love-to-clasp-a-fallen-wish-with-broken-fingers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DecibelMagazine+%28Decibel+Magazine%29

So what is it about Black Metal?

I definitely feel that it is a minority and possibly extreme genre of Metal music, and somewhat underground, but according to the pretty definitive Metal Archives there has been at least 20,560 Black Metal bands to date, now i will admit that although i'm forty years of age and i've been listening to metal music most of my life and i had heard of the happenings surrounding the scene, the murders, the church burnings etc, the First Wave of Black Metal still passed me by. It wasn't until i heard Emperor's "In The Nightside Eclipse" a few years after its release that i became intrigued, amazed by the astonishing atmosphere created, it was simply majestic and so i considered Black Metal a worthy sub-genre of that beast called Heavy Metal, and one i chose not to ignore, (it definitely had more substance than some of that Nu-Metal rubbish that reared its ugly head about that time when i first discovered it).

So i decided to delve further and purchased some Mayhem ("De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas"), Darkthrone ("Under A Funeral Moon" & "Transylvanian Hunger") and Burzum ("Burzum" & "Aske") which naturally led me to on Immortal ("Pure Holocaust") and Satyricon ("Nemesis Divina") amongst others. I must now admit though for years all i listened to was Emperor, of course, Dimmu Borgir, Gorgoroth, Behemoth, and now i'd even consider them a bit lame Cradle Of Filth, as the only record shop we had in the town didn't stock that much Metal, unless you listened to Nu-Metal or Iron Maiden or Sepultura (but i'll freely admit there's nothing wrong with a blast of "Roots" every now and then), and which is now closed maybe ten plus years and i had to travel to Peterborough or Northampton to buy records so thank god the devil hehe, for the internet and the advent of downloading as it just made the whole Black Metal scene more accessible, it could also be mentioned that it'll probably be always a little uncommercial, no bad thing i'm sure, i like it that way.

As it might be said that Black metal was created with the purpose to be the most inaccessible music possible, notoriously difficult for those listening to it for the first time,this could be true as early black metal was raw and (was it even knowingly?) very poorly produced, with blast beat drumming and distorted guitars and vocal styles that are high pitched rasps and guttural growls that are completely or mostly intelligible, and certainly that rawness was its calling card, some bands today still try to keep that sound (even though production values have improved) as to me Satanic Warmaster's "Nachzehrer" sounds like it was recorded in a cave, and Negative Plane's "Stained Glass Revelations", which i'm listening to at the moment, certainly has that early Black Metal sound but both are worthy examples of good modern Black Metal. Other bands which i consider to illustrate what is good about modern Black Metal are NunFuckRitual, Septicflesh and Ordo Obsidium (mentioned in a previous post), Throne Of Katarsis, Gnaw Their Tongues, Haemoth, Dodsferd, and the return of Archgoat.

And then there's these variations on Black Metal, such as Atmospheric Black Metal, Ambient Black Metal, Depressive Black Metal, and Post- Black Metal (sometimes called Shoegaze Black Metal - which might even possibly be considered bordering a little on mainstream) which are all deserving of merit and appeal to my tastes, as even though i consider Black Metal to be very atmospheric music there is nothing wrong at all with innovations that are a lot more melodic (hypnotic and ambient even) while maintaing a cetain rawness and the harsh sound, but with less aggression, and as such have re-kindled my love of Black Metal, bands such as Alcest, Falloch, Agalloch, So Hideous...., My Love, Thy Light, Lifelover, Deafhaven, Weakling, Lantlos, Heretoir, October Falls, An Autumn For Crippled Children and loads more, too many to mention, maybe in another post, and even Wolves In The Throne Room (the band that really got me into that atmospheric hypnotic wall of sound that can be created by the guitars, while still being firmly grounded in the Black Metal framework).

At the beginning of this post i stated that Black Metal is a minority genre but now as a genre it occupies at least half of my music collection (so now its definitely the majority!) and if you looked at my previous posts below about my recent purchases and downloads it's plain to see how that is, i'm always looking for new Black Metal music, hence this blog. (When i say new Black Metal music, i don't just mean new releases, as i'm sure there's loads of great Black Metal music out there, both old and new that i've not heard, as can be seen also with my wish-list).

New Releases

Alcest "Les Voyages De L'ame" released 6th January 2012 on Prophecy Productions

Yesterday i downloaded my first two albums of 2012, Alcest's new release, "Les Voyages De L'âme" and the debut offering by Ordo Obsidium "Orbis Tertius" which was released a couple of months back, but which was still collecting favourable reviews, both online and in print so i believed it was definetly worth a listen, now don't get me wrong i do like what Alcest do, in fact i like it a lot, but i did kind of expect what the album would sound like, beautifully crafted songs, yet somewhat sad and mournful, that unmistakeable guitar sound, those dreamy but melancholy vocals, punctuated by the occasional raw shriek, building up into that wall of atmospheric noise that only Alcest can do, especially evident on the final track "Summer's Glory" but i much prefer the sound created by Ordo Obsidium and to be fair, its certainly also an atmospheric record, mixing sorrowful black metal with a depressive funeral doom feel which is by no means a bad thing and its certainly one of the most outstanding opening statements i've heard in a long time by any band (the only other debut album i can think of which had the same impact on me would be W. A. I. L.'s "Wisdom Through Agony Into Illumination And Lunacy", which musically is also in a similar vein), the opening and closing tracks are epic soundscapes, definitely a soundtrack for the cold dark dreary winter evenings and nights.

Ordo Obsidium "Orbis Tertius" released 10th October 2011 on Eisenwald Tonschmiede

Also Recommend:

So Hideous, My Love... - "To Clasp A Fallen Wish With Broken Fingers" released 12th April 2011 on Play The Assassin Records

Heretoir - "Heretoir" released Feb 25th 2011 on Northern Silence Productions

Deafheaven - "Roads To Judah" released 26th April 2011 on Deathwish Inc.

Weakling - "Dead As Dreams" released 2000 on tUMULt