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.
