10+ avante-garde black metal albums

Neglecting for now my love of doom, and death, and gothic, and stoner, and power, and prog, and various crossovers and *-cores, and especially post-metal, below is a list of 10 phenomenal albums in my formative subgenre: black metal. I work out to these and work out my emotions through them. They’re distinct from a first wave of thrash-inspired bands – exemplified by Bathory, whose Under the Sign of the Black Mark (1987) cleaved away something altogether new, and whose Blood Fire Death (1988) rooted various subgenres in norse myth. This has led to post-pagan meditations on time and place, and an atmospheric, environmental habit (at least in my preferred vein). Mayhem carried the torch back to Norway, where it set fire to churches, making a controversy of things. That was a thesis statement, while the antithesis is still being articulated. The synthesis lies on the horizon. My own selfish narrative begins in 1994, when both I and this decidedly avant-garde tradition of black metal were given form:

1. Emperor, In the Nightside Eclipse (1994) – With respect to Bathory, this album bore the seeds that grew into the contemporary scene. One can hear in it the footfalls of the jötnar, wandering and sometimes sprinting across the frozen wastes.
   [Favorite track: “I Am the Black Wizards;” also Bathory cover “A Fine Day to Die”]
   
2. Ulver, Bergtatt - Et eeventyr i 5 capitler (1995) – The earliest gesamtkunstwerk in the genre. This album offers a refined atmospheric sensibility, with powerful blasts, ethereal singing, acoustic interludes, and even a flute’s zephyr. Here’s to 30+ years of Ulver’s lycanthropy, and as many more moons as nature will allow.
   [Favorite track: “I Troldskog Faren Vild”]
   
3. In The Woods…, Heart of the Ages (1995) – This album, I.t.W.’s first full-length, is eccentric and wonderful. Its varied instrumentation; wild, timeless motifs; female vocals; singing in English; and production quality put the band leagues ahead. I think they play this on repeat in Twin Peaks’ Black Lodge. It’s not as strong as Bergtatt but harmonizes with that album in its softer moments, making it a masterwork in its own right.
   [Favorite track: “The Divinity of Wisdom”]
   
4. Paysage d’Hiver, Paysage d’Hiver (1999) – This demo by Swiss auteur Wintherr distorts recording technology, even as it transports listeners somewhere between Valhalla and Naströnd, or Fólkvangr and Helheim. Wintherr made everything we hear in it: a violin’s melody deadened by snow, synth dissipating into space, and the gathering storm of guitars and drums. Think William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops (2002-3), but if rather than an evanescent time-capture of 9/11’s aftermath, it were a palimpsest of all European war.
   [Favorite track: “Welt aus Eis”]
   
5. Agalloch, The Mantle (2002) – This masterpiece by Oregon’s greatest band is on my view the second wave’s culminating work of art. It was post-black metal before we knew it. Agalloch, named for عود (oud), that fragrant wood of the gods, imbued this album with the umbralight quality of pagan forestry. Words to describe it in English are lacking: chiaroscuro, komorebi (木漏れ日), lichtung.
   [Favorite track: “…And The Great Cold Death Of The Earth”]
   
6. Drudkh, Autumn Aurora (2004) – Uniting Ukrainian (eco)poetics with a wonderfully articulated animism, this album is a kind of totem for me. I first listened to it while driving down through Colorado, with stark views of a lonely mountain; I hope to listen to it again someday when I visit Pando in its Autumnal splendor.
   [Favorite track: “Sunwheel – Сонячне Коло”]
   
7. Wolves In the Throne Room, Diadem of 12 Stars (2006) – This debut held a Cascadian candle to Europa’s torch, and the band has been, for me at least, the American scene’s leading lights ever since. The drumming somehow bridges aggressive shredding and thunderous dirges, while Jamie Myers’s guest vocals nurture this fragile offshoot of Olympia, WA’s iconoclastic scene.
   [Favorite track: “Queen of Borrowed Light”]
   
8. Drautran, Throne of the Depths (2007) – Drautran’s debut and one-and-only. The instrumental compositions on this album are a cut above, with airy keyboards and eddying guitars, and the vocals are exceptionally far-ranging. Few others achieve this level of atmosphere.
   [Favorite track: “Gebaren Des Sterbens In Klanglosen Sphären”]
   
9. Lunar Aurora, Andacht (2008) – Finally, a gesamtkunstwerk by German artists. This album uplifts the spirit, enveloping all of one’s senses, although it’s also quite grotesque. It embodies true beauty after the manner of Murnau’s, and Herzog’s, and lately, Eggers’s Nosferatu.
   [Favorite track: “Findling”]
   
10. Aquilus, Griseus (2011) – Simply superb symphonic black metal. I can listen to this album back-to-back with Enya, which is how things should be: harmonious, interdependent, occasionally in syzygy. Let’s make it so.
    [Favorite track: “Loss”]
    
    
    
    15 honorable mentions, for the sake of synergy:
    
    • Master’s Hammer, Ritual (1991) – The vocals are awful, the pace meandering (as if over the Bohemian Massif), and still this album made a series of footnotes out of much of the second wave.
    • Mayhem, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (1994) – Vile. Mayhem’s best work is dissonance incarnate with lore to match. The title track/closer’s use of liturgical choruses rendered the satanic streak into a dialectic, finally.
    • Summoning, Minas Morgul (1995) – The finest LoTR-core. This albums is what Varg might’ve made had he a band and a higher appreciation of elvish craft.
    • Satyricon, Nemesis Divina (1996) – Satyricon composed the magnus opus of black metal qua music. Not overly sophisticated, in a sublime sense.
    • Nagelfar, Hünengrab im Herbst (1997) – Higher in production value than any prior album in the experimental vein, save Nemesis Divina, and in my opinion, the perfect precursor to the continental bloom of the aughts.
    • Sad Legend, Sad Legend (1998) – Hearing Naamah’s vocals on heartfelt opener “Han” makes me wonder how other metal artists could develop their own choral fidelity.
    • Windir, 1184 (2001) – This album was flawlessly executed. In many respects, I find it to be a harsher take on Heart of the Ages. RIP Valfar; ars moriendi.
    • Sigh, Imaginary Soundscape (2001) – It’s scary how clever this collection of songs is, by a troupe of Japanese black metal großmeister. Imaginary Soundscape projects familiarity with more genres than I care to name, mostly Western, which is why it’s offensive that the best aesthetic description I can mount in response is Jigoku-Kabuki à la Nobu Nakagawa, in Gothic facepaint.
    • Negurǎ Bunget, OM (2006) – Intricate, progressive if not revolutionary, and rooted in the tradition despite its unusual sensibilities. Not a single other album I’ve listed is out of touch with OM, although Negurǎ Bunget dug deeper into other things.
    • Zuriaake, Afterimage of Autumn (2007) – A Chinese afterword on Drudkh’s Autumn Aurora, replete with classical instrumentation.
    • Blut Aus Nord, Memoria Vetusta II – Dialogue With The Stars (2009) – This album is a hopeless, empyrean epic. Climax “The Formless Sphere – Beyond the Reason” ceases all vocals in a triumphant end to man, beginning the title track’s denouement. The art of giving meaning to the void is human to no end.
    • Elderwind, Волшебство живой природы / The Magic of Nature (2012) – Purely atmospheric, a bit murky, and a favorite album of mine to play in the Adirondacks.
    • Batushka, Литоургиiа (Litourgiya) (2015) – The original eastern orthodox album resulted from an epiphany by creator Derph. Usurper Bart’s derivative band Patriarkh deserves profanity. In Derph’s words: “God’s hymns are more metal than any satanic black metal music out there.” Amen to that.
    • Mephorash, Shem Ha Mephorash (2019) – The most mature performance artists on the list. I didn’t understand what it meant for an album to be demanding until suffering (gladly) though Shem Ha Mephorash, a mystical experience of recurring motifs torn asunder.
    • Havukruunu, Uinuos Syömein Sota (2020) – The spirit of Scandinavian black metal went eastward, where Havukruunu’s crowning achievement was made (although each of their albums has been on the level). Uinuos Syömein Sota rings like a clear callback across the Gulf of Bothnia.
      
      
      Next to listen to: Abduction, Abigor, Absu, Akitsa, Ascension, and that’s just A’s.
      Conspicuously absent: Burzum, Immortal, Marduk, Mgła, Taake
      
      If you read to this point: Listen to more of this kind of music.
      If you’re a fǫru-nautr now wondering “Why the bias against the extreme wing?” – I have two ideas for you on our journey. First, beware unwittingly emulating that which you oppose. Second, negative aesthetics are nothing without beauty, a fact which has immediate consequences.
      
      Stay tuned for more.