"Expect nothing but the worst" oh I expect this to be the worst all right.

The band's good riffs are overshadowed by their awful lyrics. Their best album, "Hornets of the Pogrom," stands out, but their other albums are amateurish and filled with extremely racist edgy lyrics.

For an extended period, racism has been a persistent issue in metal culture, particularly in the black metal and death metal genres.

I must be the minority (err...) in finding Pogroms to be the weakest. It's a plasticky brickwalled mess, but everyone online seems to like it. Oh well.

Galloping... is their triumph. Nice warm analog feel, their best drum sound ever, and a deep sense of melancholy running through it counterbalancing all the epic triumphant vibes. (Contrast with Incorrigible.., which dials up the stupid pirate jigs and gimmicky blues soloing). It's a tad too long though.

If it wasn't for their racist lyrics, only for their musical quality absolutely no one would give a shit about this band. They are mediocre at best and the only reason they stand out is because the community is full of nazis trying to sell you that they are the best melodic death metal band in the world and that they have the best riffs when it's not even close to reality. Arghsolent and Grand's Belial Key are the Infowars of metal, they only do shit and their brainless conspiracy fans will try to convince you that they are the only ones doing justice in the business.

This. At the end of the day they are just another mediocre metal band that uses racism to be popular amongst certain circles.

I remember more of the opposite from back in the day, like people were going ape-shit about the music, but then later realized what they were singing about and then, "Oh, they're shit!"

When the name kept popping up... Must have been about 20 years ago, I checked out a couple of albums and really wondered why people thought their music was so awesome (it's not).

From a purely musical perspective, I do not think of Arghoslent as awful. They can certainly riff, but I do find the songwriting lacks something that would hook me in if they weren't a bunch of openly racist troglodytes - something that very much drives me away. I can listen to The Chasm and Intestine Baalism and get similar music done much better without the bigotry.

Iron maiden for racists

Listen to Grenadier instead

Finally! Can't wait!



Yeah, listen to a 1:1 clone that is named after said "nazi band", who are also on the same label that reissues albums of said "nazi band", while playing at the same "racist festivals" as, again... said "nazi band" all while the members wear merchandise of, again...*checks notes*...said "nazi band".

Sorry to burst your bubble, but looks like you're not up to date on your "sketch-band" list.

Waiting for this album!

Most people that give the "its about the riffs bruh" argument are probably part of the large contingent of apolitical white dudes that don't want to bother with any kind of self-reflection when they finally take a glance at the lyrics after the 20th spin, and not secret nazis trying to legitimize the band. Not saying there aren't any out there, but it ain't the majority.

Never thought that they were that amazing riff band people told me about.

I like Arghoslent quite a bit musically but you only have to look at the complete lack of interest most (not all!) of their fans have in similar groups (a la Armoured Angel, Amorbital, Mi'Gauss, etc.) to see why they get spread around. It's the controversy that people love to dive into, not the riffs. Their lyrics are also the only reason they ever had any sort of label support or promotional power. Drakkar certainly wasn't signing any other similar bands at the same time!

You class Armoured Angel as similar?

There is a band called Ares Kingdom which is similar to Arghoslent in terms of style but without any racist overtones. They are actually quite good.

Mi'gauss is fantastic... no reason to listen to Arghoslent when that band exists.

This, but also Dungeon Serpent, Intestine Baalism, Cauldron Black Ram, and Draghkar.

Yeah, but unfortunately with that band there is only 1 album, and most likely never will be another. With Arghoslent you have 4 albums (soon) to choose from.

One album in a given specific niche is often good enough for me.

Everyone in here saying Arghoslent is so booooring and generic, yet they tell everyone to listen to bands that sound just like Arghoslent or at the very least are inspired by them.

Strong cope.

I kind of have to disagree with some of the assertions here. I would say yes that a lot of the popularity of this band is the controversial aspect of it, but I wouldn't say that that is all that they have, and I also would say that similar bands playing this style wasn't something that was discoverable at the tip of your fingers, say, when albums like Incorrigible Bigotry came out. I remember hearing that back when I was in university, and although internet existed at the time, you still had to buy music on physical formats, there was nothing readily streamable anywhere, and mp3 were just starting to kind of be a thing. Definitely not easy to hear, even any of these other bands that you guys are saying are similar, I have never heard of any of them except for Cauldron Black Ram (who I have never heard) and Intestine Baalism, who tbh I wouldn't categorize as similar at all.

Back when I.B. (the 2nd album) was making the rotations, a lot of people that I knew liked it, and not one of those people were ever or have ever gone on to being in any way associated with sketchy politics, or liking nsbm, or anything of that sort. What they liked was the kind of almost heavy metal like infusion into the death metal skeleton, but it wasn't anything like In Flames or other gothenburg style acts, who were too poppy for those ears. I think that Arghoslent's popularity has waned over time with the "mainstream" metal crowd (or perhaps better to say, people who weren't already fans), and given today's general culture, they aren't gaining any NEW fans that aren't bigots themselves, but it wasn't always like that.

Same goes for Grand Belial's Key, but I will go so far as to say that GBK in particular was for a long while the best American black metal band, period, and that was completely independent of their lyrical / philosophical / political stances (which was much less overt on their first album anyway). This was another case where the music was simply so unique that they couldn't help but be embraced by many people who again had never anything to do with anything sketchy in their spare time. Like Arghoslent, their popularity has waned over time and they would be hard pressed to find new fans who aren't already into other sketchy things, but there was a time before time where this wasn't the case at all.

If you were playing black metal in America in the 90s, you're a bit prescient by default. If you were playing American black metal in the 90s and DIDN'T just sound like Von or Judas Iscariot or I Shalt Become, that's extra interesting. Trying to diminish GBK's impact is ridiculous, and 90% of the time, it's obviously ideologically motivated. No one really sounds like them. There's a lot of overlap with the people making these arguments and sort of people who unironically argue Burzum and Graveland aren't important to the genre. Gimme a break.

I'll admit I'm not such a big fan of Arghoslent, who I always saw as GBK's cheesier, not-so-good little brother band. (Other than their first album and demos, which all slap)

Idk dude I don't know this bands music but every thread ive ever seen always goes "oh here's the substitute version of this band" like why the fuck would I ever check out something if you just flat out try to sell it to me as oh it's the substituted version of something else, doesn't exactly make me wanna run out and listen to it, especially cuz it seems even the people recommending it know it's worse in quality.

Every thread that pops up about this band really makes me laugh my ass off cuz number one melodeth is inherently to me gonna make me think soft ass bullshit and then to find out that a blatantly racist band plays melodeth, it's just kinda funny to me, and on top of that they play an apparently "ballsier" approach to melodeth so I'm guessing it's 5 percent more aggressive.

And plus the reception to them musically never seems like overly high, even among the people that actually like it, so I get you don't support it because of the racist aspect which yeah I get it obviously, but I think you're kinda just making a flawed argument and projecting why you think people like it more than anything

I just have a feeling I'll probably end up laughing at this bands music more than anything I just wanna hear the quality of music that's causing all the controversy

Actually second post cuz I just listened to a song, but what's the whole story about the racist part idk I just kinda combed through the lyrics of the incorrigible bigotry album but it didn't seem overly racist to me, like idk I just didn't really see any racist lyrics at least not on that album they didn't really seem specific so I kinda wanna know the story I'm curious

Edit: idk I did reread the first song, but it more so sounds just like a cold description more than anything, I just didn't get the sense it's either celebrating it or condemning it, and I don't think you need to condemn something horrible to be in favor of it, it's kinda like angel of death more than anything, do the band members have these views?

"Hereditary Taint" is teeming with full-blown anti-semitism. It's not particularly subtle, it's just couched in big words to sound smart (something they do a lot actually).

etc etc. I think the pearl clutching over bands like this is silly but they're definitely pretty racist. They're not stealthy crypto-fascists hiding their point in layers of metaphor (like Spite Extreme Wing, who still haven't landed on many "naughty bands" lists because they're subtle), they're just using words over 2 syllables to convey a pretty direct point.

Well, Gelal Necrosodomy once said something along the lines of '' Black metal to me is paganism and paganism is neo-fascism and neo-fascism is anti-christian and anti-christianity is black metal, it is a circle that cannot be altered for everything fits in perfectly''.

Make of that what you will I guess.

Oh I see like by stressing the word it's making a point to call them that specifically I get that.

Cuz just reading it, I think it's just generally too open ended, like more just a very harsh description of it, but yeah what you said makes sense to me.

Musically it was actually better than I thought, I kinda expected it to be fruity for some reason, but it was ok, I thought it was a little too punkish I guess, but I didn't think it was terrible.

It kinda just makes them fucking idiots more than anything like they could've just changed that part, it's like why did you do that, you're describing slaves on a boat why are you stressing to specifically point out they're animals? Unless they're just singing from a slaveholders perspective but I'm not clear on that, In a live setting it would definitely appear to be the bands point of view, it's just dumb as shit to me why they had to do that.

It's just a bunch of morons that are blaming the people who are held captive, it's a very dumb point of view.

If they were smart they would just claim it's from the abusive person's perspective, but if they actually think that way obviously they're not very smart to begin with

I personally can't wait for this album.
I loved the new GBK last year and I'm sure new Arghoslent will slay as well.

This band sounds exactly like Arghoslent and they aren't racist.

I don't know how you don't see the racist stuff on Incorrigible Bigotry. It really is blatant.

^Must've just read the lyrics to the title track.

One of the best bands ever.

Good to know. I don't really have the time and energy to do in-depth research on every new band I hear about to find out if they might be racist, so I appreciate you doing the work for me.

Yeah I agree. I think it's perfectly fine for anyone to not want to listen to any of these bands for any reason whatsoever, without having to qualify or justify it (and it is obvious what the most important reason will be). But pretending that GBK (or Burzum or Graveland) were not hugely influential to the black metal scene (Burzum moreso globally, but the other 2 definitely at the very least regionally but beyond that too), is just revisionism

On the other hand, Arghoslent, despite their originality, are not anywhere near as influential nor will they ever be

If it was ten years ago, I would've agreed with you. However, in recent years, there has been an increase in bands replicating their sound without necessarily using the racist lyrics. There's those bands that I and others have mentioned on this very thread, but I'm also gonna throw in Bogside Sniper Squadron too since no one's brought them up. They got lyrics about Provisional Irish Republican Army, plus an unique black/death mix that's clearly influenced from Arghoslent to even Thin Lizzy. You can check it out here: https://bogsidesnipersquadron.bandcamp. ... /demo-2023