I'm searching for proggy black metal without keyboards and any other influences outside traditional black metal. Basically, just pure black metal with a progressive nature.

You should try Winterblut, from Germany. Especially the second album Grund: Gelenkkunst. It's something like Ved Buens Ende but more black metal, with wierd vocals. Not very fast stuff, but proggressive yes.

probably the best BM album ever to come out of norway along with de mysteriis, aspera hiems synfonia and transilvanian hunger

Could someone help me to navigate in the huge ocean that is the collective discography of Xasthur and Leviathan? Thus far, I have one album with each one that I like: Subliminal Genocide with Xasthur and The Tenth Sub Level Of Suicide by Leviathan. I really like these albums, especially the respective standout songs: The Prison Of Mirrors by Xasthur, and The Bitter Emblem Of Dissolve by Leviathan. I've tried some other stuff by them, like the latest Xasthur as well as some early album, plus the two other full-lengths by Leviathan, but nothing quite caught my attention. What I'm looking for is basically this: slow, doomy tempos; huge, dense production, like a black wall of sound(although not necessarily well-produced), and sharp, agonizing vocals. So; less blastbeats, thrashy riffs and regular growling. I want a thick, suffocating, black soup of sound. Much like The Prison Of Mirrors.

Any recommendations?

Alright fellas, I may have a simple request here, I really don't know. Essentially what I'm looking for are bands that play a similar style to Tsjuder at their fastest, or a fair point of reference would be Inquisition's faster heavier moments (In fact, a band that sounded like nothing but the fast parts from Unholy Magic Attack would be incredible).

I looked into Katharsis and Antaeus because I figured these two would come up fairly quickly. I enjoyed a few Katharsis riffs but when I'm looking for something in this vein the last thing I want are songs lasting 8-10 minutes. Thats ridiculous. Antaeus I haven't heard much of but the production sounded quite stifling. I don't mind raw as long as the riffs are perceivable 90% of the time.

Bonus points if the band occasionally toss in some Hellhammerish/Frost-like grooving to build tension up for the faster parts.

edit: I guess I just felt like this should be obvious but I'm absolutely not looking for the over-produced blast-happy bm sound. I want extreme speeds tempered with a small bit of catchiness and a truly menacing/vengeful/angry sound and atmosphere.

I dunno if it's too fast/chaotic for you, but you might enjoy that first full-length by christ invertion. extremely fast stuff with some pretty catchy moments and crazy sampling. imagine antaeus just faster and, well more rhythmic if that makes sense. pretty short songs as well.

If you're talking about these guys the band page actually looks very promising, although it was not the sort of thing I had in mind (I don't think, can't even find legal samples). I would love to pick up either record by these guys but I can't find shit.

I do want it to be furiously fucking fast, but I'm picturing more of a northern (ugh), slicing sound.

yes that's the ones I meant.

well IMO they're not even that far away from the northern black metal style, just perhaps sometimes more on the bestial grinding side of things. they definitely have great catchy moments too.

their second one is more generic in my book. I've just checked, their debut is still available from tour de garde so if you really want to pick it up, do it there. they have a huge selection of great underground black metal.

I've loved christ invertion ever since I first listened to it.

Not sure if these'll fit your specific requests for each, but my standout releases for each:
Xasthur: A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors, To Violate the Oblivious, Defective Epitaph
Leviathan: A Silhouette in Splinters, Howl Mockery at the Cross, Verräter

And of course the Xasthur/Leviathan split.

Anyone have any recs that sound like Emperor's In The Nightside Eclipse or Burzum's Filosofem?

"Suicidal Emotions" by Abyssic Hate sounds a lot like filofosem to me. One of my fave albums ever, really surprised by some of the low reviews suicidal emotions got on this site i think its an amazing album.

Blutklinge also reminds me of filosofem.

Nyktalgia has a very Burzum-esque sound; both their albums are excellent...

Nyktalgia are excellent, but their sound isn't all that similar to Filosofem's. They definitely sound like Burzum, but not particularly like that album. However, Altar Shadows' earlier demo period has moments that sound Filosofem-esque. Lustre's Night Spirit also sounds quite a bit like Filosofem, the keys are very similar to Dunkelheit.

Have you ever give Evilfeast (pol) a spin Jonpo? They play mostly fast, raw sounding black metal, but with added keys that create a wonderful winter atmosphere, music is very dark and cold and evil sounding but as you stated they have catchy melodies here and there and songs are of good lenght, might just be what you are looking for, if not check them out anyway, excellent band.

yes, definitely blood stained dusk - continuance of evil with pest of gorgoroth on vokills!



I can only say it again and again, check out aisling dhorcha by beithíoch. you can legally download it via www.hiarctow.com

if you want the supreme quality tape version of this release, you'll have to wait until next month though.

Thanks for the recommendations guys, I'm checking them out now. Anyone have anything like In The Nightside Eclipse.

EDIT: Was not reading the post that well, saw the Emperor-esque rec.

If you like Desert Northern Hell, check out Urgehal - Goatcraft Torment. It's nearly the same and I'm sure that's what you're looking for.

@PRIMALSCREAM77: For that Emperor album-esque BM, check out Kataxu - Hunger of Elements.

@LARPwarrior: Yeah, finally someone else who finds this record amazing! It has been one of my personal favorite BM albums since the moment I heard it and I too can't understand that people on the archives give it such low reviews. But more records seem to have that problem, just look at ' Darkthrone - Plaguewhielder' . Awesome record, bad reviews. The dumb thing is then that a records such as 'Panzerfaust', which is mediocre, get's a very high average score...

Check out INFERNAL WAR- Terrorfront
actually any of there shite, i think its exactly what your looking for.

evilfeast is a great band, but I don't think it's what he's looking for. evilfeast have a more synth-oriented melodic style in the, well polish vein instead of sounding "northern" really. you should check them out anyway.

I second urgehal though, who you probably already know. this might be what you're looking for.

Can someone rec me bands similar to Agatus and Zofos please?

Also, something along the lines of Blasphemy, Archgoat and Beherit please?

Thanks.

I haven't heard Zofos, but Agatus is an exemplary band playing the "Hellenic Black Metal" style. Which is to say warm sounding, very influenced by trad. metal riffing, and often uses a drum machine. The godfathers of this style would be Necromantia (First two albums), Rotting Christ (first two albums), and Varathron (debut). If you're already familiar with these guys you could try moving on to Zemial (amazing side-project of the brothers who do Agatus), Kawir (debut only, imo), Order of the Ebon Hand... Actually just use the advanced search and look for black metal bands from Greece.



Look into Blasphemophagher, Proclamation, Revenge, Conqueror, Black Witchery, Bestial Warlust, Anal Blasphemy, Martyrvore, Goatpenis, Sadogoat...I'm sure there are a shit-ton more I'm forgetting. Not promising quality from all these bands, but they all play the "bestial" style as far as I know.

And now to respond to the lovely souls that have been trying to help me out. Keep in mind that I quit downloading music entirely so all of these impressions are based on cursory listens via youtube/myspace:

Evilfeast: Yeah these guys are a fair bit "softer" than what I was looking for. It's not offensive or anything, just doesn't really hold my interest.

Urgehal: I've heard various songs by these guys on Last.fm/youtube and it pretty much always seems to be a situation where there is one riff per song I really dig but the rest just feels like filler. This is definitely on the right track though. They just don't seem to keep up the aggression/energy levels enough. On a completely unrelated note I am starting to dig Azaghal and will probably look into more of their stuff.

Infernal War: This stuff is actually pretty fucking good, but its a bit cleaner and has a fair amount more death metal influence than I was looking for, but thats only in regards to my request. As far as the big picture I'm going to explore this band a bit more thoroughly and see if I can find something to purchase.

I apologize for making a seemingly vague request and then being so god damned picky but I am thankful for everyone that has tried to help so far...I'm just fucking picky about BM I guess.

azaghal is a band you should really check out, at least up until a few years ago. I think their last really good one was perkeleen luoma, after that I feel they started getting too melodic/soft in a weird bad way. if you like the good catchy melodic style of early azaghal, try snötarar, very close to that. they have an excellent demo compilation out on cd.

I'll think about that other stuff, I know I know something like that.

Looking for early Drudkh-ish black metal- long, hypnotic, repetitive songs that keep a consistant tempo and have few surprises in structure/riffs.

Well, I'd recommend you check out a band called Heptameron. Awesome band. And if you like Heptameron, then check out 87-92' era Samael material. Blood Ritual (though not my favorite Samael album) always sounded like something that would appeal to fans of that special Greek black metal sound.


Mystifier's Wicca is definitly something you should check out. It's really more Sarcofago than Blasphemy in sound, but is raw and bestial none-the-less. great stuff. The album that follows Wicca is recommended as well.

And, in regards to Jonpo's request: have you ever bothered to check out Gorgon (the french one)? I've never been much into Tsjuder (though I've only heard a few songs from Desert Northern Hell on myspace), and Gorgon doesn't excatly have that Norscore-esque sound that Tsjuder has but I still think you'd like Gorgon. Addmitantly, I've only heard The Lady Rides A Black Horse, but it was awesome and French and (considering how much I dislike and avoid French black metal) that quite a recommendation coming from someone like me. And, please try to forgive the band for their terrible promo photo on their page. It's terrible and leads one to the conclusion that they may be one of those aweful COF type black/goth bands. They are nothing of the sort, I assure you... at least on The Lady Rides A Black Horse, though I've heard that their later efforts aren't that bad either.

Anyway, onto my own request. I'll keep it simple and vague: I'm looking for bands (hell, I don't care if they're black metal, doom metal or even death metal) in the vein of Ride For Revenge, Bone Ritual, or even Drawing Down The Moon era Beherit (which was probably the main inspiration behind Ride For Revenge anyway).

EDIT: Okay, after visiting Youtube, I can at least say that Gorgon sucked on The Jackal Pact (1998 album). Very likely that they were shit later, too.

the lady rides a black horse is the only worthy gorgon album.

Is this all I need to focus on right now???

What are the best LLN demos?

vlad tepes-that tape on FMP
vlad tepes' side on the two splits, especially on the belketre split!!!
vlad tepes-the black legions!!!
black murder promo
susvourtre this is fucking weird though, but I love it.
mütiilation-black imperial blood (travel)
satanicum tenebrae (for the more ambient side)

that's the really great stuff. seviss and vermyapre kommando are good too, the rest is mediocre at best.

and not directly LLN-related, but that malicious secrets demo is excellent too.

id reccomend the "Ambre Zuerkl Vuordhrevarhtre" demo by Belketre as well

Holy fuck! I've got a lot of work ahead of me. Thanks!

I'd say you can't go wrong with most of mütiilation's early material, around 50% of vlad tepes' material (50% is fantastic/50% close to unlistenable as a rule of thumb), and most people with say belketre although I've never really got into them.

if you're into weird stuff you MUST check out susvourte. here's a tribute myspace page with an excerpt from the demo. it's a love it or hate thing I guess.

if you're into dark ambient, try satanicum tenebrae. möevöt suck in my book.

I'm looking to get into the more depressive/atmospheric side of black metal. Previously, I've been more interested in the more riff driven, faster styles of bm, and I'd like to explore the other side of it. The only bands I'm really aware of that are like this are Xasthur and Weakling, so pretty much any recommendations would help me out.

to state the obvious:

shining, despite their retarded fronter, play some excellent music.

there's also this german band freitod (debut should be out via ván soon), who are excellent at this style.

I'm not too much into this subgenre so I can't recommend you anything beyond this.

Thanks man, I know I've heard Shining was good but I completely forgot about them.

Thy Light*
Epitemia
Darktrance
Darkknght
Aargh
Anti*
Nyktaglia*
Austere
Trancelike Void
Gris*
Somres Forets*
Coldworld*
Where Sad Spirits Around Me Stroll (instrumental)
Happy Days
Apathia
Abyssic Hate*
Strid*
Brocken Mon*


.....*- better ones there.

For some reason I have shit tons of depressive BM, so if you want more recomendation, I shall impart them unto thee

I don't know if its been asked, but i need some raw BM with decent use of keyboards, like early Graveland, Kristallnacht, or Sort Vokter

Nokturnal Mortum's Goat Horns and Lunar Poetry. Although i'm sure you know those. Eldrig's Everlasting War Dvinity is a favorite of mine and shouldn't be missed. Nocternity, from greece might fit the bill as well.

I'm here to request some help to complete my recent spending surge on black metal. So far I've gotten these on CD over the weekend:

Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon
Immortal (Nor) - At the Heart of Winter
Immortal (Nor) - Sons of Northern Darkness
Judas Iscariot - Heaven in Flames
Judas Iscariot - To Embrace the Corpses Bleeding

Now, I think it is apparent what kind of black metal I'm asking for here, but I'll go ahead and still spell it out anyway. Essentially I am looking for cold grim black metal, but black metal doesn't forget about melody. However, the other side of my recent spending surge is to collect some of the old classics, like Darkthrone. Now I know of two glaring CDs I still need to get, at least from my perspective which are: Transilvanian Hunger and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. But are there any other glaring classic bands or albums I'm forgetting or albums that I might like that are recent based on those above albums...?

Thanks for the help .

Just wanted to put one more LLN band forward that doesn't get talked about much. Check out Seviss' first demo. Great bm in the vein of Vlad Tepes but slightly more...rocking? I dunno, check it out, it's awesome.



I don't know if you've looked into the Finnish scene at all, but there are a fair number of bands who take the cold, northern sound and inject a tasteful amount of melody. The closest to what you're looking for that I can come up with would be Carelian Satanist Madness by Satanic Warmaster. You should definitely look into Horna and Sargeist as well, though.

all he needs is warloghe!

both albums have been reissued on cd recently. the first one is more rocking, the second one is plain fantastic!!! sounds like the best darkthrone album that was accidentally written and recorded by someone else.