The Best Black Metal Album - Metal Storm Awards 2023
Blut Aus Nord is a band that often works best in trilogies, whether the more icy atmospheric black metal of
Memoria Vetusta or the experimental industrial black metal of
777, but the
Disharmonium trilogy is taking the atmospheric emphasis and the dissonance of each of these into very eerie territories.
Nahab is the second installment, and it takes all that swirling nausea into something even more grotesquely nightmarish. There's a dream logic to how the dissonant black metal flows, how unconventional the percussion can feel even in the more mechanical moments, how the vocals feel like they're preying on you from another world.
Blut Aus Nord have sounded cold and dissonant before, but rarely this malevolent.
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One of the most intriguingly disturbing releases to come out of 2023 is
Malivore, the full-length debut from the new project of multi-instrumentalist Hazard. Seemingly spawned from out of the same hellish league as
Blut Aus Nord and
Deathspell Omega,
Malivore proves to be an evil and nightmarish force to be reckoned with. Here,
Hasard proves more than capable of warping the listeners' mind in unsettling ways you can't even begin to imagine, doing so through experimental, dissonant black metal, with cleverly orchastrated classical music influences dwelling within its rather chaotic structure. Describing this terrific debut as an unsettling listening experience is a definite understatement; what it is is truly terrifying.
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Lamp Of Murmuur’s highest-profile album yet is also its most traditionally black metal in nature; you’ll hear distinct homages to
Bathory and
Immortal among others, which is a symptom of the project growing bolder in its writing and attitude. Yet there’s still a piece of
Lamp Of Murmuur that rebels against those familiar paths: in the midst of those blizzard riffs are the reverbed notes of post-punk and the gothic rock touches that have distinguished them since the beginning. Torrential blast beats are definitely cool, but there’s more than one way to be a lost forgotten sad spirit.
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Back in 2009, members of
Gris and
Sombres Forêts joined forces to create the seemingly one-off project
Miserere Luminis, and neither band was heard from after dropping huge masterpieces in 2013. A decade of silence later and it's actually the side project that gets revived.
Ordalie takes all the element of the debut, from the depressive tones to the more aggressive melodies to the atmospheric focus, and creates something much more cohesive. There's a rather melancholic tone to it all, something that comes from some chamber music being integrated in the latter part of the album and from the soaring post-rock melodies.
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Moonreich seem to be interested in knocking your block off: their guitars fall just short of being sharp, overdriving with such abandon in an often indiscriminate hodgepodge of post-metal volume and hardcore belligerence, and there’s no standing in the way of the freight train when they launch into the full battery of blast beats. But they know how to hold back, too, and for more reasons than just lulling you into a fall sense of security: the occasional groovy, psychedelic, and reflective digressions in melody flavor
Amer with interesting contrasts largely unknown to black metal that otherwise goes so viciously for the throat.
Moonreich’s usual mode burns hot enough to threaten Earth’s atmosphere, but a band that can strategize with this kind of versatile songwriting is even more dangerous than one that simply roars.
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A one-time hardcore band, Russia’s
Morokh have moved ever further from those origins across their decade of existence towards the multi-faceted and engrossing sound captured on their fourth full-length album,
Insomnia. At different times exploring modern black, blackened death (with riffs reminiscent of post-2000
Behemoth), and post-black styles that evoke a range of dark emotions, they even have it in their arsenal to occasionally dabble with cleaner and more delicate tones.
Insomnia is a tour de force of punishing riffing, haunting melody, and elite songwriting.
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Martyrs is an exercise in what sort of soundscapes a listener might physically tolerate. Play it loud, and we think you’ll agree. As much as the ominously descending melodies are memorable, so is the sheer ear-splitting percussion noise created by the delicately ravaged production. The epic riffs, moody screams, and dark twists and turns are all there to unpack behind a wall of trebly, abrasive cacophony of cymbals and snare drums that turn the twisted sound into an instrument in itself. It is not all inaccessible chaos, of course; there is a very thoughtful sense to the ways the songs are built up and flow into each other, with the album being clearly split into three different sections: one heavy, one noisy, and one almost uplifting and serene behind all of this madness.
Pa Vesh En makes music that is not for the faint of heart, but also music that is as rewarding as it is fulfilling once you allow it to envelop you, so cast your fears and doubts aside, turn it up
loud, and prepare for some aural punishment.
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This entire album is a recording of a suite composed to be played live once and only once at Roadburn, which was then saved permanently on a record years later.
Sól Án Varma’s eponymous release is like a classical symphony in execution, only performed on a sludgy, psychedelic black metal canvas.
Sól Án Varma creates an immersive atmosphere with slow, dissonant riffs and ethereal screams, gradually building tension that unfolds unpredictably, incorporating blast beats,
Deathspell Omega-like dissonance, and rhythmic intensification into a shifting, ominous ebb and tide of approaching doom. The track titles are (probably) mostly there for streaming purposes, as this is a work you'll want to hear from start to finish with as few distractions as possible.
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"
What would it sound like if Mahavishnu Orchestra played black metal?"
Thantifaxath have already carved quite a niche for themselves, one of progressive dissonant atmospheric black metal, but with
Hive Mind Narcosis they take the classical elements already present in their music towards something that feels more akin to the jazz prog rock of the '70s with its quirky elements, but in a black metal context. It's just wrong enough in the elements it brings to the table, intricate black metal injected with some death and doom and ambient all played very disharmoniously, but also meticulous enough that it doesn't feel too wrong for its own good to still find some harmony within the chaos.
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"Untergang" is a bit harsh: this might be a melancholic farewell from
Urfaust, but an album like this is a triumphant exit, not a downfall. Their violently mystifying and intoxicating black metal, delivered in thick, plodding clouds of drone-like persistence, has a presence unique even among the many metal bands practiced at introducing heavy ambience through extreme metal techniques; IX's alien wails and the dim electric radiator glow of otherworldly fuzz work continuous psychic erosion with a serpentine sense of melody that winds between the familiar and the subterranean. We'll undoubtedly feel the absence of a band as reliable as
Urfaust, but we'll always have our fond memories... provided they haven't vanished into the black haze.
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