Music Notes: Black Metal

January 2011 - Black Metal
New feature! Follow me as I sum up a month’s worth of my listenings and discuss the awesomeness that is my ever-expanding musical catalogue. My tastes consist of mostly metal and hard rock. Especially metal and hard rock that can also be sub-classified as progressive. I’ve got tons of classic rock on vinyl and I’ve been known to dabble in some funk here and there. Also, HUGE Warren Zevon fan.

The new year started off unlike any other for me, ever. I have been immersed in a real winter season. Snow! Ice! Slush! More Snow! As a result of the cold weather, my musical leanings have taken me somewhere I once vowed to avoid. That’s right, the realms of black metal.

My knowledge of black metal is abysmal (not to be confused with abyssal, which would be roughly the knowledge of someone totally evil, like Satan, or fat nerdy suburban teen), so I won’t pretend to say much on the subject. But what I thought of black metal previously--church burning, face paint and ridiculous spikes--still definitely applies, though there is more to it than that.



I’ve been listening to Agalloch for years now, they are firmly entrenched as one of my favorite all time bands. Recently, they released a new album, Marrow of the Spirit, that was more metal than what I expected from them. That album made me curious, so I checked out the new Enslaved album. The combination of those two albums has opened my eyes to a world of music that I was previously avoiding, due to my previous prejudices against the scene.

Without further ado, here’s a short list of things I’ve been rocking to this month:

Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit - My favorite album of 2010!
Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini - Solid, proggy, black
Alcest - Ecailes De Lune - Downtempo winter tunes
Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters - Intense
The Ocean - Anthropomorphic - Coupled with their previous effort, Heliocentric, this is the only metal I know of that can be classified as philosophy metal
James LaBrie - Static Impulse - Like Dream Theater, but shorter and catchier
Iron Thrones - The Wretched Sun - Post metal done right
Wintersun - S/T - Essential winter listening

Ensiferum - S/T - See above
Jesu - Conqueror - I really can't get tired of this album. Fantastic.
Mastodon - Blood Mountain - Always
Tiamat - Prey - Extremely catchy goth metal
Animals as Leaders - S/T - Solid instrument progressive rock album