Immortal are actually a bit of a bridge between "schools" of black metal, they went for that very crude sound in the beginning, into bridging old school stuff with a modern mind, if that makes sense. You won't know it because you only have one very early song to base yourself on, but this midtempo stuff has Bathory written all over. As for the production, this is the famous Abyss sound. For a while, every extreme metal band wanting to escape the stygma of the fuzzy production would seek it out, to the point where it actually became a selling point and oversaturated. But the sound was almost tailor made for what Immortal were doing at this time, though. The most interesting album to come out of this period was At the Heart of Winter, which is a bit more galloping in tempo but has similar rock n' roll vibes. And again, if you want groove and clarity in black metal, Samael's Ceremony of Opposites will virtually grab your neck and force you to nod or headbang, depending on your state of inhibition at the time. It's a black metal band who actually managed to be nearly free of blast beats, apart from the debut, being all about simple atmospheric crunchy and stompy riffs packed in songs that very rarely go beyond 4 minutes. They'll go on to mix black metal with dance beats and be surprisingly effective at it. Edit: Also for more groove, Melechesh were mentioned by another commenter, so I'm adding it here. You'll find them interesting especially because of the drumming which essentially transposes the grooves of mediterranean and middle eastern music into extreme metal drum patterns, especially on the Sphynx album. Secrets of Sumerian Sphynxology is particularly danceable.
@@CriticalReactions Check Samael's Year Zero for a nice little demonstration of that more danceable side, they're actually very accessible musically. And yeah, electro-dance-industrial black metal is something of a niche within a niche. Aborym turn techno untz untz into blast beats, for example, and Dodheimsgard also sneak in some dance beats into their general madness.
A lot of immortal songs (espcially in the album "at the heart of winter") are somewhat thrash influenced, but as a whole this is very much black metal. I'd recommend Taake's song 'Myr' as a cool song to react to, quite melodic and has an iconic banjo solo which is entertaining to hear.
Immortal's "At The Heart of Winter" really nailed the band as riff gods IMHO. It's almost magical. When you hear about the band Immortal, it's all about the godly riffage that they just produce. The song "Solarfall" for one has one of the best intros in their portfolio. Highly recommended!
Abbath was a black metal Riff-Lord, he has fallen off in his later years with his solo work, but, Sons of Northern Darkness is one of my favorite albums.
Abbath (Immortal's guitarist and vocalist at the time of this album's release) mentioned during an interview that the intro riff to "Tyrants" was actually inspired by Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir"
I love the song and the whole album. It has this cold, wintery vibe, as if the music has to travel though a winter storm to reach the ear. I always add it to my winter music playlist.
Good evening from rainy New England...This definitely has more groove than I'm used to in Black Metal...On that section of the song where you said you were surprised they weren't using trem picking..It really opened the song up and let it breath while the double kicks held things down...This is actually very melodic and well written..You can tell they were using real amps because amp modelers have a very distinct sound...Thx once again for turning me on to another band I probably wouldn't have happened upon myself...Great pick...Peace...
It's kind of funny how you can tell after 5 seconds who composed an Immortal song - Demonaz LOVES Morbid Angel and it shows, while Abbath writes those thrashy, groovy riffs. And this is a classic Abbath track, with an obligatory calm section with synths to boot.
"Abbath" as everybody mention here, he´s a little bit of a legend within Black Metal. He was the frontman of Immortal until 2015, they releasad a album 2018 without him, before they disputed in 2020. In 2015 created "Abbath" hes own band called "Abbath" .Abbath is in fact frontman for a Motörhead tribute band called "Bömbers", he´s very good at doing similar singing style as Lemmy did in Motörhead. I dont think it does not exist something that tells why they choice to put vocals on the right side, I did not even notice that until you mention that, ahaha :D. I Think you should do a full reaction to the album At the Heart of Winter from Immortal, my personal favorite from them, maybe you will not like it, If Black Metal is not for you, then it is not for you even how many times you try. That is the same thing for me to Metalcore and Deathcore bands, even if I like some songs/bands there.
I'd love to see you react to something from their At The Heart of Winter album, it's a bit more energetic and "trad" black metal, but with amazing melodies and well-written songs. Maybe Withstand the Fall of Time? Great riffs all over that and the vocals are not right-panned duh. Nevertheless, really enjoy your content!
My favorite black metal band! I recommend listening to their masterpiece album At The Heart Of Winter. Or if you have to pick a song, I recommend Withstand The Fall Of Time. This album has a much stronger atmosphere, is better composed and has stronger riffs IMHO. It is a house of riffs with one of the strongest atmospheres in metal with powerful melodic ideas, all masterfully composed together.
Cool to see your reaction to this, as I think it the whole album is a masterpiece, even if sonicly it might be a harder pill to swallow album length wise, but I do like it & think they were unique at that time with that style (it is also my favorite album of them). Another band you should check out but in studio (you did a live & orchestral song of them) is Satyricon, and like I said before, their "The Age of Nero" album & for instance "Black Crow in a Tomb Stone" (also a bit groovy) or "The Sign of the Trident", with great production too.
So by late 90's Abbath (that was the bassist up to that point) had to take guitar duties after guitarist Demonaz was diagnosted with tendinitis and had to quit (yet he continued to write the lyrics) but with this change the sound changed too ( with Demonaz Immortal had a more fast-paced traditional black metal style) so that's why they started with more of a groovy thrash metal influenced black metal and the 1999 album At the Heart of Winter was the first album in this style so if you want to listen to a full Immortal album i would probably choose that one (the fans also classify that album as one of their best) or if you wanna listen to another song from Sons of Northern Darkness one of my favourites is Beyond the North Waves (more of an epic song that reminds me of Viking-era Bathory).
You've got to check out Melechesh, a black metal band from Jerusalem, they also have very good production I would recommend Tempest Temper Enlil Enraged or Rebirth of the Nemesis
My pick from Melechesh would actually be Triangular Tatvic fire, simply because of how amazing the drums are at translating middle eastern rhythms into a metal setting.
This one is especially groovy and uses really interesting chord ideas for its main theme. Which kinda makes sense because Abbath said in an interview that they took inspiration from Kashmir by Led Zeppelin for this track. It was an interview/riff demonstration on some RUclips channel or the other (Guitar Center maybe?).
The song Antarctica has some great foot work on drums in the 2nd section. The entire album is a greatest hits album. For trem picking check out Mayhem or Marduk.
Immortal are definitely one of the great "bridge" bands for BM. They started out very traditional with their first few albums, of which Pure Holocaust is considered one of the classics of 2nd Wave of Norwegian Black Metal. Then they released At the Heart of Winter that saw them mixing a thrashier, proggier style with black metal. ATHOW is still typically considered their best album and it is indeed one of my absolute favorite BM albums. Then they did a kind of "return to roots" album with Damned in Black, before releasing Sons of Northern Darkness (which Tyrants is from), which saw them incorporating more "classic metal" influences. It's one of the albums that helped define the genre that came to be called "black n' roll" and is still their more commercially successful album. It's extremely accessible by BM standards with tons of extremely catchy songs and riffs. Since then they've had a rocky career with both of their lead guitarists and principle songwriters (Abbath and Demonaz) leaving, coming back, releasing solo material, etc. Abbath is mostly responsible for the more "classic metal" influences, while Demonaz is the more traditional black metal guy, and you can really hear that in the difference between All Shall Fall (an Abbath album) and Northern Chaos Gods (a Demonaz album). Anyway, I'm a big fan of the "black n' roll" sound and especially how Immortal went about it on this album as a whole. Probably my favorite song on the album is actually One by One, which features one of my all-time favorite guitar riffs. This is one of the albums I'd give to someone looking to get into black metal but who might find the more extreme/traditional bands too much to handle at first. Was nice to see you enjoying this knowing how much you've struggled with BM in the past. I thought you'd at least dig the grooviness here. :) I will say RE the lyrics Abbath writes about a fictional land called Blashyrkh that's full of demons and war. So it's pretty safe to say the "tyrants" are some of the characters that inhabit that world.
It's interesting to see a band slowly progress into a certain direction and end up defining an entire genre. It's not so much that they just landed on something new, they took baby steps to get there. Which is neat, from a historical point of view -- being able to see those changes in the larger scope of BM.
When this came out, my friend and myself would listen to this all day while smoking weed or taking shrooms. This album is deeply carved in my brain even if i did not listen to it in like 20 years.
This was my first black metal album and it changed my way of listening… i had the last two tracks „antarctica“ and „far beyond the north waves“ on repeat for at least 50 times because i couldn‘t handle the majestic atmosphere they created. This record is one of the most important for my 20 year evolution within extreme metal.
Forgot to say I don't think there are synths in this record, except for one song "Antartica" (an ambient piece in fact, a transition to last song), but I can't be sure 100 % about the other tracks (I have not an easy access now to my CD to check it out on the leaflet, sorry). I also have no idea about why that vocal part was paned on the right side only, but double checking the rest of the album, I can tell you Bryan that it is the only song produced like that, weird, isn't it ? All the other sung songs have centered vocals as I hear it !
Excluding Immortal's first album, all their lyrics deal with their own original Fantasy world. A lot of Black Metal bands deal with Tolkien's Middle-earth lore, but Immortal has created their own world with their own lore. This is where this song fits in. And you may end up hating it, but I'd be really curious to hear what you think of Fear Factory. They were the first band to use clean vocals and growls in the same songs (without ever becoming Metalcore). They are also one of the very few Metal bands that get away with using triggers on their studio albums (which is something a lot of Metalheads usually scoff at). Check out Demanufacture or Obsolete if you're curious about their old stuff, and Mechanize for something newer.
I’ve loved this tune since the 1st time I heard it. There’s such great imagery and feel. The mid-tempo approach has a sense of a difficult march to war through knee high snows. Kampfar - Eremitt might tickle your fancy from both a composition and production standpoint. Six minutes long and so many ideas in one song. Very approachable lyrically (less “scary” subject matter) despite being incomprehensible if you don’t speak Norwegian. Nicest guys you’ll ever meet too. Despite the language barrier and differing levels of theory, the bassist and I had a roughly 30mn discussion about the layering in Eremitt.
I'd like to see your reaction to Peccatum - Murder from their 2000 album "Amor Fati" - or even their entire album for that matter. Another one would be Diabolical Masquerade - Death's Design (whole album) :D
For uninteresting reasons the edgy kvlt blackies I know tend to chastise Immortal, but whatever. This is a favorite of mine, I can't help listen to this and make a stanky face and revel in the grim cold fantasy Abbath conjures up for us with his demented goblin voice and the fantastic riffs
There is a fun little subgenre called black n roll. It's black metal with an old school thrash/speed influences, think motorhead playing black metal. The Crown and Speedwolf are the best examples of this style. Sidenote, Abbath, the front man for immortal, fronts a motorhead tribute band called Bombers
Thematically this doesn't classify as black metal at all, but it is certainly a close cousin or stray sibling. Much more rooted in heavy and thrash than their contemporaries. They absolutely belong in the same historical sentence as Mayhem, Burzum, Gorgoroth, Emperor, Enslaved, Satyricon, Darkthrone tho.
IMHO, this is from Immortal's worst to second worst album, my favorites being Pure Holocaust and Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism, then really the rest in order of release. Just to be perfectly clear, the "holocaust" stuff is not a reference to what happened during ww2, more like the use before it, a burnt offering. Anyway, what I really wanted to say was, Abbath, the vocalist is a big rock n roll fan and wanted to be a star himself. You can tell by the face painting and clothing that may remind you about Kiss, to the way he is himself (usually a pretty funny dude btw, worth seeing some interviews haha), but also the music. Their first album was pretty much what is called "black n roll", then they went pretty hard and ice cold, and as time went on they went softer and more melodic and more back to black n roll. This is the second to last album they released... Afterwards Abbath did "I" and now he's solo under the name Abbath, and it's a lot more about the rock n roll feeling with some nice riffs, just darker. Their mid life stuff is also quite sloppy, whereas Pure Holocaust just nails it, they even do a Star Wars reference in the title song (just an octave higher or something). A huge reason why some of it was considered sloppy was the drums, and the funny thing about Pure Holocaust where they nailed it, it was actually played slow (by Abbath) and then sped up. :'D Despite three dudes on the cover, only two of them played on the album. Anyway, somewhat interesting choice, as the typical from this album is One by One. Also, if I played you anything from the first album, you probably wouldn't have known it was the same group, same goes for Pure Holocaust and the early mid stuff. ;)
1:45 It's probably a stereo delay with different settings for left and right side. And yeah, it feels like the vocals are like 30% panned right lol, weird decision.
Immortal combined the more groovy elements of heavy metal with traditional black metal in a way that renders it accessible even in a playlist with more traditional heavy metal. I think the novelty of it wears off pretty quickly but what makes it pretty enjoyable are the sonically palpable melodies. Immortal tends to have bright-timbre, simple, galloping melodies that are articulated well with tremolo picking. Immortal is definitely one of the easier black metal bands to listen to, though like any other black metal band, the constant tremolo picking can get really boring after a few songs. That's why I tend to only include the singles from black metal bands in my metal playlist rather than dumping entire albums of black metal in.
Guess we can call Pantera and all of that 90s hard rock bands, as you said, alternative metal as an umbrella term for bands that doesn't fit the classic 80s heavy metal sound or more specifically groove metal for the mayority of bands that develop their -heavy- modern sound in that decade until nu metal took over by the end of the century.
Black Metal, man. I do a BM reaction and they get all the views. Not sure if that's because of a big fandom in the community or fast word of mouth sharing though.
I don't get this notion. Decent but not sure how it breaks new ground and unlike anything else and evolutionary. Since this is all so subjective, whatever. If you say so.
Immortal are actually a bit of a bridge between "schools" of black metal, they went for that very crude sound in the beginning, into bridging old school stuff with a modern mind, if that makes sense. You won't know it because you only have one very early song to base yourself on, but this midtempo stuff has Bathory written all over.
As for the production, this is the famous Abyss sound. For a while, every extreme metal band wanting to escape the stygma of the fuzzy production would seek it out, to the point where it actually became a selling point and oversaturated. But the sound was almost tailor made for what Immortal were doing at this time, though. The most interesting album to come out of this period was At the Heart of Winter, which is a bit more galloping in tempo but has similar rock n' roll vibes.
And again, if you want groove and clarity in black metal, Samael's Ceremony of Opposites will virtually grab your neck and force you to nod or headbang, depending on your state of inhibition at the time. It's a black metal band who actually managed to be nearly free of blast beats, apart from the debut, being all about simple atmospheric crunchy and stompy riffs packed in songs that very rarely go beyond 4 minutes. They'll go on to mix black metal with dance beats and be surprisingly effective at it.
Edit: Also for more groove, Melechesh were mentioned by another commenter, so I'm adding it here. You'll find them interesting especially because of the drumming which essentially transposes the grooves of mediterranean and middle eastern music into extreme metal drum patterns, especially on the Sphynx album. Secrets of Sumerian Sphynxology is particularly danceable.
Thumbs up for Samael. A relatively unknown bm act, produced some very unique diamonds back in the day.
Thanks for the context here. Also.....blackened dance beat? I think I have to hear this!
@@CriticalReactions Check Samael's Year Zero for a nice little demonstration of that more danceable side, they're actually very accessible musically. And yeah, electro-dance-industrial black metal is something of a niche within a niche. Aborym turn techno untz untz into blast beats, for example, and Dodheimsgard also sneak in some dance beats into their general madness.
A lot of immortal songs (espcially in the album "at the heart of winter") are somewhat thrash influenced, but as a whole this is very much black metal. I'd recommend Taake's song 'Myr' as a cool song to react to, quite melodic and has an iconic banjo solo which is entertaining to hear.
The song that made me want to have a banjo to play.
@B0L1D guessing there's no reupload of that ?
Aah, Taake. The only black metal band to add jew harps, tubas, accordions and banjos to their songs without sounding cringe.
Immortal's "At The Heart of Winter" really nailed the band as riff gods IMHO. It's almost magical. When you hear about the band Immortal, it's all about the godly riffage that they just produce. The song "Solarfall" for one has one of the best intros in their portfolio. Highly recommended!
I Have that shirt and album
Abbath was a black metal Riff-Lord, he has fallen off in his later years with his solo work, but, Sons of Northern Darkness is one of my favorite albums.
Immortal is definitely black metal but a one of a kind black metal band
Abbath (Immortal's guitarist and vocalist at the time of this album's release) mentioned during an interview that the intro riff to "Tyrants" was actually inspired by Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir"
Good Ole Immortal 👌🤘 Definitely definitely one of the biggest influences upon the Black Metal scene 👌
lol
@@onkeliltis They always make me want to take A Bath 🤔
I love the song and the whole album. It has this cold, wintery vibe, as if the music has to travel though a winter storm to reach the ear. I always add it to my winter music playlist.
Good evening from rainy New England...This definitely has more groove than I'm used to in Black Metal...On that section of the song where you said you were surprised they weren't using trem picking..It really opened the song up and let it breath while the double kicks held things down...This is actually very melodic and well written..You can tell they were using real amps because amp modelers have a very distinct sound...Thx once again for turning me on to another band I probably wouldn't have happened upon myself...Great pick...Peace...
It's kind of funny how you can tell after 5 seconds who composed an Immortal song - Demonaz LOVES Morbid Angel and it shows, while Abbath writes those thrashy, groovy riffs. And this is a classic Abbath track, with an obligatory calm section with synths to boot.
"Abbath" as everybody mention here, he´s a little bit of a legend within Black Metal. He was the frontman of Immortal until 2015, they releasad a album 2018 without him, before they disputed in 2020. In 2015 created "Abbath" hes own band called "Abbath" .Abbath is in fact frontman for a Motörhead tribute band called "Bömbers", he´s very good at doing similar singing style as Lemmy did in Motörhead. I dont think it does not exist something that tells why they choice to put vocals on the right side, I did not even notice that until you mention that, ahaha :D. I Think you should do a full reaction to the album At the Heart of Winter from Immortal, my personal favorite from them, maybe you will not like it, If Black Metal is not for you, then it is not for you even how many times you try. That is the same thing for me to Metalcore and Deathcore bands, even if I like some songs/bands there.
I'd love to see you react to something from their At The Heart of Winter album, it's a bit more energetic and "trad" black metal, but with amazing melodies and well-written songs. Maybe
Withstand the Fall of Time? Great riffs all over that and the vocals are not right-panned duh. Nevertheless, really enjoy your content!
My favorite black metal band! I recommend listening to their masterpiece album At The Heart Of Winter. Or if you have to pick a song, I recommend Withstand The Fall Of Time.
This album has a much stronger atmosphere, is better composed and has stronger riffs IMHO. It is a house of riffs with one of the strongest atmospheres in metal with powerful melodic ideas, all masterfully composed together.
Cool to see your reaction to this, as I think it the whole album is a masterpiece, even if sonicly it might be a harder pill to swallow album length wise, but I do like it & think they were unique at that time with that style (it is also my favorite album of them). Another band you should check out but in studio (you did a live & orchestral song of them) is Satyricon, and like I said before, their "The Age of Nero" album & for instance "Black Crow in a Tomb Stone" (also a bit groovy) or "The Sign of the Trident", with great production too.
So by late 90's Abbath (that was the bassist up to that point) had to take guitar duties after guitarist Demonaz was diagnosted with tendinitis and had to quit (yet he continued to write the lyrics) but with this change the sound changed too ( with Demonaz Immortal had a more fast-paced traditional black metal style) so that's why they started with more of a groovy thrash metal influenced black metal and the 1999 album At the Heart of Winter was the first album in this style so if you want to listen to a full Immortal album i would probably choose that one (the fans also classify that album as one of their best) or if you wanna listen to another song from Sons of Northern Darkness one of my favourites is Beyond the North Waves (more of an epic song that reminds me of Viking-era Bathory).
You've got to check out Melechesh, a black metal band from Jerusalem, they also have very good production I would recommend Tempest Temper Enlil Enraged or Rebirth of the Nemesis
This would be great.
My pick from Melechesh would actually be Triangular Tatvic fire, simply because of how amazing the drums are at translating middle eastern rhythms into a metal setting.
This one is especially groovy and uses really interesting chord ideas for its main theme. Which kinda makes sense because Abbath said in an interview that they took inspiration from Kashmir by Led Zeppelin for this track. It was an interview/riff demonstration on some RUclips channel or the other (Guitar Center maybe?).
Guitar World put up a "lesson" vid with Abbath where he mentions this. Still on YT. 👍
The lyrics and lore is the best part of this song, you should do a video on "Beyond the North Waves" as well, interesting piece.
Bathory - blood and iron
Rest in peace Quorthon 18 years ago on 3rd june Quorthon died In Sweden, Stockholm
The song Antarctica has some great foot work on drums in the 2nd section. The entire album is a greatest hits album. For trem picking check out Mayhem or Marduk.
Immortal are definitely one of the great "bridge" bands for BM. They started out very traditional with their first few albums, of which Pure Holocaust is considered one of the classics of 2nd Wave of Norwegian Black Metal. Then they released At the Heart of Winter that saw them mixing a thrashier, proggier style with black metal. ATHOW is still typically considered their best album and it is indeed one of my absolute favorite BM albums. Then they did a kind of "return to roots" album with Damned in Black, before releasing Sons of Northern Darkness (which Tyrants is from), which saw them incorporating more "classic metal" influences. It's one of the albums that helped define the genre that came to be called "black n' roll" and is still their more commercially successful album. It's extremely accessible by BM standards with tons of extremely catchy songs and riffs. Since then they've had a rocky career with both of their lead guitarists and principle songwriters (Abbath and Demonaz) leaving, coming back, releasing solo material, etc. Abbath is mostly responsible for the more "classic metal" influences, while Demonaz is the more traditional black metal guy, and you can really hear that in the difference between All Shall Fall (an Abbath album) and Northern Chaos Gods (a Demonaz album).
Anyway, I'm a big fan of the "black n' roll" sound and especially how Immortal went about it on this album as a whole. Probably my favorite song on the album is actually One by One, which features one of my all-time favorite guitar riffs. This is one of the albums I'd give to someone looking to get into black metal but who might find the more extreme/traditional bands too much to handle at first. Was nice to see you enjoying this knowing how much you've struggled with BM in the past. I thought you'd at least dig the grooviness here. :)
I will say RE the lyrics Abbath writes about a fictional land called Blashyrkh that's full of demons and war. So it's pretty safe to say the "tyrants" are some of the characters that inhabit that world.
It's interesting to see a band slowly progress into a certain direction and end up defining an entire genre. It's not so much that they just landed on something new, they took baby steps to get there. Which is neat, from a historical point of view -- being able to see those changes in the larger scope of BM.
When this came out, my friend and myself would listen to this all day while smoking weed or taking shrooms. This album is deeply carved in my brain even if i did not listen to it in like 20 years.
This was my first black metal album and it changed my way of listening… i had the last two tracks „antarctica“ and „far beyond the north waves“ on repeat for at least 50 times because i couldn‘t handle the majestic atmosphere they created. This record is one of the most important for my 20 year evolution within extreme metal.
Melodic black metal with good production? Stormkeep - The Seer.
Forgot to say I don't think there are synths in this record, except for one song "Antartica" (an ambient piece in fact, a transition to last song), but I can't be sure 100 % about the other tracks (I have not an easy access now to my CD to check it out on the leaflet, sorry). I also have no idea about why that vocal part was paned on the right side only, but double checking the rest of the album, I can tell you Bryan that it is the only song produced like that, weird, isn't it ? All the other sung songs have centered vocals as I hear it !
I know you don't usually do videos, but their music video for Call of the Wintermoon is one of the funniest things that I've seen in metal.
Excluding Immortal's first album, all their lyrics deal with their own original Fantasy world. A lot of Black Metal bands deal with Tolkien's Middle-earth lore, but Immortal has created their own world with their own lore. This is where this song fits in.
And you may end up hating it, but I'd be really curious to hear what you think of Fear Factory. They were the first band to use clean vocals and growls in the same songs (without ever becoming Metalcore). They are also one of the very few Metal bands that get away with using triggers on their studio albums (which is something a lot of Metalheads usually scoff at). Check out Demanufacture or Obsolete if you're curious about their old stuff, and Mechanize for something newer.
I’ve loved this tune since the 1st time I heard it. There’s such great imagery and feel. The mid-tempo approach has a sense of a difficult march to war through knee high snows.
Kampfar - Eremitt might tickle your fancy from both a composition and production standpoint. Six minutes long and so many ideas in one song. Very approachable lyrically (less “scary” subject matter) despite being incomprehensible if you don’t speak Norwegian. Nicest guys you’ll ever meet too. Despite the language barrier and differing levels of theory, the bassist and I had a roughly 30mn discussion about the layering in Eremitt.
I'd like to see your reaction to Peccatum - Murder from their 2000 album "Amor Fati" - or even their entire album for that matter.
Another one would be Diabolical Masquerade - Death's Design (whole album) :D
For more BM with better production I'd be interested to hear your take on Watain - Waters of Ain
From immortal solarfal or where dark and light dont differ are some amazing songs you should definitely check out
While double bass is used in black metal it's really more of a death metal thing black metal is more typically hyper fast blast beats
For uninteresting reasons the edgy kvlt blackies I know tend to chastise Immortal, but whatever. This is a favorite of mine, I can't help listen to this and make a stanky face and revel in the grim cold fantasy Abbath conjures up for us with his demented goblin voice and the fantastic riffs
There is a fun little subgenre called black n roll. It's black metal with an old school thrash/speed influences, think motorhead playing black metal. The Crown and Speedwolf are the best examples of this style.
Sidenote, Abbath, the front man for immortal, fronts a motorhead tribute band called Bombers
You wouldn't have to force yourself you'd like it may I recommend at the heart of winter or this album you're listening too now
Thematically this doesn't classify as black metal at all, but it is certainly a close cousin or stray sibling. Much more rooted in heavy and thrash than their contemporaries.
They absolutely belong in the same historical sentence as Mayhem, Burzum, Gorgoroth, Emperor, Enslaved, Satyricon, Darkthrone tho.
I think you'll really like more immortal songs if you check them out
IMHO, this is from Immortal's worst to second worst album, my favorites being Pure Holocaust and Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism, then really the rest in order of release. Just to be perfectly clear, the "holocaust" stuff is not a reference to what happened during ww2, more like the use before it, a burnt offering. Anyway, what I really wanted to say was, Abbath, the vocalist is a big rock n roll fan and wanted to be a star himself. You can tell by the face painting and clothing that may remind you about Kiss, to the way he is himself (usually a pretty funny dude btw, worth seeing some interviews haha), but also the music. Their first album was pretty much what is called "black n roll", then they went pretty hard and ice cold, and as time went on they went softer and more melodic and more back to black n roll. This is the second to last album they released... Afterwards Abbath did "I" and now he's solo under the name Abbath, and it's a lot more about the rock n roll feeling with some nice riffs, just darker.
Their mid life stuff is also quite sloppy, whereas Pure Holocaust just nails it, they even do a Star Wars reference in the title song (just an octave higher or something). A huge reason why some of it was considered sloppy was the drums, and the funny thing about Pure Holocaust where they nailed it, it was actually played slow (by Abbath) and then sped up. :'D Despite three dudes on the cover, only two of them played on the album.
Anyway, somewhat interesting choice, as the typical from this album is One by One.
Also, if I played you anything from the first album, you probably wouldn't have known it was the same group, same goes for Pure Holocaust and the early mid stuff. ;)
Excellent band and great album ⚡
1:45 It's probably a stereo delay with different settings for left and right side. And yeah, it feels like the vocals are like 30% panned right lol, weird decision.
Immortal combined the more groovy elements of heavy metal with traditional black metal in a way that renders it accessible even in a playlist with more traditional heavy metal. I think the novelty of it wears off pretty quickly but what makes it pretty enjoyable are the sonically palpable melodies. Immortal tends to have bright-timbre, simple, galloping melodies that are articulated well with tremolo picking. Immortal is definitely one of the easier black metal bands to listen to, though like any other black metal band, the constant tremolo picking can get really boring after a few songs. That's why I tend to only include the singles from black metal bands in my metal playlist rather than dumping entire albums of black metal in.
I would love to see you react to harakiri for the sky - manifesto.
About that right panned vocals, its just this song. Usually he is center panned.
The lyrics are also pure fantasy about a frozen world of Blashyrkh and its inhabitants.
If you want to listen to interesting BM, try Pensées Nocturnes
I'd bet that there's no questions in interviews about the right-panned vocals because literally no one else on the planet gave a shit.
You should react to Gorgoroth - Maaneskyggens slave.
This is fuckin Abbath! He is the son of northern darkness..He is the genius guy of True Norwegian Black Metal. Deal with it!
i love how bryan is awkward about grimdark lyrics 🤣he's too nice for this evil shit! hope next halloween bryan be black metal corpsepaint bryan
Guess we can call Pantera and all of that 90s hard rock bands, as you said, alternative metal as an umbrella term for bands that doesn't fit the classic 80s heavy metal sound or more specifically groove metal for the mayority of bands that develop their -heavy- modern sound in that decade until nu metal took over by the end of the century.
nu metal or groove metal
Alrighty, so still Hard Rock but gotta get that year in front of it to differentiate from the classic Hard Rock.
how does this already have more views than the dave brubeck video?
Black Metal, man. I do a BM reaction and they get all the views. Not sure if that's because of a big fandom in the community or fast word of mouth sharing though.
I don't get this notion. Decent but not sure how it breaks new ground and unlike anything else and evolutionary. Since this is all so subjective, whatever. If you say so.
It is NOT black metal. It has to be said. Abbath himself never said it is BM. For BM check out Marduk or Waitan ect