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MacabreEternal's Top 10 BM Albums 2018


MacabreEternal

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At the start of pulling this list together I had thought it to have been a "light" year for BM releases.  It was only when I got into compiling my "Best of 2018" that I realised it had in fact been quite a good year.  2018 in BM saw the return of some well established acts, some of them doing what they have always done well whereas others took to the recording studios minus long standing members.  When all is said and done, I think it all turned out rather well.

Honorable Mentions

It is a Top 10 folks and sadly not everyone has a place, so appreciative nods in the general direction of:

Shining "X-Varg Utan Flock"; Alghazanth "Eight Coffin Nails"; Summoning "With Doom We Come"; Varathron "Patriarchs of Evil" and Watain "Trident Wolf Eclipse".

10. Panopticon "The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness I & II"

By far the latest release on the list in terms of me catching up with it.  Usual atmospheric BM goodness on disc 1 and not too shabby folk/bluegrass/dark americana on disc 2.  Does grow on me the more I listen.

9. Wallachia "Monumental Heresy"

A recent revisit to this album boosted it into the list. Those lush orchestrations supply a great foundation to those tremolo riffs and acoustic passages throughout "Monumental Heresy".  Nice work.

8. Wiegedood "De Doden Hebben Het Goed II"

Aggression is the name of the game here, as death and anger are thrust at you from every corner.  Can pass you by completely if you don't give it proper attention, and doing so will reap rich rewards as there is so much going on here beneath the surface.

7. Die Kunst Der Finsternis "Queen of Owls"

Another fine slab of vampiric,  gothic and horrific BM from Sweden's finest lord of the night.  This truly is the art of darkness at work right here.

6. Craft "White Noise and Black Metal"

Dodgy record title aside, Craft return with a real class release some seven years after their last outing.  Catchy and scathing at the same time, the Swedes fifth full length make it two back to back releases from the country of IKEA into my top 10.

5. Drudkh "They Often See Dreams About the Spring"

Still no bad releases from Drudkh after 15 years of atmospheric BM.  The atmosphere is just as prevalent as ever on release number 11, built into the intelligent song structures and mature riffing and growling we have all become ever so familiar with. There is just no getting away from the feeling of vastness on this record as it swallows you up track by track.  Sadly this is also its main flaw as the attention required to fully enjoy this is a little too intense for my aged metal brain, otherwise it could have placed higher.

4. Immortal "Northern Chaos Gods"

Abbath who?  I mean this is one the most Immortal sounding Immortal albums ever, right?  Showing Demonaz as the real songwriting force behind Immortal, "Northern Chaos Gods" is just chock full of FUCKING RIFFS MAN!  I mean play this in a dark room, get up to switch the light and you will trip over at least 4 riffs whilst trying to get to the light switch!  They have song called "Blacker of Worlds" on here, I mean if that doesn't get your average corpse paint laden BM teenager wet then there's no hope for humanity.

3. Marduk "Viktoria"

Ok, this caught me completely off guard.  I mean, pants down, around the ankles, pooing in a bag, in a forest in hi-vis work gear - caught off guard!  Now I have stopped shitting in the woods like some giant luminous bear I am just having the time of my life listening to the short, sharp yet thoroughly enjoyable blasturbation of Marduk.  Cold and melancholic melodies swirl throughout the album and fill your head like for days afterwards.

2. Sargeist "Unbound"

Another band that simply can do no wrong in my book is Sargeist.  I am at the point now where I listen to each new release with trepidation, just in case this is the one that drops a bollock the weight of Finland itself as the band have decided to go all Euro Pop!  Thankfully, "Unbound" is most definitely not Euro Pop.  It is a furiously trve representation of Sargeist's traditional sound that is complemented superbly by melodic stylings from a largely new and reinvigorated line up.  No Sargeist entry at Eurovision this year folks!

1. Winterfylleth "The Harrowing of Heirdom"

So, controversially not an actual BM record but most definitely a release by a BM band.  I can't quite put into sufficient wording just how much I enjoy this record of acoustic storytelling.  I sing along to every line, I get teary at every lush piece of instrumentation and atmosphere and I smile content as a Bond villain at every warm tone that washes forth from my speakers/headphones.  An earthy, emotional and endearing experience that sits proudly atop of my list for 2018.

 

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The end of the year. My children look forward to Christmas, I look forward to Top 10 Lists. 

Nice list here. I'm not going to comment on individual albums because there may or may not be a couple appearing on my Top 10 of 2018 list, but you have given me a couple of names that I've missed this year and so will check out. Bold choice for number one! Good stuff. 

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5 hours ago, True Belief said:

1914's "The Blind Leading the Blind" also a great listen.

Good sound on that recording, and nice artwork too. One of my local friends is all about it. I liked it but it might take a few more plays to click for me. Have you checked out Svartidaudi's "Revelations Of The Red Sword"? I'm hooked on it at the moment.

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On 12/5/2018 at 5:59 PM, True Belief said:

Varathron very unlucky to miss out! Massive horns-up to the Immortal, Craft and Winterfylleth releases. 1914's "The Blind Leading the Blind" also a great listen.

The Varathron sounded a lot less sinister (the one time I heard part of it) than the mighty album they released before it whose name escapes me. Edit: ‘Untrodden Corridors of Hades’. What an amazing album.

 The new one sounded thin and incomplete to my ears, as if it needed a rhythm guitar or something. I need to check it out again I guess. 100 million True Beliefs can’t be wrong. 

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Northern Chaos Gods is a tremendous album! I love that Immortal is back in all of their riff driven glory.

I totally slept on that Panopticon release until I started seeing it in everybody's lists, and now I'm glad I gave it a real listen.

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As much as I love Drudkh, I cannot help but be a little disappointed with their latest album.  I still enjoyed it greatly. but to me it lacked the power of their earlier material.  It feels like the culmination of their movement away from ambient and atmospheric black metal to a more straightforward sound.

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4 hours ago, Balor said:

As much as I love Drudkh, I cannot help but be a little disappointed with their latest album.  I still enjoyed it greatly. but to me it lacked the power of their earlier material.  It feels like the culmination of their movement away from ambient and atmospheric black metal to a more straightforward sound.

I started to lose Drudkh around 'Blood in Our Wells' to be honest - around the time that Hate Forest was put to sleep and the guys merged some of the Hate Forest elements into the Drudkh sound, evolving Drudkh into a more complex entity. They really only became more popular after that, which is great for them, but for me their last album that really speaks to me personally was 'Autumn Aurora'. Gosh that's a great album. Still, we can't live in the past etc...

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16 hours ago, Requiem said:

I started to lose Drudkh around 'Blood in Our Wells' to be honest - around the time that Hate Forest was put to sleep and the guys merged some of the Hate Forest elements into the Drudkh sound, evolving Drudkh into a more complex entity. They really only became more popular after that, which is great for them, but for me their last album that really speaks to me personally was 'Autumn Aurora'. Gosh that's a great album. Still, we can't live in the past etc...

"Autumn Aurora" is easily the best of their full-length albums, in my mind - thought I liked "Blood in Our Wells" quite a bit as well.  I think that they express their desire to explore the sound of early Drudkh in their other project Windswept.  I wonder if they will abandon the project in favor of other ones in the near future.  It would be a shame, though, as no other band was able to capture the romantic picture of a rural past as well as they could.

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On ‎12‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 11:57 PM, FatherAlabaster said:

Good sound on that recording, and nice artwork too. One of my local friends is all about it. I liked it but it might take a few more plays to click for me. Have you checked out Svartidaudi's "Revelations Of The Red Sword"? I'm hooked on it at the moment.

No I haven't checked out Svartidaudi - but I will!

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2018 was an incredible year for black metal, although I wouldn't try to rank them.

Archgoat - The Luciferian Crown
Odious Devotion - S/T    
Shadow's Mortuary - Tulen Valtakunta
Infernarium - Kadotuksen Harmonia
Blutvial - Mysteries of Earth
Skognatt - Ancient Wisdom
Spectral Wound - Infernal Decadence
Schrat - Alptraumgänger
Graveborne - 1918
Moenen of Xezbeth - Ancient Spells of Darkness

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