My Top-10 Black Metal Albums Of All Time

It's time for my top-10 list of black metal albums. I just have to confess a few things: it wasn't a long time ago since I really got into black metal. It was like in the summer of 2013 that I really started listening to the genre. I have listened to a few bands, mostly (the true) Mayhem since 2007 and Bathory since 2006. I am also fully aware of the metal elitism in black metal, with people seriously being trve and all that. I'm pretty sure I am not. I am open-minded. I also listen to more modern black metal rather than old, which I suppose is "gay" and all that as well. What I do dig the most with black metal is it's primitive music and lyrical content. As a Luciferian, critic and opposer to religion, I find much relevance in black metal's common lyrical content. Anyway, here is my list:


#10: Ondskapt - Arisen From The Ashes (2010)

Ondskapt is a Swedish black metal band that I guess have some ties with Watain. They record their stuff in the same studio (Necromorbus) and the sound is therefore pretty similar, both musically and sonically. I don't really have much to say about this album to sum it up rightfully, but I have listened to it a lot because I really dig the Necromorbus sound. With that said, this is not to be taken as a Watain clone, they're not. They are a similar band, and a very good band at that.

#9: Immortal - All Shall Fall (2009)

The only Norwegian black metal band that made my list. I don't dislike their black, they're were responsible for pretty much all the classic black metal in the 90's, but I just find myself more rooted in the Swedish, more melodic stuff. But if there is one, apart from Darkthrone, that should've had battled for this list, it's Immortal. What I really like about them is this album. How they after so many years and albums just put out this one, and it's so damn good. I think they're the Norwegian black metal equivalent to the Swedish death metallers Unleased - they just get better as they age. Most of the Norwegian band also lost much of their original black metal sound - Darkthrone is essentially a viking metal band today, Mayhem is too experimental, and Satyricon blows today. Immortal still sounds black metal in my ears, and some damn good black metal at that.

#8: Chaos Invocation - Black Mirror Hours (2013)

This band is quite unknown I think. They're a German band that play a great style of black metal with lots of almost gothic guitar harmonies and stuff. While maybe not anything groundbreaking, this album really is a very solid listen. There's a certain evil within this record, especially in the vocals, that really makes for a hateful atmosphere when you need it. I would probably describe this album as: what the album cover shows you, stylistically, is what you will hear. It's great!

#7: Valkyrja - Contamination (2010)

Another Swedish band that records in the infamous Necromorbus studios like so many modern death metal bands. Valkyrja to me seems to be a band that is getting ignored by many people for sounding too much like fellow Swedish black metal masters Watain. I can hear why that is, and at times it's possibly even a little too obvious, but at the same time they're more progressive to my ears. While Watain sounds very much like a 80's black metal band, Valkyrja strike me as more laid to complex rhythms and time-signatures, that kind of stuff. They have lots of cool drumming and riffing going on, and the production is fucking sweet.

#6: Inferno - Omniabsence Filled By His Greatness (2013)

I don't know much about this band or their music, really. This album is not quite the regular black metal album. This one is...experimental, I guess you could say, in some ways. It's got lengthy tunes with lots of black metal-progressive parts and fills. Don't let this scare you away, though. This album has got a very nice melancholic, depressing and evil sound-scape going on throughout. It's not the kind of album that I would put on whenever, but really when I'm in the mood for some really atmospheric stuff. I really like this album a lot.

#5: Raise Hell - Holy Target (1998)

A late 90's band from Sweden that went by pretty unnoticed, I believe? I could imagine why as well. After this album they changed their sound to more of a straight, simple and quite boring thrash sound (Swedes can't do good thrash. Death metal is our excellency!). This album, however, is very much a black metal album very much in the same vein as fellow, by then split-up, Swedes Dissection. Now this can come off as a second-rate "rip-off" of Dissection, and maybe it is, but it still some fucking neat second-rate shit in any case. What I particularly like about this album is its sweet riffs and melancholic melodies. I guess that this album, if you haven't heard it, would sure please fans of Dissection, Unanimated and Watain.

#4: Samael - Ceremony Of Opposites (1994)

This album is the first on any of my lists made so far that really isn't my favorite album by the band, since Samael so drastically changed their musical style after this album, I cannot really choose my favorite album of theirs. That'll have to wait for the industrial metal top-10 list. But still album, Samael's last pure full-length black metal album, is a classic of the genre. I'm not a too big fan of Samael's early doom-y, Celtic Frost influenced black metal albums, but it was with this one that they really got their own thing going. A dark, sinister metal album with quite a unique metal sound, as Samael always have been - a unique band, and Vorph's evil vocals just makes the band perfect. I imagine this album would probably please most of the black metal fans out there. It's a great album!

#3: Bathory - Under The Sign Of The Black Mark (1986)

Most likely, without a question, the most trve black metal album on this list. I see most fans of the mighty Bathory either favoring the debut, "Blood, Fire, Death", or the viking metal-era. I for one really favor this album. It's very raw, primitive, dark, brutal and with an amazing set of tunes. It's simply a classic metal album. What's also to keep in mind about this album is when it was released, which was in 1986. That was the year when thrash classics like Slayer's "Reign In Blood" and Kreator's "Pleasure To Kill" came out, and everyone thought it was the most bad-ass, brutal albums ever. They apparently didn't hear this one that year, or had heard any of the older Bathory material for that matter. For the time being released, this album is very much a truly extreme metal album. It would only take a fool to deny that.

#2: Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane (1995)

Sweden's Dissection is one of the most appreciated black metal bands of all time. Maybe that is because they're just as accepted with the (melodic, particularly) death metal fans as well. After releasing their excellent debut "The Somberlain", which honestly could've been their best as well, Dissection released this legendary album. Sounding heavily influenced by my all-time favorite death metal band Dismember, this stuff is bound to catch my attention. The have majestic melodies, sinister riffs, and blasting drums of hell that just perfectly creates this evil, Satanic, melancholic, cold atmosphere that I just love about black metal. Trve perfection.

#1: Watain - Lawless Darkness (2010)

And the King on the hill, the Lords of the lawless darkness - Watain. Not the first black metal band that I discovered, but the one that really got me into it. What I really dig about this album, and the band as a whole, is their creativity and quality music. I truly find very record of theirs to be a masterpiece, and everyone is also different from each other. I also like how they do not only sound raw, brutal and primitive, but with a great sence of melancholic, 80's heavy metal inspired melody. They sound like a mix of first-gen black metal like Mercyful Fate, Celtic Frost and particularly Bathory, combined with with the classic 90's stuff like Dissection and Darkthrone. Watain is more than just simple black metal - it's a whole universe of dark entities, black magic, evil and death.

Band interview: Into The Pentagram

My band Into The Pentagram, formerly known as Devastation but recently disbanded/renamed, was featured in one of Borås' local papers some days ago. We, or I more precisely, were interviewed and questioned about our debut demo, the name change, and other stuff. The thing was also more like a reportage on us and a review of our demo. I've translated the interview and review parts, which are in Swedish, to English. Be sure to read it and check us out!

//Jackie

The interview.....

BT: Hello Jackie, how are you today?

Jackie: I'm good, thanks.

BT: Tell us: You guys recently went through some major changes, most notably losing yet another member, changing your name, and releasing a brand new demo. How come that all this happened in such short time?

Jackie: Well, to be quite honest with you, losing Amanda [Holm, ex-lead singer] was something that was coming for a long time. We weren't exactly the most lucky bunch for the last five years. When Stefan [Abramsson, ex-bassist and founding member] left us in the summer of 2009, which made Linus [Bischoff Hansen, ex-lead singer] leave with him as well, things really started to crumble down on everything that was Devastation. Daniel [Carlzon, lead guitarist and founding member] and I [Jackie Wacklin, drums, growler and founding member] were in a bad place.

Losing half our band and friends, much because of studies [to attend to], left us unable to rehearse properly, and totally disabled to do gigs. We lost our motivation, to be honest. We tried out my pal Henke [Karlenström, ex-rhythm guitarist and bassist], but he was nowhere ready to commit to something like our band. He probably went in and out of the band like five times, because we kept firing him only to be desperate and bring him back in again. That left ourselves even more unjustified. Amanda came into the band around the summer of 2011. She steered up things a bit, especially with Daniel and I, like a band mother, but she had no success with Henke who hated her for some reason. We hated it as well, but I guess we needed that right there and then *laughs*....

BT: How did Amanda exit the band? Did she leave you or did you guys fire her?

Jackie: With all that happened during these years, Daniel and I just got too fed up with everything. We always wanted to play, and sometimes we really tried to put our hearts into it, and sometimes we barely even tried to. I think Amanda got real tired of it, even though she stayed with us. She was a nice and cool person, but maybe the chemistry between her and us wasn't the perfect match, either. I think, at the end of the day, that we really wanted to do different things musically. Things simply ran out in the sand with Amanda. The band just ended, we stopped playing. She never quit, we never fired her, it was nothing mutual - we just stopped and lost contact. It was over.

BT: Was that for the whole band or just the relationship with Amanda?

Jackie: It was mostly with Amanda, but the band was like a dead horse, and we spent our last energy to keep beating on it. However, we eventually, finally, gave up Devastation, as we all know now.

BT: Was it emotionally hard to split-up Devastation?

Jackie: Yeah, it was hard. Devastation was ten years of our lives. It was our whole youth... We started when we were thirteen. We had the band through our whole teens and our young adulthood. But on the other hand, it was for the better. We needed a fresh start for years. We needed a new name, new guys, new directions. With Devastation, all we did was to keep carrying all the old shit and grief with us, which made everything new turn out bad eventually as well. In the end, we stood there with all shit and no good.

BT: How did it come that you renamed the band "Into The Pentagram"?

Jackie: We simply needed to refresh the band as a whole. Besides, there are too many bands out there which are or have been called Devastation since a long time back. There is in fact a well-known American thrash band called Devastation, and I actually asked their singer Rodney if it was okey if we used the name. This was around 2006.

In 2011, Daniel and I started listening to Samael, who made a very nice tune called "Into The Pentagram". We got very much into them and the whole black metal scene. We already tried to rename Deva in 2012, suggesting I.T.P. as the new name, but Amanda disagreed with us. She wanted us to be called Harlee Quinn, I think? We never got around to change the name because of the disagreements, however.

BT: So the name doesn't have any other meaning for you, besides being a song you guys like?

Jackie: Yes, it actually does! Daniel and I always were very interested in religious and philosophic themes. Around 2005 or '06 we started exploring satanism and listened to bands with dark lyrical themes. Long story short, we always explored in this kind of stuff. I even made a brief stint as a confused protestant-christian/jew a few years back in a time of need, before feeling robbed of all my self-esteem and power. I felt so hopeless, weak and humiliated, praying and obeying to someone who didn't answer or helped me. I actually got back on my feet because of satanism. It gave me my power back and gained me self-confidence as I dared to believe in myself and me only.

I realized: praying and obeying to someone fictitious ain't gonna help me. Through serving and worshiping myself, as my own God, I will help myself to gain power and reach my goals, and it worked. I give myself strength to work so I can pay my bills, for instance. God doesn't give me that strength or those qualities in life, I do. Into The Pentagram is about exploring the dark(er) sides of religion and philosophy, and that is what we started doing a few years back. As we have new lyrical themes about these ventures, it was even more appropriate to change the name to something relevant. We are going - into the pentagram, that is what we're about.

BT: That's an interesting concept and arguments on your side, but how does the society view you with your satanic views? There must be people who oppose you and your music?

Jackie: I could care less what the society thinks of me, or us. People does not agree or like it overall, no, but I think the general population are naive. They live their nine-to-five life, with a nice family and a dog in a nice house and think everything's so good and safe. People doesn't see the reality of things, they take too much for granted, or ignore things they fear to speak or do something about for the most ridiculous reasons. Many people are too brainwashed and weak, as well. If something bad happens to them or a loved one of theirs, they instantly starts praying to some God for mercy, saving, or luck.

I hate that, how religion has robbed people of their self-esteem to be strong in themselves. They rely on something they don't know if it even exists. People say satanism is a bad thing, but it wants you to be strong and superior in yourself. To me, that is a very good thing. I guess powerful people like politicians, kings, and so on created religions to brainwash and make people weak(er) on purpose, so that they would more easily have control of everything and everyone under their rule.

BT: Can you tell me about your new demo, which is just called... "Into The Pentagram"?

Jackie: That is the title of our new demo, yes. We wanted it simple and classic. There are three new songs, all of which follow a concept of how Lucifer rises after he fell down to hell and now gains his followers into his empire. The concept will be continued on future releases. We pressed it in cassette-tapes for the old school feel, like a tribute to the tape-trading in the late 80's.

BT: Cassette-tape is certainly an odd way of releasing material today. How many copies did you make and how do you sell them? Will you release it digitally?

Jackie: It's probably quite unusual today, but that's exactly why it's so much more fun to do it like that! Everyone's doing it the digital way, which is impersonal and boring, and some are still doing CD which is also pretty boring. I like vinyls myself, but that's also quite usual right now, for the better though. There are many who do it, but we wanted to be a little more extreme, and therefore cassette-tapes was the choice to go.

We made a hundred copies and they're not for sale. We only distribute them to people who are worthy of a copy, which mostly is our friends and local fans. We do not have that many copies left, and we will never press it again for rarity reasons. As far as releasing it digitally goes, I don't know. We did that with Devastation and we got no response. If you do physical copies, you get lots of response, which obviously is way more fun and rewarding for us as the creators. No digital releases now, but time will tell. We'll probably put it on CD in the future, though.

BT: We're in for the last question now, Jackie. I would like you to tell us some musical influences of yours.

Jackie: As a band I'd say our biggest influences, these days, are bands like Samael, Watain, Dismember, Entombed, Danzig, Type O Negative, Septic Flesh, Bathory, Mercyful Fate, Nocturnus, Rotting Christ, Vader, Darkthrone, Unleashed, Slayer, and many others. We've always been very open-mined and listen to pretty much all kinds of music. Personally I'm very much into heavy metal of the 1980's, like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, and so on. Daniel's kind of more into 1990's alternative bands like Tool, Rollins Band, and so on. We like the same music, mostly. We're very much alike, both musically and personally. It's all good.

BT: Thanks for this time, Jackie. Good luck with Into The Pentagram and hopefully we'll chat soon enough again! Any last words?

Jackie: Yeah, thanks. Ehm... A big thanks to our supporters throughout the years. Hope you see you all soon! Later!



The demo review.....

"Into The Pentagram", cassette-tape. Score: 4/5


BT: Into The Pentagram have made their debut with their self-titled cassette-tape demo. Yes, you read that right. Formerly known as our local heroes Devastation, founding members Daniel Carlzon and Jackie Wacklin have started fresh and done a very dark and gritty concept story about the fall of Lucifer, and his rise to reign with a strong army of followers of the pentagram. An unusual theme for the everyday man perhaps, but for these guys it is the daily way of living life. Personally referring to themselves as Luciferians, these young men are very critical of both the usual religions as well as our political system.

Calling themselves Into The Pentagram, the band has chosen a new path in life and beliefs, which you can clearly hear compared to the old Devastation demos. Once more of a heavy-thrash metal act, the band now plays music more in the vein of Watain, Dismember and Rotting Christ. The music is very heavy, like it always was under their pens, but very aggressive, fast and dark compared to their old sound. This music is sure to please fans of more extreme metal music, but maybe not so many others.

We get three lengthy tracks that span for around seventeen minutes and varies some in composition. The first track "Lucifer Rises" is very aggressive and dramatic with a lot of dark atmospheres that is sure to get metal fans going. They follow it with "The Ritual" which seems to have taken inspiration from Watain's song "Outlaw", with tribal sounds and brutality. The self-titled ending epic piece sounds like the composition for a mass grave with a very strong riffing melody throughout, and a calm, dramatic lengthy outro to show man's march into the pentagram.

The demo sound is raw but still well balanced and clear. The guys play all instruments and do it really well. I could have liked some more variety and not so much of the extreme parts, but that will be my only complaint in this review. I'm looking forward to see what comes next from Into The Pentagram, and I'm sure that good things finally are ahead of them. Their flame is certainly burning once more.



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Overall I must say that it felt pretty strange to be interview about all this. An ended chapter of my life, as well as the opening of a new one. I still miss Devastation, but I'm really too stoked about Into The Pentagram to care that much. See you all soon! //Jackie