Familiarize yourself with these black metallers
Inspired by Thalassic's new list here https://www.sputnikmusic.com/list.php?listid=183683 and the fact that Shatraug is in two different projects in the list, I wanted to shout out a few of black metal's sung and unsung musical geniuses. These fellas are the driving forces behind multiple projects of varying success but always keeping up the quality. |
| 1 |  | Taake
Nattestid Ser Porten Vid
Hoest is the man behind Taake, and while there is a full band nowadays the music has always been solely written by him. |
| 2 |  | Deathcult (Nor)
Cult of the Goat
Hoest plays guitars in this BM supergroup and clearly writes the riffs for the project, they sound straight out of Taake's first few releases. |
| 3 |  | Odal
...Wilde Kraft
Taaken (the guy, not a typo of afformentioned Taake) has a lot on his plate these days. He runs Black Devastation records and a recording studio as well as juggling about as many black metal projects as you could possibly be in. Odal is probably the best known of his various bands. |
| 4 |  | Wolfsschrei
Rise Dead Ember
My personal favorite of all releases Taaken is apart of and one of the strongest black metal albums of the year. |
| 5 |  | Wald Geist Winter
Teufelskreise
The Taaken project I want to shout out since no one listens to it even though its cold as fuck and rips hard |
| 6 |  | Sargeist
Satanic Black Devotion
Shatraug is what inspired this list. The quintessential and pinnacle of Finnish black metal musicians. The alpha and omega. He's been a part of more classic FinnBM releases than anyone else can claim to be, mixing melody with the raw evil to create the stereotypical regional sound. |
| 7 |  | Horna
Envaatnags Eflos Solf Esgantaavne
Oh look, another one of the best Finnish BM bands, fronted by Shatraug |
| 8 |  | Behexen
Nightside Emanations
I'm noticing a pattern, all the best Finn black bands have Shatraug in them?? To be fair Behexen didn't start with him and their absolute best releases were before he joined, but all releases post-Shatraug joining have been great. |
| 9 |  | Azelisassath
In Total Contempt of All Life
Moving one country over, we shift out focus to Swartadauthuz. Owner and seemingly the focus of every release from Ancient Records, Swarty D seems to shit out a new decent black metal release every month in one of his dozen projects. |
| 10 |  | Beketh Nexehmu
De Svartas Urblod
Probably his most popular project. Supposedly the releases under this project are improvised, but some of it sounds a little too structured for that to be true. |
| 11 |  | grav
Mental Illvilja
The shoutout project for Swarty. Great grim atmoblack |
| 12 |  | Suhnopfer
Offertoire
Okay, this one is kinda cheating. Florian Denis is the sole member of this project which has become one of the staples in the blossoming French melodic black with medieval leanings scene along with bands like Aorlhac and Belenos. The other projects Florian is in he doesn't seem to be a creative force behind them, but he's a genius when it comes to writing catchy meloblack |
| 13 |  | Peste Noire
La Chaise-Dyable
Florian is the dummer and accordian player for KPN as of 2012, but it appears he departed this year. He appeared on their last 2 albums and as far as I'm aware played drums on their upcoming album. |
| 14 |  | Aorlhac
L'esprit des vents
Okay you got me, this list was just an excuse to pimp out Aorlhac more. The mac daddies of modern melodeath, this generation's Dissection. Florian played drums on their 2018 release, but he doesn't appear to be an official member of the band. Time will tell if he continues to session drum for them or if he ends up joining full time with his Those Opposed label mates |
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