Here’s a quick summary of some of the albums I’ve been checking out recently that I’ve either been too busy or too lazy to write full reviews for:

Celestia - Archaenae Perfectii
2010, Apparitia Recordings
France’s Celestia returns with Archaenae Perfectii, the band’s newest full-length of depressive metal. Mainman Noktu owns the Drakkar label and is also associated with such quality French projects as Mortifera and Peste Noire, so it’s almost a letdown if his own project’s material isn’t completely top-notch. Archaenae Perfectii mixes the usual bleak depressive black stylings with some more uptempo passages, adding some aggression while staying firmly within the confines of the genre. Personally I’m starting to get a bit burnt out on depressive BM bands in general, so Celestia’s newest didn’t really do much for me, but Noktu’s songwriting talent is clear and Archaenae Perfectii is definitely worth checking out.

Purest - Renascence
2008, Darker Than Black Records
Purest hails from Germany, unsurprisingly. A bit more surprising is that they aren’t overtly NS given their name, although a glance through their lyrics do reveal some not-so-well-hidden themes of extermination and superiority. Questionable subject matter aside, these guys actually kick a lot of ass musically, especially given that Renascence is their first album. Purest have a very polished black metal sound with a good deal of tempo variation and potent vocals. The German scene has been producing a seemingly endless torrent of excellent bands lately, and these guys are no exception.

Hat - The Demise of Mankind
2009, Abyss Records
This is one of those situations where the band probably should’ve checked the the meaning of their band name in English before choosing it (it means ‘hate’ in the band’s native Norwegian, as you might have guessed). Like many Norwegian bands, Hat sticks to a fairly traditional black metal sound with sufficiently fuzzy production. The tremolo-picked, melancholic riffing is made much more frightening with the addition of drummer Undertrykker’s flesh-ripping vocal assault. The vocals unfortunately aren’t enough to save this album, but they do prevent The Demise of Mankind from being completely generic and uninteresting.

Triumfall - Antithesis of All Flesh
2009, Forces of Satan Records
Triumfall hails from Serbia and plays a more symphonic style of black metal. Unfortunately, the poor production really hurts this album. Antithesis of All Flesh sounds fairly generic at times, but other times Triumfall mixes in some pretty good riffs and keyboard melodies, often playing the two instruments off each other very effectively. The problem is that the production makes it so difficult to hear what’s going on that the melodies get lost in the mix. Perhaps with another album or two Triumfall will iron out that issue, but in the meantime it’s hard to enjoy Antithesis of All Flesh, despite the band’s talent.

Askival - Eternity
2009, Darker Than Black Records
I was very much looking forward to hearing this, Askival’s first and only album, as a result of the many glowing reviews it received since coming out last year. While Eternity didn’t quite live up to the expectations I had for it, it’s an album that should surely appeal to fans of black metal’s mellower side. The few scattered tracks of epic pagan metal are separated by acoustic folk melodies and ethereal ambient interludes, and Askival also mixes in clean singing, whispers, female vocals, and some background keyboards to ensure things never get boring. The actual metal on Eternity is never overly aggressive, but the glorious heathen melodies and pounding drums fit perfectly with the rest of the album.

Svierg - MMIX
2009, Metalhit.com
The thing I find most amusing about this band is that it was started in part to crush a local “false black metal” band, as well as due to the general lack of support for black metal in Northern Virginia. It seems like there are a lot of easier ways to discredit and humiliate a local band than by starting your own better one. Fortunately, Svierg has enough talent to pull such a thing off. The four-song MMIX demo features a dark, Burzum-inspired sound that well-executed enough to sound like it originated somewhere in Europe rather than here in the US.

Thunderbolt - The Sons of the Darkness
2008, Darker Than Black Records
This is actually a re-release of Thunderbolt’s first full-length from 2001. Much of The Sons of the Darkness consists of a fast, blasting blackened assault, but a few thrashy riffs randomly find their way into the songs, and Thunderbolt also mix in some well-placed acoustic passages. The production isn’t the greatest so during the more frenzied sections it’s sometimes hard to make out what the guitars are doing, but overall this is a pretty decent album of aggressive black metal.

With so many bands (and kids in their parents’ basements) jumping into the DSBM scene nowadays, you can’t just create run-of-the-mill depressive black metal with slow, mournful melodies and fuzzy production and expect people to think it’s amazing anymore. Whether it’s with things like ridiculously over-the-top vocals or the inclusion of classical or post rock elements, the bands getting the most attention in the current scene are the ones that not only write great music, but manage to find ways to differentiate themselves from the masses.

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A band’s cover songs can often be quite revealing. Certainly, much of what makes Sweden’s Sorgeldom interesting can be summed up in their cover of Slowdive’s ‘Summer Day’. First of all, it’s a Slowdive song, and how often do you see those on black metal albums? Secondly, it’s easily one of the album’s strongest tracks, with it’s uniquely ethereal atmosphere, dreamlike vocals and driving percussion. Finally, it doesn’t sound at all out of place - Sorgeldom’s highly experimental brand of black metal takes so many twists and turns and does it so effectively that little on the band’s sophomore album Inner Receivings comes as a surprise.

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Longstanding Norwegian trio Enthral have no problems fitting into the hordes of excellent bands that the Scandinavian scene seems to crank out effortlessly. While they aren’t considered one of the leading bands in the Norwegian scene, Enthral are clearly not lacking in talent. With three full-lengths over the course of their roughly 15-year career, Enthral have been slowly sharpening their black metal assault, and their latest EP Spiteful Dirges shows a band firing on all cylinders. But while the band’s feverish, constantly shifting black metal sound is impressive from a technical standpoint, the songwriting and complex nature of Spiteful Dirges ultimately keeps it from being memorable.

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It’s amazing how much I Shalt Become has evolved over the years. Their debut album Wanderings remains a masterpiece of depression and certainly a classic of US black metal. Poison, the band’s latest release, is something of an experiment for lone member S. Holliman, and musically the album is such a departure from the I Shalt Become’s core depressive sound that it doesn’t even sound like the same band. Moving away from the typical DSBM sound seems like a good direction for the band, but few fans will be prepared for what Poison actually has to offer.

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National Sunday Law’s debut was a kaleidoscopic mix of heavy sludge metal and mellow keyboard atmospherics. The band’s latest EP, mysteriously titled The Fifth Ape, largely continues in this style, but the new material is noticeably heavier, often resembling Remission-era Mastodon or fellow Los Angeles heavyweights Intronaut.

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Germany’s Heaven Shall Burn are one of the few metalcore bands that I can actually tolerate, largely because of two things. First, HSB’s ferocious combination of melodic death metal and all-out brutality separates them, at least to my ears, from the vast majority of their metalcore peers, and secondly, frontman Marcus Bischoff’s throat-shredding vocal assault is easily one of the most uncompromisingly vicious that I’ve experienced in any metal band. Invictus is the band’s 6th full-length, and the third installment in their “Iconoclast” series of releases, following 2008’s Iconoclast and 2009’s Bildersturm DVD. After the last few full lengths it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Invictus pretty much follows the same formula that has served the band so well on previous albums.

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Colorado’s Nightbringer is light-years ahead of most US black metal bands, both in depth of philosophy and musical composition. The musicianship on new album Apocalypse Sun is impressive, but it’s only part of the picture. Really, what Nightbringer have created with this album is a fusion music and lyrical imagery into a piercing vision of unfathomable malevolence.

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Nokturnal Mortum’s album hasn’t left my CD player since I got it, which isn’t too surprising. Despite coming out near the end of last year, The Voice of Steel was quickly hailed as one of the best of 2009, and rightfully so. What I found much more shocking was both how amazingly well-crafted and how accessible the songs on this album are. This is one of those albums where not only is each song unique and memorable, but there isn’t a single weak track. And while folk melodies and traditional instruments abound on The Voice of Steel, as one would expect from a Ukrainian pagan black metal band, Nokturnal Mortum often strays into traditional heavy metal territory in several places on the album, giving the songs a much broader appeal.

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Ragnarok’s ‘Collectors of the King’ manages to overcome what has to be one of the worst intro tracks I’ve ever experienced and delivers a blackened assault worthy of the band’s Norwegian heritage. Easily one of this year’s most ferocious black metal albums, Collectors of the King is almost death metal-like in it’s suffocating bleakness and unrelenting heaviness.

Unfortunately, one other thing it shares with an awful lot of today’s death metal is a lack of variation. The songs kind of blur together after awhile, with occasional riffs here and there that stick out. ‘In Honour of Satan’ contains some pretty good riffing and rather memorable melodic lines, while ‘Ancient Crown of Glory’ moves from the usual blasting into a crushing breakdown towards the middle of the song. But really most of the album is made up of Ragnarok’s gut-ripping, full-speed-ahead black metal replete with blast beats and HansFyrste’s brutal vocal delivery. Those looking for something creative may want to look past Collectors of the King, but black metal initiates looking for a fix among 2010’s releases should know that few albums will rival this one in sheer destructive power.

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