The way Swedish black metal outfit Svartsyn writes riffs, it’s obvious that frontman and principal songwriter Ornias loves few things more than crafting devilishly brutal, hateful music. While the band’s latest release Wrath Upon The Earth is black metal at the core, it’s also monstrously heavy, very percussive and even strikes me as almost deathy at times. The searing vocals and aggressive, violent guitars never really let up over the course of the album, blasting the listener with a frenzy of tremolo picking and militant percussion. Along with bands like Marduk and Dark Funeral, Svartsyn represents Swedish black metal at its most intense.

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The unholy flame of Scandinavian Satanic black metal still burns strong thanks to bands like Finland’s Sargeist, whose third album is a well-executed slab of icy, melodic black metal that should fit perfectly with previous releases. Sole member Shautraug, who also plays in prominent Finnish acts Horna and Behexen, cranks out 10 tracks that all sound pretty similar, but Sargeist’s musical style is so well-executed that the sameness doesn’t really end up mattering too much. As a pure black metal album, Let The Devil In is definitely one of the better releases of its style to come out in 2010.

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The End Records is currently running a better-than-usual sale: they are offering 30% Off of a very large selection of older albums. As you might expect, it’s mostly older, lesser known albums, but there are still some great albums to pick up at a pretty big discount. It’s kind of like browsing through the used section at a record store - lots of crap but you might find something you’ve been looking for at a great price.

» Check out The End Records’s Spring Sale Selection

The utter musical triumph that is Flammentriebe, Dornenreich’s first metal-oriented album in ten years, certainly begs the question: Why don’t they do this more often!? Known more for their folk metal output over the last several years, this Austrian group displays a masterful combination of tormented blackened fury and lush, fluid melodic songwriting that has few rivals in today’s metal scene, making it a real shame that we fans have to wait nine or ten years between albums of this caliber. Hopefully Dornenreich’s latest opus signals a change to more of this type of output, because the scene can definitely use it.

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Atmospheric black metal act Forteresse hails from the rich Quebecois scene that has lately produced such other promising acts as Sombres Forêts, Gris, Neige et Noirceur and Monarque. Par Hauts Bois et Vastes Plaines, their latest full-length, falls into the realm of ambient black metal, a style which - aside from a handful of acts like Germany’s Trist - I’ve never really been able to appreciate. Forteresse’s latest didn’t do much to change that, although their sound is a particularly cold and dirge-like take on the typical atmospheric black metal sound that somewhat sets them apart from other bands like Lustre I’ve heard in the past.

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So Metal Injection recently posted a list of 10 New Black Metal Bands You Should Care About. If you read this site frequently you can probably guess how I feel about Krallice, and most of the other bands were US bands whose work I’ve been largely unimpressed with. The only pick I really agree with is Altar Of Plagues, who fucking rule.

I do agree with the spirit of such a list, however. Here’s a list of 25 new bands I think you should care about, in no particular order:

Woods of Desolation (Australia) - This Australian group shares members with the similarly depressive Austere, cranking out incredibly bleak, emotional black metal that also includes some catchier, Alcest-like parts.

Borgia (France) - Another gem from the rich French black metal scene, Borgia plays a visceral style of black / death metal with a strong medieval feel.

Waning (Sweden) - Waning has a very modern, sterile sound but manages to fill their songs with powerful riffs, and conceptually these Swedes are much more interesting than most of their peers as well.

Fen (UK) - Melancholic, folk-influenced black metal in the vein of Agalloch, although Fen’s use of keyboards lends a certain fluidity to their music that makes it extremely addictive, especially on their newest release Epoch which came out earlier this year.

Winterfylleth (UK) - Having started with a rather basic Viking-type sound, Winterfylleth’s sound has matured rapidly, and their latest album’s mixture of driving, warlike riffing and tasteful acoustics has elevated them to the top of the genre.

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Finland’s October Falls is one of the more unsung acts in the black metal genre, possibly because they seem to often switch between harsher releases and more folk-oriented albums. Their latest effort A Collapse Of Faith is a bleak slab of densely atmospheric music, evoking older Katatonia in its dreary, rain-soaked sound. This is a perfect example of mood music - an album that you don’t need to necessarily listen to closely or even really pay attention to in order to enjoy. Just throwing it on in the background and letting its subtle nuances darken your reality is satisfying enough.

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Not being much of a fan of death metal anymore, I love finding death metal bands whose styles are a little bit outside the norm. Texas’s Vex definitely fits that description - right from the first few notes of their debut Thanatopsis it’s obvious these guys are trying to forge their own path. Production-wise, Thanatopsis almost sounds more like a black metal album with a rather subdued, decayed guitar sound, and the actual riffing often eschews brutality in favor of undulating, layered harmonies and tremolo riffs. With a sound that varies from melodic to brutal to sometimes almost doomy, Vex is musically one of the most interesting death metal bands I’ve come across lately.

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Polish artist Andrzej Masianis bears some similarities to other artists I’ve featured recently both stylistically and in terms of subject matter, so I guess it was only a matter of time before I decided to feature him on this site. He came to my attention as a result of some recent cover artwork he did for the Temple of Torturous label’s reissues of Greek ambient black metal act Spectral Lore’s first two albums. While browsing through his portfolio some other paintings looked really familiar, so I’m sure Spectral Lore isn’t the only band that’s utilized his services.

What really made Masianis’s work stand out for me is the extreme detail he puts into his drawings and paintings, giving them a very unique, creepy appearance. Also, many of his drawings and paintings seem to center around themes like the apocalypse, and the way he depicts such scenes of battle with clusters of celestial beings really reminds me of some of Doré’s etchings. Masianis also seems to do a lot of fantasy art as well, with scenes from series like Narnia and The Lord of the Rings popping up frequently.

Unlike a lot of the artists I’ve featured, Masianis has a pretty strong internet presence. Not only does he have an official site, but he’s also on Facebook, MySpace and DeviantArt. Both the official site and his DeviantArt have pretty extensive galleries of his artwork. He has some paintings for sale from his official site, but the store is all in Polish, which makes things a bit difficult for those of us in the US.

Denmark’s Horned Almighty are basically the black metal version of Vader, if their latest release Necro Spirituals is any indication. While blackened at the core, Horned Almighty’s style is straightforward, percussive and brutal, raging forward with punk-fueled hatred. Vader have carved out a niche for themselves playing the same basic, pounding form of death metal for over 20 years now, gathering old and new fans because their sound kicks so much ass. Imagine a slightly blackened version that’s maybe a little less drum-heavy, and you won’t be too far off from what Necro Spirituals sounds like.

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