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Sodom - Persecution Mania

Sarcofago - INRI

Craft - Total Soul Rape

Goatmoon - Kansojen Hävittäjä

Katatonia - The Fall Of Hearts Chopin - Nocturnes (Brigitte Engerer)

Album playlist today in car on a long drive to and from a meeting: Yob “Our Raw Heart” Satyricon “Nemesis Divina” Pestilence “Consuming Impulse” Mutiilation “Remains Of a Ruined, Dead, Cursed Soul”

Sodom - M-16

Judas Priest - Painkiller Hey guess what, I'm learning this.

Crimson Glory - Transcendence Fen - Winter The Wraith - Shadow Flag Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

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.

Summoning - 'With Doom We Come' Far out, track two 'Silvertine' is the greatest Summoning song I've ever heard. That melody. This album is unbelievable.

Sodom- "In the Sign of Evil" Witchcraft- "Diablerie" Teutonic thrash and Finnish bm! A pairing with surprising similarities here and there.

Craft "White Noise and Black Metal"

Dying Fetus regin supreme

Rings of Saturn albums black Harvest attrition

Gruesome "Twisted Prayers" Aborted "TerrorVision" At The Drive In “Relationship Of Command”

Brutality "Screams of Anguish" Hooded Menace "Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed" - revisiting some DM from 2018 as I start to think about my top 10 DM albums for 2018. A brief look at some titles all in one list makes me a little deflated as not a lot really stands out as being that memorable but a revisit should confirm or dispel my thoughts. Horrendous "Idol" - yawn. Wanky technical/proggy structures at the expense of common sense! Burial Invocation “Abiogenesis” Ataraxy “Where All Hope Fades” Golgothan Remains “Perverse Offerings to the Void”

I can't really pick a favorite out of their last four albums, but TSOP is my favorite at least 25% of the time. And it's Chuck's best and most emotional vocal performance. I normally don't enjoy it when a band's lineup changes all the time but everyone on those albums is a treat to listen to. ____ Katatonia - The Fall Of Hearts, again ...Requiem, I think I might be coming around to this album. Riverside - Out Of Myself

Disincarnate "Dreams of the Carrion Kind" Morta Skuld "Dying Remains" Baphomet "The Dead Shall Inherit"

To my ears, they did everything on that album better with their previous efforts, but I guess since you don't like those albums that much, it makes a weird kind of sense that you'd enjoy Fall Of Hearts, rather than being disappointed by it as a rehashing of material you already enjoy. _____ In general these guys have been one of my favorite groups for over 20 years, and I can listen to something by them at nearly any time, depending on my mood. I don't know that I have one "favorite", but I have memories entangled with most of their stuff. A chronological journey follows. 1998 - I got turned on to them when Discouraged Ones was released: living by myself, listening to a bunch of Swans, going out to the local goth clubs, trying to write songs and make art in my spare time. Something about the dismal yet warm simplicity of this album sucked me in. Top picks: "I Break", "Nerve" 1999 - I fell in love with them because of Tonight's Decision: better musicianship, more involved songwriting, vastly improved vocals, tighter sound, beautiful melodies. Swano behind the kit. I was still living by myself in North Carolina, prepping for college in NYC, feeling change in the air. This album hit me right between the eyes. Top picks: "I Am Nothing", "No Good Can Come Of This" 2000 - I got hugely into their older albums: early days and late nights in New York City, Brave Murder Day the soundtrack to passing by a church on 14th st, or walking through leaves in Washington Square Park. Wrapped in aloneness, the sparse nature of the music was a perfect fit. In retrospect, this might have been the happiest time of my life. Dance Of December Souls slots in here too, although it took a while before I'd fully appreciate it. Top picks: "Brave", "Murder", "Rainroom" 2001 - I was transported to heights of rapture by Last Fair Deal Gone Down: Napster days in the freshman dorm, sharing their existing albums with my girlfriend, watching songs from this album trickle in hour by hour, chatting online with the people who were uploading them, snorting those shit quality mp3s like an addict. We bought the CD as soon as we could find it. Daniel Liljekvist was a wizard behind the kit; they took yet another leap in musicianship and songwriting, and found that perfect, organic, mid-heavy sound. It seemed like they had finally succeeded at what they'd been trying to do all along. Top picks: "Chrome", "The Future Of Speech" 2003 - I was initially very disappointed by Viva Emptiness, but eventually came around: this album was the beginning of the mechanically polished mixes that would become their mainstay, with their insistent downbeat replaced by an awkward bounce. Jonas brought his unfortunate penchant for gratuitous curse words to the forefront, like a six-year-old who calls someone a "dildo" without knowing exactly what it means. This album was argued over by me and good friends in apartments with cheap gas stoves and overactive radiators. After listening to it for long enough, the stuff I didn't like faded into the background. I'll put this on whenever. Top pick: "Evidence" 2006 - I was blown away by The Great Cold Distance: having worked my way into an appreciation of the previous album, this one didn't throw me for a loop. Sharing a godawful, decaying house on truck stop property in central PA with a friend, the early release of "My Twin" seemed to encapsulate the post-apocalyptic emotional landscape I found myself in, and spoke to me of finding small joys at rock bottom. Months later, the full-length was everything the singles had promised - another evolution in their melodic sense, some newly stark rhythmic bones behind their songs, and that awkward bounce harnessed to purpose as a lulling sense of groove. Mattias Norrmann's bass lines made a lot of good things better. Top picks: "My Twin", "Soil's Song", "July" 2009 - I got disappointed again by the stilted and artificial quality of Night Is The New Day: I still don't love this album, and I only put it on when I'm on a road trip, or if I'm in a Katatonia mood and I've already played the rest of them. Good sections and fond memories of it as part of a Thanksgiving celebration at my old apartment in Brooklyn do little to outweigh the forced heaviness and clunky songwriting. Top pick: "The Longest Year" (which has some of the best and worst qualities of the album as a whole) 2012 - I found a pleasant surprise in the comparatively relaxed and un-forced Dead End Kings: after NITND, I wasn't expecting much, but this album sounded like the logical successor to Great Cold Distance. It felt like a presentation of the same ideas from the previous couple of albums, but brought into new focus - streamlined, good dynamics, no momentum wasted on non-sequiturs and half-baked riffs. Katatonia was back! This album became a frequent companion on road trips, so for me it's the sound of moving through a shifting landscape, watching ribbons of asphalt spool away beneath me. Top pick: "The One You Are Looking For Is Not Here" Fall Of Hearts sounds like a mishmash of leftovers to me; by far my least favorite of their albums and the only one I don't own. I think the tracks they save for their EPs are mostly awesome; I never minded that they weren't on the albums. They're cool little nuggets of greatness scattered here and there like rewards for digging through the catalog, and I think by and large they stand well on their own, while some album tracks are better in context. An extra few songs would have made any of the albums feel bloated. Sounds Of Decay and Teargas are probably my favorite Katatonia EPs; "Sulfur" has been one of my favorite songs of theirs since I first heard it. Live, Katatonia has been all over the place. They were awful the first two times I saw them - thin sound, hoarse vocals, no stage presence - but well after I'd come to accept them as a studio band with no live chops, I saw them touring with Opeth, and they were phenomenal. Jonas has very little charisma; he's at his best when you can tell he's forgotten that anybody's watching. Dan Liljekvist was their beating heart onstage, professional and flawless. If I had fuck-you money, I'd probably pay some of it to see them reunite with him at a good venue. I'm going to also give props to early October Tide, Diabolical Masquerade, and even some Bloodbath. Nystrom and Renkse are a great team and they've been behind a lot of my favorite music. I don't get into what their bands have done over the past couple of years, but that's a blip in proportion to what I do like, and I'm still interested to hear what they do next. Viva Gloominess.

Sepultura- "Morbid Visions" Morbid Angel- "Altars of Madness"

Amorphis - Tales From The Thousand Lakes

Artillery - Fear of Tomorrow

Black Harvest attrition

Rush - Moving Pictures Rush - Signals