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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Testament" data-source="post: 3775808" data-attributes="member: 21833">Blessed is the BlackNycarius, how could you post Black Metal acts and not include the two of the true legends of the form, Emperor or Mayhem?Mayhem are pretty much the godfathers of the infamous Norwegian wave of BM, their Deathcrush demo is an icon of so called "tr00" or "kvlt" BM.  They've been through a huge number of lineup changes, all of them forced to some degree, and as a result all of their albums are quite distince.  Their latest, Ordo Ad Chao is murky, muted and unrelentingly dark, and very hard to get in to.  De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is probably their most famous, and is quite accessible.  Very nasty, very evil, with suprisingly good production, and Attila Csihar does some seriously wicked vocals.  The title track is absolutely killer, with some demonic moaning operatic howling interspersed with the snarling vocals.Emperor are, in my opinion, nothing less than gods.  I have all their albums, from Wrath of the Tyrant to Scattered Ashes, and I adore them all.  These guys took the genre to its boundaries and beyond constantly, using classical flourishes before Dimmu Borgir had even been formed, let alone drowned an album in keyboards, and moving beyond christ-killing church burning lyrics into further fields.  In The Nightside Eclipse is their first album and oozes sorrow and menace from every track.  Ihsahn's vocals are very much demonic screams, and the primitive production does hurt this album somewhat.  Despite that, it features two of their best ever songs, "I Am the Black Wizards" and "Inno A Satana".  If you want a good starting point for Emperor, then grab Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, their second album.  The production is good without being overly slick, the tracks are bold and powerful, and Ihsahn's vocals are probably at their peak.Another good band to check out is Immortal, and Darkthrone are also noteworthy, although they're the absolute epitome of raw, "necro" BM.  Sigh are pretty much impossible to classify, although Scorn Defeat and Hangman's Hymn: Musicalische Exequien are more than a bit BM, and are both excellent albums.  Hangman's Hymn in particular has become a favourite of mine.On the matter of CoF, I was a fan, then they did Thornography, an album I consider to be a disgrace and an insult to their awesome early work, especially Dusk...And Her Embrace and ESPECIALLY Cruelty and the Beast.  Damnation is good, although horribly overproduced for my liking and drowned in samples and FX.  I'd reccomend starting off with Cruelty and the Beast.As for Dimmu Borgir, I'm one of many BM fans who thinks they could be really good again if they'd get rid of Shagrath (honestly, he's like Dani Filth with less than half that psycho's range) and put Vortex on vocals full time.  Not only does he have a magnificent clean voice, but he can snarl and shriek with the best of them.</blockquote>

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