Belenos - Errances Oniriques

Country: France | Genre: Black Metal | Label: Sacral Productions

After a number of fantastic demos Belenos finally released their first full length album in 2001. Translating to something like "Wandering through Dreams", Errances Oniriques is an involved musical journey, with mesmerizing riffwork, blazing drums and dark melancholic acoustics. The flawless juxtaposition of exquisite melodicism with the harshness and brutality inherent in the genre creates a tapestry of moods that fires up the imagination. For the duration of the album you can genuinely picture yourself moving through some Celtic dreamspace. Even though this falls squarely into pagan black metal territory, there is nothing else which sounds remotely like Belenos. (Alex)

Discordance Axis - The Inalienable Dreamless

Country: USA | Genre: Grindcore | Label: Century Media

On this, Discordance Axis welded together fragments of grinding dissonance with that white hot spark of something extra special that elevated it miles and miles above the traditional kind of grind template. Numerous riffs shift choppily from head-drilling shred to disjointed low-end blockage, along with lots of anti-rhythmic mini-progressions composed of hideous chord stabbing, the unpredictable switches from one to the next being performed with equally high levels of dexterity and illogicality. Extremely tight drumwork causes multiplicity of rhythms to tumble violently together, having no trouble finding synchrony with the six-string clashment, whilst the vocals spew deep red screams of total throat-split, complemented with ideal gutturals: moist and acidic in the centre but dry, cracked and chalky around the edges. Shunning any kind of catchy arrangement, some sections are immediately superceded by the next before you have chance to process them, whilst others just carry on burrowing into your eardrums to the point of membranic ruptury. A must! (Baz)

Gorguts - From Wisdom to Hate

Country: Canada | Genre: Death Metal | Label: Shredded Records

The sagacious and refined sibling of the colossal and deranged Obscura is an exotic classic in its own right. Ominous, ancient morbidity seemingly stems more from this planet, being more accessible, but heavily de-westernised such that Mesopotamian Ziggurats could have influenced the xenomorphic architecture of the songs. Functionally complex and never ostentatious as all progressive music should be, it is exquisitely detailed by superlative musicianship and gushes forth creative essence. Timeless, original and malevolently seductive. (Mike)

Grand Belial's Key - Judeobeast Assassination

Country: USA | Genre: Black Metal | Label: Drakkar Productions

The uneasy association between Abrahamic monotheistic faiths is exposed and thoroughly mocked in this satirical marriage of black metal and traditional heavy metal. The slow/fast dynamics stop stunning before this perhaps overly long album concludes, but this is nonetheless some of the best black metal to come out of the US. (Travis)

Hate Forest - The Most Ancient Ones

Country: Ukraine | Genre: Black Metal | Label: Supernal Music

It is an exercise in futility writing about The Most Ancient Ones. It exists and is there to be experienced. Hate Forest themselves knew this and let the music do the talking - no interviews, no band photos, no line up information, and certainly no thanks. Just song titles, stark, oppressive (not to mention beautiful) black and white forestscape photography, and the quote:

"with hate and scorn
to worthless humanity,
it's values and ideals" (sic)

These Ukrainian brothers of Drudkh essayed Transilvanian Hunger style minimalism and repetition, but any melodic forms are obscured, are buried in the murk and filth of the thickets and swamps belonging to the black forest of which they "sing". This is music that is all about feel, of darkness, of hatred, embodying the sensation of being isolated, being abandoned to the elements depicted in their artwork. And you are at their absolute mercy (or lack of); remember you are an example of that worthless humanity, and the trees will stare on with glaring indifference as you are torn limb from limb by a pack ravenous wolves, while you contemplate in your dying seconds on how infinitely meaningless your fleeting existence truly was. (Ewan)

Khanate - Khanate

Country: USA | Genre: Doom Metal | Label: Southern Lord

If Electric Wizard's Dopethrone was Black Sabbath taken to its logical extreme, Khanate's self titled debut released but a year later was Black Sabbath rent apart, the sound of doom metal escaping the boundaries of riff and rhythm.  Sure it's heavy, but more than that it's genuinely frightening: angular chords slicing slowly through feedback squalls, drums that thunder and clatter in almost random eruptions, pacing that ranges from glacial to tectonic, schizophrenic shriekings from a man possessed by too many demons.  Khanate achieved incredible density through their deft use of negative space and compositional skills heretofore unseen in doom metal.  One listen to "Skin Coat," and its creeping, collapsing middle section with Alan Dubin whispering (sickly) sweet nothings, "I wear, a human shield...I put you on, crawl inside...", told every metal fan who the craziest inmates were in the asylum. (Tim)

Lunar Aurora - Ars Moriendi

Country: Germany | Genre: Death Metal | Label: Ars Metalli

Pretty much the next logical step after Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse and Abigor's Opus IV, Ars Moriendi is the pinnacle of Lunar Aurora's substantial and high quality musical output. Dense and complex, the labyrinthine riffs and stellar synths seem to operate in higher spheres, telling the story of malignant outer forces and realms beyond the veils of life and death. With an excellent sense of flow and dynamics, moving almost like poetry, the deceptively deep music sweeps you along, to dwell amidst cold, burnt out starts, alone and immortal. (Alex)

Pig Destroyer - Prowler in the Yard

Country: USA | Genre: Grindcore | Label: Relapse Records

Cranky, noisy, intense, furious, and demented – Prowler in the Yard was meant to shatter your eardrums and mess you up for good. Out of the flat-out cathartic parts, which the album is full of, emerge some of the best breakdowns you will hear to which you can't help but flail your limbs off. The album's electrifying energy and blinding speed more than make up for its inconsistency. Dangerously compressed screams, explosive drumming and refreshing, unpredictable and at times dark parts made sure it wasn't easily forgotten. Prowler in the Yard is any day better than the watered down releases that followed; grindcore was never meant to be domesticated. (Kunal)

Root - Black Seal

Country: Czech Republic | Genre: Dark Metal | Label: Redblack

Starting as one of the pioneering Czech first wave black metal bands, Root eventually progressed to an almost operatic extreme metal act, dropping most of the overt black metal characteristics but keeping its dark, blackened core firmly intact. Drawing influence as much from Mercyful Fate as well as first wave black metal, Root at the turn of the millennium was as theatrical and experimental as it was satanic and extreme. Black Seal saw them returning to a slightly more intense and black direction, closer to The Temple in the Underworld than the preceding two albums, resulting in a heavy, glorious trip to hell. Big Boss' inimitable baritone vocal gymnastics are probably at their most developed here, giving a performance that defies belief, especially once he reintroduces his still strong as ever death growls and harsh screams at rare times. Blackie and Ashok's guitar playing is positively sublime. Impossible to peg into a particular genre, their devastating hooks and solos, their morbid classic doom metal crawling and heavy as an anvil fretboard fireworks are all over the extreme metal map, heedless of stylistic boundaries as long as it fits with Big Boss' esoteric lyrical concepts. I could talk for hours more, but I think it's pretty clear that this is my favourite 2001 release by far. Now that Root's back catalogue is being redistributed again in the West, it's an excellent time to acquaint yourself with them if you haven't already. (Alex)

Sigh - Imaginary Sonicscape

Country: Japan | Genre: Avante-garde Metal | Label: Century Media

Sigh are a unique band. Any dips into their extensive discography will only reinforce this statement, with Imaginary Sonicscape not only being the best example of this, but also a truly amazing album in its own right. Sigh give genuine justification to the term ‘avante-garde metal' – a single run through the aptly named Imaginary Sonicscape is evidence enough. Taking the listener through psychedelic realms of dreams and nostalgia using an articulate array of styles, the record manages to be experimental to the utmost degree despite its embrace of pop structures, ‘Slaughtergarden Suite' notwithstanding. Electronica, jazz and even lounge music are spread throughout endearing composition, Mirai's black metal rasp adds another twist to the mix, and the way the album is constructed ensures that it will grow and grow – a sure sign of the album's timelessness and its classic status. (Berkay)

Silencer - Death - Pierce Me

Country: Sweden | Genre: Black Metal | Label: Prophecy Productions

This is way above the sea of bedroom-dwelling clowns pretending to play "suicidal" [<-- imagine giant fingerquotes here] black metal these days because pure, abject miserablism is held second to composition and range of emotional scope. From the ominous bass groove of "Taklamakan" to the cold, Italian horror synthscape of "Slow Kill in the Cold," to the moody piano breaks and clever, organic sampling, this is a chilling album that bleeds fucking doom.

The first thing one must confront to get into this album are the vocalist's hilarious, over-the-top falsetto wails, way past the unique ferocity of Varg's similarly maligned vocals in early Burzum material and into clownish hysterics territory. People call Nattramn's performance love-or-hate, but my feelings are mixed. It's like hearing a grown man revert to a giant baby. Horrible. But also, like the tone of the album itself, impossibly, grotesquely vulnerable and honest.

Let it also be noted that Silencer lacked the rockstar diva attitude that makes their sibling band, Shining, so easy to hate. (Travis)

Thorns - Thorns

Country: Norway | Genre: Black Metal | Label: Moonfog Productions

The so far last great release from the original Norwegian black metal circle. The Thorns demos were something of a blueprint for the more angular, dissonant riffing styles which through Mayhem became one of modern black metal's more recognisable building blocks. The Thorns debut finally showed what the original inventor of these types of riffs could do with a modern studio at his disposal and all the equipment necessary to make a fully realized album. Eschewing faux-industrial shortcuts like house beats, random bits of noise and rave-synths, Thorns somehow managed to create a thoroughly alien and mechanical sounding black metal album almost solely on the strength of its disturbing riffs and cold, militant drumming. The guitars steal the show here, twisting and contorting in ways which almost make you feel sorry for the strings. Fortunately, Snorre Ruch is also a great songwriter, as all these tortured riffs fit marvellously into an overarching musical narrative, creating vivid images of post-apocalyptic landscapes and sick, mechanical edifices to alien gods. (Alex)