I listen to approximately one Black Metal album a year. The ones I enjoy the most are melodic/atmospheric albums not made by terrible people, such as:
What should I listen to next? Brandon occasionally mentions Black Metal on the podcast, but I forgot to write them down. :(
The not made by terrible people part is unfortunately a pretty big restriction with this genre
@TracyDMcGrath I hear ya, it’s important to be on the look-out for. Maybe Brandon’s take on questionable aspects of movies is a thoughtful/valuable perspective? Anyway, this Mizmor album rules:
Two I've recommended recently where I think the people are probably okay based on cursory research include:
Desiccation
https://transylvaniantapes.bandcamp.com/album/desiccation-cold-dead-earth
Pale swordsman
Are either of these the ONE you should listen to this year? I dunno. But I liked them!
Should get @shane in here for more insights.
There's some recommendations buried within the heavy music thread, along with some discussions around how/where to find out if the music is made by terrible people.
There are recommendations for all sorts of heavy music in there, but there's a few specifically around black metal.
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I hadn't heard any Grimoire before, and have the EP you linked playing presently. Digging it so far!
I'm definitely not an expert on this but Sunbather is one of my favorite metal albums so maybe we have some of the same taste.
I'd recommend
Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
and (I have a feeling some people are gonna hate me for this)
Liturgy- Aesthetica
@rearnakedwindow do I not know something about Liturgy that I don't want to know or are you just noting that hipsters like them haha
@TracyDMcGrath Yeah I don‘t know anything about them being personally bad people, the parenthetical was pretty much down to them being hipsters, as you mentioned. I know when that album came out a lot of people said it wasn’t metal or real metal, etc. I haven‘t seen it mentioned favorably by metal fans all that often, so that’s why I was a little tentative about putting it down.
This was way more abstract and psychedelic than I expected. I didn't know Black Metal went in this direction.
Holy moly, that is all over the place. It is pretentious in the exact way I admire. I don‘t know if I’ll come back to it, but I'm glad to have visited.
@biff_stallion I like the atmospheric fuzz on the opening track!
I really want to reply to this thread because I have loads of suggestions but I don‘t really have time right now. I did however just see this and it’s got some obvious but pretty good suggestions that might be helpful https://www.treblezine.com/10-essential-post-black-metal-albums/ also this site in general is good for finding albums whatever the genre.
@Seanny123 Months later, I‘m really digging Agriculture's debut EP, Circle Chant. It feels like the mid-point between Liturgy’s Aesthetica and Deafheaven's Sunbather.