Satyricon – Die By My Hand (live)
Self-proclaimed guardians of black metal’s true spirit, Satyricon have long strived to bring the Norwegian underground scene to the masses, but even by their ambitious standards, the show the band performed in Oslo with the Norwegian National Opera Chorus was a bold and audacious merging of two potentially incompatible cultures. The end result is new live album Live at the Opera, and it’s a spellbinding, insanely epic affair, wherein the choir’s voices blend seamlessly with Satyricon’s scything grooves and hellish intensity. At times immensely elegant, at others overpowering in its muscular oomph, it’s both a celebration of metal’s natural kinship with the classical world and a timely reminder that few bands have the necessary balls to harness grandeur and majesty with such euphoric abandon.
Oceano – Dead Planet
There are few metallic subgenres more widely maligned than deathcore, and yet despite its seeming lack of depth and diversity it still throws up the occasional monstrous gem. Oceano have been defying convention for years now, injecting their streamlined blend of brutality and breakdowns with a welcome dose of authentic death-metal atmosphere and generally being heavier and more disturbing than any of their peers. Taken from new album Ascendants, Dead Planet lurches and thuds like a PCP-fuelled brontosaurus, as bug-eyed menace and cutting edge precision collide.
Dodheimsgard – God Protocol Axiom
Notorious for their flagrant dismantling of black metal’s rigid blueprint on 1999’s astonishing 666 International, Dodheimsgard clearly view the genre as a launching point for all manner of demented experimentation and progressive indulgence. In stark contrast with 2007’s streamlined and gleaming Supervillain Outcast, the Norwegians’ latest album A Umbra Omega is a dark, dense and sprawling trawl through the outer recesses of creative madness, with more perverse twists and warped turns than most black metal diehards will be wanting or expecting. As a result, the album seems likely to appeal more to fans of prog rock’s most extreme conceits or, perhaps, anyone willing to risk their own sanity in the name of sonic exploration. None more mental, basically.
Inculter – Commander
Thrash metal may be over three decades old, but its feral power continues to draw in aspiring musicians from all consequent generations. A scruffy, teenage rabble from Fusa, Norway, Inculter have clearly grasped and mastered the raw, untamed fury of cult classics such as Possessed’s Seven Churches and Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends, spewing it back out with rapacious aggression and a thrilling sense of impending chaos. In an age where many young metal bands seem content to ape their contemporaries and adhere rigidly to flat, shiny Pro-Tools’d production, a band as joyously out-of-control as Inculter stand out like a giraffe in a paddling pool. But with more head-banging.
Stoneghost – Faceless Ghost
Going firmly against the grain with a sound that should appeal to fans of everything from Pantera and Machine Head to Clutch and Mastodon, South London’s Stoneghost exude the class and swagger that the greatest bands always seem to possess. Three parts groove metal juggernaut to two parts stoner rock rumble, the band’s debut album New Age of Old Ways brims with moments of exhilarating bluster and some of the most infectious riffs of the 21st century. Whether or not being British and vaguely unconventional will ultimately work against them remains to be seen, but if Faceless Ghost doesn’t make you want to mosh like a madman, you’re probably reading the wrong playlist.
