Beyond Beherit

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

I have after a long  period of isolation from anything metal have recently been enjoying a renaissance (of sorts) in regard to appreciation of it. I am finding now that, in particular New York death metal sounds to clinical, cold and emotionless and it reminds me to heavily of the second Viennese school of classical music thus rendering anything in this style as an intellectual exercise. Swedish death metal, even at the best of times seems to marred with either the Gothenburg style or the quasi-Gothenburg style (case and point being early Entombed). I could go on like this for all styles of death metal but I believe you understand what I am saying about the genre as a whole (with exceptions of course).

The renaissance I spoke of earlier mostly refers to my rediscovery of black metal. I consider myself fairly well versed in the genre and already had the albums I would need at my disposal but some of the later black metal albums from the dying genre have especially grabbed my attention. To this I refer to the industrial-esque albums of Neptune Towers and later Beherit (among others). However asides from these last gulps of air from a near dead genre I have nothing else that remotely sounds similar. Can anyone advise on artists whom have made music of this sort?

[Devamitra]

Bhaobhan Sidhe and Diabolos Rising created electronic/industrial/black metal hybrids that I listened to back to back with Beherit's "Electric Doom Synthesis" back in the day. Most industrial/avantgarde black metal is gimmicky and artsy, but I still recommend to check out Black Funeral's "Ordog", Aborym's "With No Human Intervention" and selected Diabolicum/Bloodline. Maybe also Havoc Unit's new album. Ride For Revenge creates a very special combination of Beherit's "Drawing Down the Moon" and ritual/drone/doom/whatever.

Neptune Towers -like cold void music was created by for example Apeiron, Arud and Solanum. These were all synth-only projects except Apeiron had some astral metal on the Golden Dawn / Apeiron split demo. It's a massively inspiring demo by the way. Mussorgskij from Poland combined the astral synths with black metal and later it has been done by Paysage d'Hiver/Darkspace. Those are highly recommended.

[ASBO]

I have after a long  period of isolation from anything metal have recently been enjoying a renaissance (of sorts) in regard to appreciation of it. I am finding now that, in particular New York death metal sounds to clinical, cold and emotionless and it reminds me to heavily of the second Viennese school of classical music thus rendering anything in this style as an intellectual exercise. Swedish death metal, even at the best of times seems to marred with either the Gothenburg style or the quasi-Gothenburg style (case and point being early Entombed). I could go on like this for all styles of death metal but I believe you understand what I am saying about the genre as a whole (with exceptions of course).

New York death metal and Gothenburg death metal have one thing in common: they want to be rock music, which results in them limiting phrasal composition.

[Chains]

I don't know of anything that is directly in that style, but Svasti-Ayanam's Sanklesa explores very similar terrain as Beherit's Temple ov Lykos from EDS. It's a side project from Peter Andersson of Raison d'Etre (and a thousand other projects), but it has a far more ritual, animalistic, less contemplative feel to it.

[Devamitra]

I don't know of anything that is directly in that style, but Svasti-Ayanam's Sanklesa explores very similar terrain as Beherit's Temple ov Lykos from EDS. It's a side project from Peter Andersson of Raison d'Etre (and a thousand other projects), but it has a far more ritual, animalistic, less contemplative feel to it.

Exotoendo's "Push Kara" was an impressive ambient album with a Buddhist concept. Also the band Religious Knives comes to mind, whose album "Remains" I have been listening to a lot lately. The catalogues of labels such as Loki Foundation and Aural Hypnox are also mostly in this realm; all Tangerine Dream / Dead Can Dance / black metal synth projects etc. fans should take notice.

I've seen that black metal is also all the time getting closer ties with noise and drone genres, both in the hipster realm (Southern Lord / Hydra Head / SunnO)))) and in the deeper underground (Black Funeral, Ash Pool, Ride For Revenge, labels like Antihumanism and Northern Heritage have connections to both noise and black metal). It's a good thing these artists are not afraid to break the boundaries and merge post-modern (death/black metal) with futurism (industrial/noise/avantgarde - which often ends up in primitivism and closes the circle). What's bad of course is that most such projects end up being too weird and artsy, undisciplined, abstract ritual soundpainting and then we have lost the narrative and structured approach of metal and are back in the jazz attitude and what was wrong with it.

[ray ban]

I have after a long  period of isolation from anything metal have recently been enjoying a renaissance (of sorts) in regard to appreciation of it. I am finding now that, in particular New York death metal sounds to clinical, cold and emotionless and it reminds me to heavily of the second Viennese school of classical music thus rendering anything in this style as an intellectual exercise. Swedish death metal, even at the best of times seems to marred with either the Gothenburg style or the quasi-Gothenburg style (case and point being early Entombed). I could go on like this for all styles of death metal but I believe you understand what I am saying about the genre as a whole (with exceptions of course).

New York death metal and Gothenburg death metal have one thing in common: they want to be rock music, which results in them limiting phrasal composition.

I can see what you're saying in reference to Swedish death metal (Although I doubt At The Gates, pretty much the only Swedish death metal band I really like, wanted to be rock music. Their earlier albums stand apart from a lot of death metal IMO and Slaughter of the Soul just felt like an exercise in laziness/capitalizing on br00tal music as opposed to an artistic progression), but I really don't see the connection with New York death metal at all. Could you elaborate?

Edit: I meant to also respond to the OP. I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to find, but I would definitely recommend Ildjarn - Hardangervidda. I think it's a good example of ideas related through black metal being transferred to ambient.

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

I probably did not make this clear enough but I'm not look for more metal acts per say, as I am quite happy with industrial acts and drone music outside of metal. The reason I liked Beherit (most of H418ov21.C) is because it does not sound like metal but rather carries a similar will but different musical aesthetic.

[Wraith]

Kraftwerk reminds me of HLTO-era Burzum (though historically, it should be the other way around), as do Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream at times.

The drill 'n' bass (sometimes described as IDM) of acts like Squarepusher, Venetian Snares and Aphex Twin are highly deconstructive, complex and disorienting, like grindcore and death metal. Apart from Kraftwerk, Suicide, and ambient and some industrial music, I couldn't listen to any electronic music until I heard Venetian Snares, purely because they were so "metal."