Best of Underground Metal 1982-2002

[Iron]

No, this isn't another stupid survey topic where you can name what's in your CD player now and pretend it's exceptional. This is a list of -- according to one metal think tank -- the best art produced by underground death metal and black metal genres. Feel free to bitch, but we're not including your friend's CD-R band or that grindcore-with-a-flute failure you purchased last week. Each album in this listing is available for download at the links below.

BEST OF BLACK METAL

1. Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
2. Immortal - Pure Holocaust
3. Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse
4. Darkthrone - Transylvanian Hunger
5. Graveland - The Celtic Winter
6. Bathory - Blood, Fire, Death
7. Ildjarn - Det Frysende Nordariket
8. Summoning - Dol Guldur
9. Gorgoroth - Antichrist
10. Beherit - Electric Doom Synthesis
11. Enslaved - Vikinglgr Veldi
12. Havohej - Dethrone the Son of God
13. Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
14. Sacramentum - Far Away From the Sun
15. Mutiilation - Remains of a Dead, Ruined, Cursed Soul

Best of Black Metal MP3s

BEST OF DEATH METAL

1. Massacra - Final Holocaust
2. Deicide - Legion
3. Morbid Angel - Blessed Are the Sick
4. Therion - Beyond Sanctorum
5. Sepultura - Morbid Visions
6. Incantation - Onward to Golgotha
7. Morpheus Descends - Ritual of Infinity
8. Necrophobic - The Nocturnal Silence
9. Obituary - Cause of Death
10. Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten
11. Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
12. Dismember - Like an Ever-Flowing Stream
13. Amorphis - The Karelian Isthmus
14. At the Gates - The Red in the Sky is Ours
15. Demilich - Nespithe
16. Asphyx - The Rack

Best of Death Metal MP3s

The only change I would make to the Black Metal list would be to replace The Celtic Winter with The Thousand Swords. The Celtic Winter has powerful moments, but sounds a little bit confused as a whole. The Thousand Swords is more articulate and represents a maturation in style. There's really nothing quite like it.

I think that the Death Metal list could either use some expansion or some pruning, if you really want to keep it so short. I would sacrifice Morpheus Descends (which I regard as a rather mediocre band) for Immolation - Here In After, which I think reaches much higher and has been more influential. I would also replace that Dismember album with Autopsy - Mental funeral. I think it would also be worth making space for Adramelech - Psychostasia, though the inclusion of Demilich and Demigod may account for that style sufficiently.

[ChapelOfTorment]

I definitely agree with you about prefering Thousand Swords over The Celtic Winter. Thousands Swords is one of the genre-defining black metal albums, an absolutely essential purchase for any black metaller. The whole black metal list is pretty great; I might switch out Sacramentum for the first Dissection album or one of the better Hellenic black metal albums (Non Serviam and Kingdom of Endless Darkness come to mind), if only to cover all of the style's bases.

Personally, I think that Like an Everflowing Stream is one of the most essential albums on the death metal list. It is by far the best and most coherent example of everything great about the Stockholm death metal style with a minimum of that scene's little degeneracies (i.e. no real death'n'roll stuff or overly sappy melodies). Mental Funeral definitely should be on there somewhere, however; maybe it could be switched with Morpheus Descends or Massacra. I'm really just nit-picking though; that list got me started on death metal back when I was a young teenager.

[Parasite]

Sacramentum is weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaak, it should without a doubt be replaced. It is easily the worst album on that list, what about War Cult Supremacy or Joined in Darkness or Blood Upon The Altar?.

[Niko]

Sacramentum is weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaak, it should without a doubt be replaced. It is easily the worst album on that list

Odd, I find it to be one of the best. I agree with you on Joined in Darkness, though.

[Jim Necroslaughter]

DAWN OF POSSESSION

[Cargést]

Sacramentum is weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaak, it should without a doubt be replaced. It is easily the worst album on that list

Odd, I find it to be one of the best. I agree with you on Joined in Darkness, though.

I'd replace Sacramentum with Setherial's "Nord", but then, I'm a sucker for ITNE-flavoured Metal done superbly.

[Mindtraveller]

Are you guys sure you're not syphilitic? FAFTS is the epitome of melodic black metal. The last thing that list needs is more lo-fi blockheaded norsecore with no sense of space(Conqueror/Blassphemy) or lesser permutations of an already perfected style (Setherial).

Also, how do you guys feel about Final Holocaust being at the top of the Death Metal List? The album's never click with me, personally, and it does't seem to get much discussion either. A prozakian idiosyncracy? Or do any of you actually consider it the greatest DM album ever?

[Chains]

Also, how do you guys feel about Final Holocaust being at the top of the Death Metal List? The album's never click with me, personally, and it does't seem to get much discussion either. A prozakian idiosyncracy? Or do any of you actually consider it the greatest DM album ever?

Actually, I think the only two really consistent criticisms of these lists thare variations of "wtf is up with massacra topping that list" and "celtic winter over 1k swords? you have GOT to be kidding me".

(For the record: I don't care much for massacra, I prefer celtic winter, and I think thousand swords is the better album, and there's a handful of other albums I'd change, but whatever.)

[aquarius]

Also, how do you guys feel about Final Holocaust being at the top of the Death Metal List? The album's never click with me, personally, and it does't seem to get much discussion either. A prozakian idiosyncracy? Or do any of you actually consider it the greatest DM album ever?

Actually, I think the only two really consistent criticisms of these lists thare variations of "wtf is up with massacra topping that list" and "celtic winter over 1k swords? you have GOT to be kidding me".

(For the record: I don't care much for massacra, I prefer celtic winter, and I think thousand swords is the better album, and there's a handful of other albums I'd change, but whatever.)

That album doesn't move me all that much either. Actually I'm suprised no IMMOLATION record made it onto the list, it could easily swap with Sepultura which is more of black/death/speed prototype anyway. I guess they kind of already covered new york death metal with the other bands.

[istaros]

Are you guys sure you're not syphilitic? FAFTS is the epitome of melodic black metal. The last thing that list needs is more lo-fi blockheaded norsecore with no sense of space(Conqueror/Blassphemy) or lesser permutations of an already perfected style (Setherial).

Fucking agreed. The AIDS on display here is disturbing, that album has the strongest use of counterpoint in the entirety of black metal, and every moment of it is in perfect sync with the rest. We all have one or two different preferences for those lists, but that album is untouchable. Somebodies haven't been listening very closely.

Putting Massacra at #1 always struck me as a bit trollish. Not that it isn't awesome, but it sure does piss off visiting indieheads.

[Parasite]

Are you guys sure you're not syphilitic? FAFTS is the epitome of melodic black metal. The last thing that list needs is more lo-fi blockheaded norsecore with no sense of space(Conqueror/Blassphemy) or lesser permutations of an already perfected style (Setherial).

. 

Conqueror and Blasphemy are Canadian, and neither play anything resembling "Norsecore" << who comes up with these subgenre names??

[Humanicide]

Yeah that's a pretty glaring mis-categorization there.

I agree with the Death metal list, bar Amorphis (who are good composers but have never struck my fancy) and Deicide (who I've never liked). The Black metal list is quality as well, barring Gorgoroth and Ildjarn (just personal preference here, I don't actually find anything wrong with either's music).

Should the lists be expanded to 20 albums each? It would display more quality albums as well as give more flex room for other favorites.

[istaros]

Should the lists be expanded to 20 albums each? It would display more quality albums as well as give more flex room for other favorites.

Most people here are naming more albums that should be taken off than they're naming albums that should be added. That suggests that, if the lists were to be changed at all, they should be trimmed, not expanded. Since everyone else is doing it and I want to be one of the cool kids, the Necrophobic, Obituary, and to a lesser extent Morpheus Descends and Asphyx albums hold a lot less impact for me than the others on the death metal list, whereas the Mütiilation, Gorgoroth, and especially Havohej albums are almost second-tier compared to the rest of the stuff on the black-metal list. The Beherit album is also an idiosyncrasy, despite being their best, and Ildjarn is so conceptually distant from black metal as to be considered a force unto itself.

[Mindtraveller]

Conqueror and Blasphemy are Canadian, and neither play anything resembling "Norsecore" << who comes up with these subgenre names??

I know. I used the term "norsecore" because those bands have more similarities to grindcore than they do to, well, any of the bands on the top 15 list.

[rapidshare]

Blasphemy, Blood and Terrorizer: how different are they, anyway?