Obscure Gems: Black Metal

[Kerrick]

I thought it'd be fun to have a series of threads for bands within a given genre (to start off, black metal) that are on the more obscure end of the spectrum and that may have gotten overlooked by the casual listener.  This will also be a great way for folks to discover bands they never heard of.  So for example, posting about Antestor or Crimson Moonlight wouldn't be appropriate, but perhaps Erasmus or Ohen would be.  This is also where folks get to show off their Christian metal expertise hahahaha.

[Zymologist]

Very harsh and very raw, but I like Katumus' material. Probably my favorite of all the stuff that Fire has done (Elgibbor, Firethrone, and a host of others).

[MetalPioneer]

I'll think on this one as well, but I definitely have a few bands to add to the conversation.

Is that new Erasmus material? I have their debut but didn't know they had more music.

[Kerrick]

Nope, Sanguinus Nocturnus came out before Memento Mori actually.  I prefer it over Memento Mori though it's quite difficult to come by since I believe only 50 copies were made...  If I ever see a CD available, I'll try to remember to let you know!  (Sorry, but I'm not parting with mine!)

[aaljunior]

One band that I've discovered this year is Hesychast. I think they're pretty charming. The first song I've listened to was "Eye", but my favorite one, from the "Ageless" "Trisagion". And what really caught my attention was the lyrics. All of them are awesome!

I still can't post any links

Their material can be found on Bandcamp.

[Kerrick]

Fun trivia about the Hesychast's album: look in the "thank you" section.  

They're working on new material by the way!  Ageless is fantastic so I have pretty high expectations.

[Kerrick]

Another rather obscure gem is Winterkou.  They played black/doom metal, very heavy on the atmosphere.  It seems like they went out of their way to make it as lo-fi as possible haha, but it's still pretty decent stuff.  I could only find one song from their album on youtube and it's not the best representation of the album as a whole, but it'll give you an idea of their sound.

Spoiler:

Scroll is quite good too.  At some point they were working on new material too, though nothing seems to have ever come of it...
https://scroll.bandcamp.com/

[Zymologist]

Black/doom, huh? I'm intrigued. That's a pretty sparsely-populated genre, but I do quite like the few examples I've found.

[Kerrick]

Oops, I meant to post the other Winterkou song: Felse Profjesie.  Fixed.  (The original song I posted is now in the spoiler.  It's featured on one of the SSP samplers.)

[MetalPioneer]

They're kind of obscure at the moment because they're a fairly new band, but Temple of Perdition has just released their new album Tetragrammaton.  I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but from what I've heard so far, it's pretty sweet.  Quality black metal with nice atmospheric parts, raw heaviness, and great lyrics.  

[Kerrick]

Their lyrics are good?  I loved what I heard from those guys but lost all interest when they claimed that the Bible isn't the inerrant Word of God but instead just written by men and something about the "Gospel" Of Thomas too...

[MetalPioneer]

Their lyrics are good?  I loved what I heard from those guys but lost all interest when they claimed that the Bible isn't the inerrant Word of God but instead just written by men and something about the "Gospel" Of Thomas too...

I hadn't heard that.  The lyrics I was able to find appeared to be God-centered, but I certainly haven't done a full investigation.  I follow them on FB and haven't noticed any posts that are really off.  Do you have a link to what they were talking about?

Here are a few of the lyrics:  https://genius.com/Temple-of-perdition-adonai-lyrics

One song is about unbelievers facing everlasting punishment in hell and the other is praising God.  They are also signed by Vision of God records, which has a pretty good track record so far from what I can tell.

[Kerrick]

After a little searching, I found it.    I'm not sure how to link a post on FB... but if you go to their FB page and scroll way down to February 18th, they say this with regards to someone noticing that the lyrics came from the "Gospel" Of Thomas which is not canonical:

The 66 books were chosen by man to fit mans agenda by a system of control and power. These books were common place before that and highly regarded. I will not ever subscribe to what is Constantine decree of what is godly and what is not.

This might be a better topic for the theological section, but it begs the question whether someone can be a Christian and not believe in the Bible...

Vision Of God is a fantastic label which is doing great things for Christian metal, but I don't think they're too particular/discerning when it comes to the theologies/doctrines of their bands.  There are one or two other bands on their roster that I'm aware of which are quite unorthodox.

[MetalPioneer]

After a little searching, I found it.    I'm not sure how to link a post on FB... but if you go to their FB page and scroll way down to February 18th, they say this with regards to someone noticing that the lyrics came from the "Gospel" Of Thomas which is not canonical:

The 66 books were chosen by man to fit mans agenda by a system of control and power. These books were common place before that and highly regarded. I will not ever subscribe to what is Constantine decree of what is godly and what is not.

This might be a better topic for the theological section, but it begs the question whether someone can be a Christian and not believe in the Bible...

Vision Of God is a fantastic label which is doing great things for Christian metal, but I don't think they're too particular/discerning when it comes to the theologies/doctrines of their bands.  There are one or two other bands on their roster that I'm aware of which are quite unorthodox.

Huh, interesting.  That's a bummer because they sound great.

[Kerrick]

Agreed on all accounts.

[Kerrick]

Another rather obscure gem is Winterkou...

I put Winterkou's album on as we were driving back home from dinner last night and to my surprise, my wife really liked it a lot.  It won't win any awards for being particularly technical or for recording quality, though it's got great atmosphere and is overall a solid album.  Too bad they only ever made one album!

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