Top 10 BM Albums of the 00s

ANUS, American Nihil somthing... from what I remember. I remeber looking at the site quite a long time ago. What exactly is it though?

In any order:
Orcustus - Orcustus
Katharsis - VVorldVVithoutEnd
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars
Abigor - Fractal Possession
Behexen - My Soul For His Glory
Marduk - Wormwood
Beherit - Engram
Antaeus - De Principii Evangelikum
DsO - SMRC
Funeral Mist - Salvation
 
Eligos said:
I need to check out Dark Tribe, I guess.

By the way, what's ANUS?
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I think Anticitizen or somebody said it best as a bunch of metalheads sitting around doing armchair philosophy about black metal and how it pertains to life and a bunch of other things. Their articles and reviews are pretty hilarious sometimes. It's the elite of the elitists

http://www.*********/

edit: goddammit why is that asterisked out. anyway. it's ANUS dot com
 
Anticitizen One said:
Was VC ever anything more than hype anyway?

I mean, Genevieve wasn't bad, I guess, but it was completely overshadowed by all the "mystery" surrounding some guy living in Portland's Pearl District who posts on the FMP forums and robotrips a lot. At one point he even started stealing pictures of people I know on LJ (who have nothing to do with VC and don't even listen to black metal) and posting them as "band photos" on last.fm... I think that killed it for me.
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I made a somewhat detailed post about how I thought the album had a lot of musical merit. Sure, it's somewhat personal for me, but everyone's picks to some degree are shaped by extraneous factors. For the record, I got on board with this album way after all the mystery was gone and the backlash was in full effect. Genevieve is a serious and original work, and it in no way should be overshadowed by non-musical factors any more than Burzum should.
 
Zephyrus said:
All of these bands put out superior albums in the same decade.
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Well I enjoyed the inferior ones a bit more :D.

I have not heard any of Behexen's other albums.
None of the other Katharsis albums really stood out for me.
 
J. said:
I've never heard any VC nor do I care to. I find it hard to listen to and respect a black metal album or artist when the person in question has no respect for me, the would-be listener. And how is a would-be listener not suppose to let the "non-musical factors" affect the album when the artist clearly and deliberately made those factors public with great effort to create hype that most fell for?
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I don't think bands that release 50 cassettes or 100 CD-Rs when they definitely have the means to do more than that are exactly respecting listeners either, but I am assuming you put up with this to some degree, as do just about all of us. One even has to wonder when bands press 1000 of something - when they certainly will sell out - just how respectful of the listeners this practice is. So let's not make this about respect.

The fraudulent musical materials were never available in any physical form on a wide scale, if at all, so I can't imagine anyone who actually buys music in concrete forms ever having any trouble whatsoever separating what was false from what was original recorded material. The rampant downloaders and people who jump on leaks were really the only ones who got duped by the fakes, and that was probably a good thing overall. They deserved to feel dumb.

The backstory and all that was really just brilliant self-promotion. Again, it's not like bands haven't used gimmicks for this purpose in the past, whether it's controversial imagery or themes, or uber-limited releases on gimmicky formats. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that some really popular, really highly-esteemed bands were *gasp* not actually Satanists. Who knows how many good-to-great releases are lost on the internet due to poor promotion. Creative promotion is just a facet of metal music, and most historically important bands have relied on it to some degree.
 
J. said:
Fair enough. But that is truly a bad example. You are comparing apples to oranges. Genevieve is not a demo from a band sending it to labels to try to get signed. It was released on a fairly respectable label. Also, the pressing of 1000 CDs is the labels choice in the end, though sure, the band probably has a lot of input. Also, it's an economic thing. The label wants to see if those 1000 sell out to see if it is worth pressing more. Certain Barbarian Wrath releases come to mind. Though yes, I concede that certain labels and bands take it to extremes (the obvious one is Agalloch) in certain cases. I know in my case, that if I were in a band, I certainly do not have the means to press thousands of CDs, whatwith two children, two car payments, a mortgage, and a wife that likes to spend money. Each band's circumstances are different.
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Of course I'm not referring to bands or labels with financial constraints or who make demos for their intended purpose of distributing to labels. But there are plenty of examples like Mutiilation with their limited re-release recently, or bands that hit a certain stature releasing a numbered anything. It's one thing to reward die-hard fans with bonuses, but another for a band to make material inordinately hard to obtain for anyone who's a little late to the party. It's probably more accurate to say that the labels encourage die-hards and limited releases to drive up attention and sales. Regardless, on a basic level I disagree with your original point in that a band having respect for its audience is a fundamental part of the listening process.


This is true. However, does that make it right? What exactly are they trying to prove? That people are dumb? Kinda moot, eh?
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Sure, we can agree it's moot. If I didn't think this album was one of the best of the decade, we would not be discussing this at all. If there was not a fairly significant following of the band, they definitely would have gone away by now. The hyper-secretive, obscure band hype thing has kind of died down in recent years, if this forum is anything to go by at all, and I think that VC exposing that scene was something important. It was a troll, but it also was a brilliantly executed statement about some metal listeners. Again, it wouldn't matter if the music didn't resonate with many people.

Again, apples to oranges. The bands that print their music on 666 mini-LPs with goat semen in them are not deceiving anyone. Are they being stupid? Sure. Self-promotion is fine, like when Napalm Death deemed themselves the fastest band on the planet. Or Bathory declaring they were "beyond Slayer". Hell man, instead of all the diesel harp nonsense, "borrowing" others' music and talking about drugs, just announce your music as "Hypnotic, drug-induced black metal" or some other "catchy" phrase. If you do not see the difference in the promotion ND and Bathory used and the deceit VC used, then, I mean this in the nicest possible way, we have nothing further to discuss (though I suspect you've had this debate countless times).
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It was promotion with the added dimension of being a statement about kvlt black metal culture. There was another motive beyond trying to sell as many records or get as much exposure as possible.

Sure, of course. The main ones Venom and Slayer, personally, I can't stand 'em. A devout Catholic singing the praises of the Dark Lord is hypocrisy in the highest degree. The fact that he's doing it for money is the least of the ironies. Venom, well, meh. THey came out later and announced it was all shock tactics when they started sucking.
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Those were examples I was thinking of. If you're applying consistency, there's really no place further to discuss this point.

Countless, but does that justify dishonesty?
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Well how many of the guys in bands are not exactly what they project themselves to be? It's unproductive to ponder, and ultimately irrelevant to me. I can believe that maybe Darken does wear armor and parade around in the woods, but I can't imagine that a lot of the imagery I see in booklets is truly "honest." Some posturing just comes with the territory. VC just went to a different level of boundary-pushing imagery, which initially sucked people into thinking they were privy to some secret world and wrapped them up in it. It would have been cool if the guitar sound was recorded through a giant tank of water and blood. It also would have been cool if Nattens Madrigal was actually recorded in the woods. These kinds of things can in enhance atmosphere, but ultimately they don't matter a ton. I also admire that they still successfully make teenagers rage on a Tipper-Gore-like level.
 
MasterOLightning said:
Well how many of the guys in bands are not exactly what they project themselves to be? It's unproductive to ponder, and ultimately irrelevant to me. I can believe that maybe Darken does wear armor and parade around in the woods, but I can't imagine that a lot of the imagery I see in booklets is truly "honest." Some posturing just comes with the territory.
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Yes. Its called 'theatrics'. Its part of the fun.
 
I think ignoring VC just because of the ignorance of their marketing is going to only leave you not hearing some great material. Warrented that it makes the people of the band look like total douchebags, the music itself is good. Honestly, the most insane and social defective people sometimes make the greatest artist. If the people in VC really thought that people would believe the shit they spewed then clearly they are retarded or they're desperate to get their work out there. You can't blame a band who is failing to recieve any exposure to succumb to extreme measures. To take such measures obviously the band had great confidence in their work, which I will credit. And in the end all there is to prove is the music itself which, to me, is excellent.
 
Thoth-Amon said:
Actually I think World Funeral is their second worst following PDM... though it still has some really good tracks on it.
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Interesting, I really like it. The four first tracks are insane (With Satan and Victorious Weapons, Bleached Bones, Cloven Hoof and World Funeral), such a great sequence. And they are pretty good live. It's a solid / aggressive as fuck album imo.
 
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