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 (http://www.anus.com/metal/hall/YaBB.cgi?board=mp3;action=display;num=1141972265)

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 (http://www.anus.com/metal/hall/YaBB.cgi?board=mp3;action=display;num=1142401172)

I think that one of the best and most influential was master of puppets by metallica.

i highly recommend "kingdom of dis"...a small studio project operating in mesa, arizona.

some friends of mine are in this band, and it is probably the most professional sounding unsigned band i have ever heard.

check it out on myspace (no, im not advertising.)

How is Emperor or Immortal underground, they're one of the most popular and best metal bands ever,
every metal child knows them.

p.s. Ildjarn "Forest poetry" album should be in the list.

honestly i feel like on the death metal list they should change the at the gates record to slaughter of the soul, and maybe throw cannibal corpse - butchered at birth on there for having ushered in the whole era of american death metal. other than that not a bad list.

charles,

i always saw "the bleeding" as THE definitive album of cannibal corpse. faaar more technical than "butchered at birth", in my opinion. i admit, i am biased though. "the bleeding" was the album where alex webster's presence was finally moved into the forefront of the actual sound.

just my opinion though :) "butchered" was the more groundbreaking album in america, i admit.

"Effigy of the Forgotten" is the best Cannibal Corpse album.

charles,

i always saw "the bleeding" as THE definitive album of cannibal corpse. faaar more technical than "butchered at birth", in my opinion. i admit, i am biased though. "the bleeding" was the album where alex webster's presence was finally moved into the forefront of the actual sound.

just my opinion though :) "butchered" was the more groundbreaking album in america, i admit.

yeah, i dont disagree with you, it might just be that butchered at birth was when i really got interested in them, and i always forget about a lot of the other stuff they did. plus butchered is the one that i think probably had the greater influence on bands playing death metal today, even if the bleeding was more tech.

Better Bands In This Style:

Pyrexia
Morpheus
Suffocation
Suffer
Deicide

<3

when i was xmas shopping in antwerp this last year, i saw a deicide skateboard in a kids toy store.

cracked me up.

*hang the bitch, on the cross* heh do an olly dude!

Oh, the shame. We knew it was coming though. Almost all metal bands sell out (exceptions: Burzum, Havohej, Beherit and all that broke up early).

Better Bands In This Style:

Suffocation

<3


if only because of that thrones of blood song. i saw them like a year ago. it was awesome.

Absolutely awsome band: Therion
I was happy to see them on the list.

Similar bands I recommened:
Nightwish
After Forever
Lacuna Coil
Blind Guardian

blind guardian for sure!!!

one of my fondest adolescent memories is going to an amusement park, dropping acid and slapping on a blind guardian cd while whipping through the air on a rollercoaster!!

nightwish? um...nah ill pass :)

if only because of that thrones of blood song.

"Pierced From Within" is an impressive album as a whole.

"Pierced From Within" is an impressive album as a whole.
i'll drink to that.

Very good list, I must say, although not underground at all. I was kind of hoping for a lot of stuff I hadn't already heard

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 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

I can't tell which is a group name and which is an album name. ;)

- N

i have lost all faith in humanity, today at school i asked someone what there favourite metal is and they said...wait for it....TRIVIUM for fucks sake

Haven't heard.
--------

btw - One of Latvia's best (black) metal bands URSKUMUG released their second cd today.
Here's one song from it: http://www.urskumug.lv/files/Urskumug%20-%2007%20-%20Am%20Nodr.mp3

Homepage: http://www.urskumug.lv/

Earlier band in this style:
Pentagram 1972-76
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1179/1741/1600/Pentagram%201%20-%20Front.jpg
Oh, yeah.

www.chrisgoesrock.blogspot.com

Opeth
Therion
Type O Negative
Children of Bodom
BloodDuster
Scissorfight
Cradle of Filth
Dimmu Borgir
Overkill
Pantera
Sepultura

For starters.

i dont really think that you can call pantera underground, they passed into mainstream a long time ago

same as cradle of filth, sepultra, type o negative, and dummu borgir.

i dont really think that you can call pantera underground, they passed into mainstream a long time ago
Ah. Underground = Secret Inbred.

Got it.

Who'z ya sista'?

No, wait. Why'd he offer up Scissorfight, if not to suggest elevating "underground" to more mainstream status?

Presuming, good as they are, they are worthy of mainstreaming.

Some of their compositions are. Some not.

Worth a hell-ya, anyway.

You folks are acting too short to have possession of the really distant horizons. It's a geometry thing.

geometry dont put food on my table, sucka.

"LIKE A RAINBOW IN THE DARK!!!"

Kontinual, are you by any chance norwegian? Can't imagine a foreigner ever having heard of Ildjarn. He was my english teacher in 6. grade. :p The Ildjarn album you're reffering to is extremely underestimated. You should look up early Thou Shalt Suffer from 89-90-91. Exceedingly great black metal.

Naah, I'm Latvian and I know Ildjarn well too,
I especially like "Forest poetry" and the ambient album "Landscapes".

I'll have to tell him this next time I see him. I had no idea his recordings were considered that big, although, it doesn't longer surprise me what hardcore bm fans are able to get there hands on... And by the way, kontinual, you've left out Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk by Emperor on your list. IMO, Ensorcelled by Khaos is one the single most black metal pieces ever written.

Please do, and tell him greetings from Latvia.
I know a few more people here who very like his music.
I think his black metal greatly represents the raw power of nature.

I'm going to a Carpathian Forest concert! :cool:
Although they look stupid with all their spikes, etc., the black metal is very, very good.

I had a poster of them on my first apartment. They're almost as ugly as Immortal... :D

:D I like Immortal better - both the looks and music.

Me too.. Sons of Northern Darkness is one of my top 5. Along with A Blaze in the Northern Sky - Darkthrone, Aske - Burzum, Shadowthrone - Satyricon and Wrath of the Tyrant, In the Nightside Eclipse and Anthems at The Welkin at Dusk - Emperor (they're equally great!!! :D ). I haven't listened to any of them in at least two years, but now that you've brought it up, I'm gonna wipe the dust of them and play them so loud I'll have blood running out of my ears. :D

Both Emperor and Immortal are my favourite black metal bands (Latvian Urskumug is quite good too, but it's a new band and not mature enough). Of course there are other black metal bands I like, but these two I've always called the Kings of Black metal.

btw, Emperor has reuinted again (don't know for how long) and will play in this year's Wacken festival!
Unfortunately I don't have enough money to go. :(

They are also doing 4 shows in The States and they headlined norwegian Inferno Festival in april. I saw them, it was great. :)

I wouldn't call it 'underground' at all....but as far as metal goes.....Here's my pick.

- Opeth
- Emperor (Ihsahn's new album wasn't too great)
- Electric Wizard
- Children of Bodom
- Nile
- Darkthrone
- Arcturus
- Alchemist
- Dissection


I have yet to check out Immortal....but I can't seem to find much to download.