BORKNAGAR (1996) CD

Before Borknagar became the progressive black metal institution they are now, there was this, the 1996 self-titled debut, a record that arrived like cold wind off a Norwegian fjord and immediately announced that black metal could be more than just noise and corpse paint posturing.

Øystein G. Brun assembled something genuinely strange here, folding folk melody and atmosphere into the black metal template at a time when most of his countrymen were still arguing about who burned what church. The result is a record that sounds like it was recorded in a mountain cave and is all the better for it, raw but compositionally ambitious, with Garm (Ulver, Arcturus) on vocals giving the whole thing an unearthly quality that no one else in the scene could replicate. Essential Norwegian black metal history.

Format: CD. Origin: Norway, 1996.

Fans of: Emperor, Ihsahn, Arcturus, Satyricon.