ENTHRONED Armoured Bestial Hell Vinyl Picture Disk (2001)

Belgium has no business producing black metal this relentless, and yet Enthroned have spent thirty-plus years proving everyone wrong. Armoured Bestial Hell from 2001 is the band at full throttle, post-Nornagest and hungry to prove they hadn't lost a step.

The picture disk format suits it, because this is music that was always as much about the aesthetic as the riffs, and the riffs are already doing plenty. Enthroned occupied that space between orthodox black metal and war metal that very few bands navigated without falling off one edge or the other. This record is the proof of concept. A genuine artefact from a period when European black metal was eating itself alive in the best possible way, and a Belgian act was somehow keeping pace with the Norwegians.

2001 picture disk pressing. Display-worthy but built to be played. Limited availability, as you'd expect.

Fans of: Dark Funeral, Marduk, Setherial