SATYRICON CD (2013)

By 2013, Satyricon had spent two decades refusing to stay in the lane Norwegian black metal built for them, and this self-titled record is the clearest statement of that refusal. Where Now, Diabolical started stripping things back, Satyricon goes further, minimalist in structure but not in weight, more rock than kvlt, and absolutely unbothered about what anyone on the forums thought.

Sigurd 'Satyr' Wongraven and Frost deliver something that sounds less like a black metal album and more like what happens when two people who invented a genre decide to burn the rulebook they wrote. The production is cold and wide, the riffs are hypnotic rather than blasting, and tracks like 'Tro og kraft' and 'Walker Upon the Wind' sit in a dark rock space that shares more with post-punk and industrial than with Nemesis Divina. This edition includes bonus tracks. Essential for anyone interested in where extreme metal goes when it grows into itself rather than calcifying.

Format: CD with bonus tracks. Full length album, 2013 release. Origin: Norway. Genre: Black Metal.

Fans of: Darkthrone, 1349, Gorgoroth, Immortal, Emperor, Enslaved, Taake.