Aleister Crowley - The Great Beast Speaks

A bit of a different thing today. As today is the 141st birthday of "the wickedest man in the world" I felt it fitting to include this recording. Truthfully I do not know a lot about Aleister Crowley, but the fact that Christians are generally scared of him is enough for me to approve of. This is a collection of recordings from the early 1900's. The great but defunct Digital Meltdown blog (which is where I found this) was nice enough to include a link to a page that explains this release in detail. Something I certainly couldn't do. The page is HERE.

Do What Thou Wilt

Dark Funeral - Self-Titled

Dark Funeral were among what I guess was called the "second wave" of black metal. Hailing from Sweden this debut EP from 1984 brings the doom quite nicely.

My Dark Desires

Celtic Frost - Into The Pandemonium

Celtic Frost was indeed a legendary force and influence in the extreme metal world. However, by 1987 their music style began changing a bit. With symphonic elements and softer vocals it was quite a change from earlier releases. But, since I already posted two of the three earlier releases I have, and Celtic Frost belongs in this month, we get this release today.

Caress Into Oblivion

Hellhammer - Satanic Rites

Let's start the weekend back in the early 80's. Another very influential band was created in the darkest corner of Switzerland. Created by Tom G. Warrior and later joined by Martin Eric Ain, Hellhammer helped lay down the groundwork for extreme metal, before disbanding and regrouping as Celtic Frost in 1984.

Revelations Of Doom

Darkthrone - Land Of Frost Demo

We get our first taste of the 90's Norwegian scene today. Darkthrone were one of the first from Norway and helped shape where the whole thing would soon go - Extreme! This demo release is dark, atmospheric and evil.

Forests Of Darkness

Bathory - Self-Titled

Another early pioneer of the sound was Bathory from Sweden. They clearly show a Venom influence on this heavy 1984 debut. However you don't find a sense of humor. There are no songs about banging your teacher or getting dusted. They stick to the dark script. The vocals also begin to get a bit more indecipherable.

In Conspiracy With Satan

Venom - Possessed

As hinted at yesterday, this blog is going "dark" in October. Completely dark. Black, in fact. Full disclosure, the Black Metal genre is something that (outside of very few early bands) I never really got into. However, after reading a couple great books on the subject I found the whole subculture to be quite interesting. So I sought out the music and found it to be equally interesting. Certainly not something I could listen to all day every day, but the genre as a whole has earned a spot in my collection.

So, please note, I don't profess to know alot about the whole "black metal thang", so please no fact-checking. Also, if you're just plain not in to this sort of thing, well then take the month off. I won't judge.

Anyway, sorry to make you read. I promised myself I was going to try to avoid that! Enough reading, Let's get some Hell going down here. Venom coined the term Black Metal, so we start there. This is the bands 4th slab of evil, from 1985.

Look At My Eyes!