ƚBM (INSPIRED BY BLACK METAL)

ƚBM focuses on the influence of black metal anno 2014 and is a response to the current prevalence of the genre. Not coincidentally 30 years after the establishment of legendary Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Nor coincidentally 20 years after the release of their debut ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’ - one of the most influential black metal albums ever.

USBM

Things are going well for USBM, or: US Black Metal. In fact, so well that Pitchfork writer Brandon Stosuy - known for his trend-setting blog ‘Show No Mercy’ - put together a bulky essay about it. He named it ‘A Blaze Across The North American Sky’, making an analogy with the ’92 release of black metal classic ‘A Blaze in the Northern Sky’ by Darkthrone. He considers USBM to be the third wave of black metal bands with an entirely own vision, and rightly refers thereby to acts like Wolves In The Throne Room, Deafheaven, Krallice, Sunn o))), Liturgy, Twilight (now with Thurston Moore amongst the members) and also Locrian.

LOCRIAN

Chicagoan trio Locrian has been releasing cassettes, CD-Rs, 7 inches and even VHS-tapes for years now. They even made it into Spin's Top 15 with their latest album ‘Return to Annihilation’ - in the category ‘Best Metal Albums of the Year’ (just like Deafheaven, by the way). Locrian flirts heavily with drones, noise and industrial - whereby La Monte Young or Swans are never far removed. There's post rock in there too and black metal is the main theme, of course. Pitchfork praised their album highly: “’Return to Annihilation’ is the most provocative and engaging Locrian album to date, it’s a brilliant mystery.”