Bear

Sweet as fuck as usual from Ghost. Great video too.

Wow! That is actually a huge surprise. Expected you to already be fully into it. Aura Noir is a band that is at the worst, Hades Rise, a very good band. At their best, Dreams Like Deserts, Black Thrash Attack, Deep Tracts of Hell and The Merciless, fucking classic.
 
Dreams Like Deserts - A bit thrashy, but their most black metal influenced album by a long shot. 
Black Thrash Attack - This is hands down one of the most fitting album titles ever. A pure black/thrash metal assault.
Deep Tracts of Hell - Their most violent and chaotic album to date. A lot more challenging and complex than previous album. Less Sodom and Destruction and more...Aura Noir?
The Merciless - Their best album if you ask me, and maybe their filthiest album as well. It's the perfect balance between Teutonic thrash ala Sodom and Destruction, Norwegian black metal ala Darkthrone and 1st wave black metal ala Bathory and Tormentor. Check out Sordid and enjoy the homage to Possessed and their "March to Die". Fantastic stuff! And check Nattefrost's verse on Funeral Thrash. 
Hades Rise - Hades Rise is their most groovy album so far.  Overall a lot slower and less thrashy than previous efforts. A tad disappointing as a whole, but it's not bad at all. Just not as good as their other stuff. 
Out to Die - Out to Die sees Aura Noir pick up the pace again, and it's problably the closest they've been to traditional thrash metal, but without completely ditching the black metal vibes. Good shit!
 
 
A must-love band for any fan of good black and thrash metal.

While not a band within the genres mentioned in the OP, I'm still gonna post this band as they're black metal.
 
Wigrid! The debut album were highly influenced by Burzum, and I would guess especially Det som engang var and Burzum/Aske. Albeit with a more depressive twist to it all. The second album is also very Burzum influenced, but it's slower and contains much more traditional depressive black metal riffing similar to what you'd hear in Strid, Nidhoggr and Nyktalgia.
 
I'll have to go with Hoffnungstod as the best of the two albums, but both are absolutely amazing. Hoffnungstod is a modern classic and one of the best black metal albums of the 2000's imo.
 
 
The reason I had to post this is because I am a huge fan, and I am gonna get dressed and walk up to my local mail office and pick up Discography Box Part II, which is the second tape box that collects every Wigrid and Elfenblut (pre-Wigrid) material, with the exception of the two tracks from the latest split release. I liked the first one a lot, so I will be pleased about getting this too. Like the first box it also contains a 3" CD with a track.

Shining - I'm not the biggest fan of Shining, but I can appreciate the stuff released before The Eerie Cold and the move towards more progressive and rock-esque music quite a lot. But I've always felt like Niklas Kvarforth was a pathetic subhuman and this gig didn't change anything. The band sounds awful, they act pathetic and the entire gig was really embarrassing. My two friends who loves the band agrees, but they were even more negative than me. Says it all.
 
Uada - This gig was just too good. The sound was amazing, the band looks cool and their brand of melodic black metal that sounds like a mix of Mgla and Dissection really does it for me. Superb gig!
 
 
So my favourite gigs of Inferno: Uada, Grave, Electric Wizard, and to my huge surprise, Emperor.

Yeah, Ära Krâ isn't too bad. Didn't like them at all upon first hearing them, but a few years later I tried again and liked it quite a lot. A good and interesting mix of black metal, metalcore and post-rock.
 
Show Me Wolves and Funeral Sutra are other bands that blends black metal and metalcore in a pretty good way. 

Thanks for the gig reviews, @Bear, it was fun to read.  I hope I can see Carpathian Forest live some day too~

Dark Funeral - I was looking forward to Dark Funeral considering their latest album, Where Shadows Forever Reign, is by far their best release since Diabolis Interium, but this was one hell of a disappointing gig. They're known for poor, muddy sound live, but the overall sound wasn't really too bad. The setlist was disappointing with only three tracks off Dark Funeral, The Secrets of the Black Arts and Vobiscum Satanas (and album that should have been in the focus considering it's 20 years old this year), the new frontman, Heljarmadr of Domgård and Grá, was too slick, too boring. But the main problem was the sound of the bass drums. Made it unbearable really.
 
Napalm Death - The band, with Mitch Harris in the front, made one hell of an energic and fun show . The sound was top notch, Mitch Harris moved around like he was on some strong, scary fucking drugs and the setlist was alright. Great gig! Covered fucking Anti Cimex as well. Top notch!
 
Fleshgod Apocalypse - I've already written about these guys, but let me add that I've seen them two times and both gigs are among the 5 worst gigs I've ever seen. Maybe even among the 3 worst. Fans of these shitheads should be executed right away. Fuck off!
 
Origin - I'm not fan of this kind of brutal and technical death metal, and I didn't like the music a lot. But it was a really fucking fascinating gig and I am glad I saw them. I was just standing there with my mouth open and watching their bassist for the entire gig really. Holy cow. The speed, technicality and precision, man. Wow! It was both fun and interesting watching him. The thing I did not like was the vocalist. Jason Keyser acted and sounded like he belonged in a shitty deathcore band, not a death metal band.
 
Grave - Grave is among the classic death metal bands from sweden that helped form the classic swedish death metal sound, and I was looking forward to this gig. But I did expect to be let down by a setlist with too many new songs. They played one song from Out of Respect for the Dead and Dominion VIII, and the rest of the tracks, which was 10, was from 1993 and backwards. Six songs from Into the Grave, two songs from You'll Never See..., one song from ...and Here I Die...Satisfied and one song from their third demo Anatomia Corporis Humani. That is a truly amazing setlist. All respect to the band who seem smart enough to understand what their audience wants. Fantastic!
 
Ahab - I'm not the biggest fan and when I want funeral doom I tend to go for something else, but this gig was so fucking good. Dark, heavy and crushing. It was like being taken on a trip over the seas in the boat of Captain Ahab. Superb!
 
Earth Electric - Earth Electric is the new band of Rune "Blasphemer" Eriksen and his wife Carmen. We're talking 70's inspired prog rock meets heavy metal, and I was surprised. Had never heard the band, but the gig was really damn good. And Carmen Susana Simões, the female vocalist, brought something really special to the gig and she gave off a very traditional Louisiana Voodoo-feeling. It was really cool! Liked it a lot. So did my friend who isn't really into this type of music.

Went to Inferno last week like usual and like previous years I missed out on a lot of good bands because they played too early, John Dee was full or because I was hungry or something, but I got to see some very good bands too.Right now I can't really remember everything that played, so I might miss out on a few ones. But let's try anyway:
 
Emperor - Emperor were, to my huge surprise, not a headliner, but they played Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk in its entirety, before they ended the gig with Curse You All Men!, The Majesty of the Nightsky, I Am The Black Wizards and Inno A Satana. I have never really been a big fan of the album but the concert was amazing and completely changed my view of the album. Been playing it several times since I got home and I am really enjoying it now. Like really, really diggin' it. The magic of live gigs, folks! They don't look very black metal and I do wish they'd done a bit more image-wise, but the sound was fantastic, they had superb stage pressence and was really good. By far the best I've ever seen them.
 
Satyricon - My first time seeing them, and I will not be seeing them again. Awful setlist with only 5 tracks being off Volcano and the albums before it. But it just didn't sound good. Towards the end of the gig I told my friend they were gonna play Mother North soon, and then he just told me they had just played it. I was not able to recognize one of the most iconic black metal tracks ever. Was not able to recognize Walk the Path of Sorrow either. Which kinda sums up how bad this was.
 
Obituary - Obituary played a mix of new and old tracks, but as they don't have a single bad album that's not a problem. Of course I would love more old, but it wasn't a problem. Great, groovy death metal gig. Was real good!
 
Electric Wizard - With sleazy horror films with a lot of torture of naked girls, occultism and nudity playing in the background Electric played through a set mostly of newer songs, but also made sure to play a couple of classic tracks from their older albums. The sound was good with the vocals buried beneath the instruments which, unless you already knew the tracks, made it impossible to hear what he was actually singing. But there was nothing wrong with it. Made it even more hazy and smokey. I've heard much negative about ElWiz live, but this was great with The Chosen Few as the highlight. One of the best doom metal songs ever.
 
Carpathian Forest - These guys were to my huge surprise headlines for one of the evenings. The reason I was surprised is because they hadn't released a full-lenght since 2006 and their upcoming EP is not yet released. But this was a great gig with tracks taken from all their albums (with the exception of the poor Fuck You All!!!! as far as I know), as well as a demo and old EP track and a few cover songs of Turbonegro and The Cure. Played a lot of good songs, but the highlight was when Nattefrost suddenly picked out a harmonica from his backpocket and played the worst piece of music I have ever heard. But it was bad and ugly in a beautiful and fun way. I also have to admit that he did a lot better than expected, and he delivered a very mature gig. Very good!
 
 
Too be continued...

I totally recommend Woods of Desolation. Both old and new, if you're into this kind of music. For the two first albums the music itself and the melodies aren't too different, but difference in the production makes them into two very different beasts. I prefer the older, more lo-fi and hazy material myself, but I am one of few as far as I know. The last album, As the Stars, was a bit more in the direction of post-black metal with a stronger shoegaze and post-rock feeling. A bit more Alcest-esque.
 
 
 
He also played bass on Austere's masterpiece "To Lay like Old Ashes".
 
 
I'll glady recommend Forest Mysticism and Grey Waters too. Forest Mysticism is very similar to Woods of Desolation and Grey Waters is more depressive rock, influenced by Katatonia's later albums and Amesoeurs.
 
Woods of Desolation's "Toward the Depths" and "Sorh" have been my go-to albums for foggy days alongside Negură Bunget's "'n crugu bradului" and "Om". I always play these albums when I'm walking around in the fog. No exception.

I'm not an expert on this subject, but there is a difference. I think an easy explanation would be so say that avant-garde is about being very heavy on the experimentation and about being innovative and unique, whereas progressive are about making more complex music and creating music with more complex song structures. A lot of progressive music are also radio friendly as fuck, but avant-garde usually isn't - for a good reason.
 
Some suggestion that makes it easy to hear the difference.
 
Progressive black metal:
 
Enslaved - Below the Lights
Borknagar - The Archaic Course
Hidden in the Fog - Damokles
 
Avant-garde black metal:
 
Anubi - Kai pilnaties akis užmerks mirtis 
Ved buens ende - Written in Waters
Deathspell Omega - Paracletus
 
 
 
But which bands would that be? I have a decent knowledge of the genre and I have heard a lot of bands, but I have yet to find a band that can not be placed in an already existing subgenre of black metal. And if they don't fit into one, we usually use two. Hell, maybe we'll use three to describe the sound.
 
I think genres, be it in form of comics, music, books, films/TV-series, games or whatever else should be helpful in a way. It should tell you something helpful about the product, about how it is. If you throw 10 entirely different sounding bands into one genre, how is that genre any helpful at all?
 
 
Wouldn't the better thing to do be to just call the likes of Altar of Plagues and The Great Old Ones atmospheric/ambient black metal, and call Bosse-de-Nage black metal/post-hardcore? Because there's just no way they belong to the same subgenre. 
 
 
I don't agree at all. By putting black metal, prog, jazz, electronica, classical or whatever maingenre you can think about  after the avant-garde you'll get a much better idea about what type of avant-garde it is, because avant-garde can be a lot of different things. If you take a listen to the four albums below you'll get what I mean, and why I mean it's necessary.
 
Igor Stravinsky - Petrushka
Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come
Ved buens ende - Written in Waters
Ulver - Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
 
 
 
I know we might be a bit off-topic here, but I really enjoy this discussion. I feel like I am getting a lot of knowledge atm. Two thumbs up!

Gonna try being a bit on topic too and post a few of my favourite symphonic black metal albums
 
 
 
Didn't find the whole debut album, The Nightspectral Voyage, from Obsidian Gate on youtube, but this album is damn fucking good. It's one hell of a massive album. These would also be my favourite albums from all these bands. Grand, dark, majestic, powerful. When done right, symphonic black metal is among my favourite subgenres of black metal. It's a shame too many piss weak bands are giving the genre a bad name, though.

I'm not gonna be nitpicking too much on this stuff, but this is not it. The vast majority of post-black metal bands have no traits of post-hardcore in their music whatsoever. It's black metal that's gone beyond the boundaries of what black metal was originally about, which in general means that there's hella lot of post-black metal out there. But in newer times it's a term often been applied to bands that mix either post-rock, shoegaze or drone and black metal. 
The problem with modern post-black metal is that there isn't any specific traits or rules as to how it should sound, which makes it really hard to classify bands as post-black metal. It's just experimental and non-traditional  black metal. But if we were to look at it like that 70% of all black metal out there would be post-black metal. Not really a fan of the post-black metal name tag at all. On one side of it you have Lantlos and Deafheaven who are considered post-black metal, and on the other side you have Fen, De Arma and Skagos who are not considered post-black metal. Despite all relying heavily on mixing black metal and post-rock. 
 
And just to make it even more confusing. Amesoeurs and Lantlôs. Lantlôs' second album .neon, which are brilliant, are considered one of the best post-black metal albums around. But it's basically a rip-off of Amesoeurs with Neige of Alcest and Amesoeurs handling the vocals. The thing that makes it a bit confusing is that Amesoeurs is not considered post-black metal.
 
When it comes to the post-hardcore thing you have bands like Bosse-de-Nage, Castevet, Scenery of Tomorrow and Cracked Vessel. But they're not post-black metal because they incorporate post-hardcore into their black metal, but they mix post-black metal and post-hardcore. It's hard to explain, so like I said I don't like  the post-black metal name tag at all.
 
In recent times I've been a huge fan of Deafheaven's debut album "Roads to Judah", The Great Old Ones, Altar of Plagues (everything up until Mammal), Lantlôs' two first albums), Scenery of Tomorrow.
 
 
But if you go back to the begining of it all, before it got trendy as fuck, you have norwegian black metal like Solefald, Fleurety, Arcturus, Dødheimsgard, In the Woods... and more which really stretched the sound of black metal into something quite special and unique. Really ground-breaking stuff at the time. And these bands fit the post-black metal tag A LOT better than the likes of Deafheaven, The Great Old Ones and so on as they actually set themselves apart from the traditional sounds of black metal a lot more and experiment more. But all these are also just considered avant-garde/black metal.
 
You could also throw in Celtic Frost's Into The Pandemonium as the very first post-black metal album, even though that was way ahead of the term post-black metal. But it was the beginning of it all.
 
 

I'm not gonna be nitpicking too much on this stuff, but this is not it. The vast majority of post-black metal bands have no traits of post-hardcore in their music whatsoever. It's black metal that's gone beyond the boundaries of what black metal was originally about, which in general means that there's hella lot of post-black metal out there. But in newer times it's a term often been applied to bands that mix either post-rock, shoegaze or drone and black metal. 
The problem with modern post-black metal is that there isn't any specific traits or rules as to how it should sound, which makes it really hard to classify bands as post-black metal. It's just experimental and non-traditional  black metal. But if we were to look at it like that 70% of all black metal out there would be post-black metal. Not really a fan of the post-black metal name tag at all. On one side of it you have Lantlos and Deafheaven who are considered post-black metal, and on the other side you have Fen, De Arma and Skagos who are not considered post-black metal. Despite all relying heavily on mixing black metal and post-rock. 
 
And just to make it even more confusing. Amesoeurs and Lantlôs. Lantlôs' second album .neon, which are brilliant, are considered one of the best post-black metal albums around. But it's basically a rip-off of Amesoeurs with Neige of Alcest and Amesoeurs handling the vocals. The thing that makes it a bit confusing is that Amesoeurs is not considered post-black metal.
 
When it comes to the post-hardcore thing you have bands like Bosse-de-Nage, Castevet, Scenery of Tomorrow and Cracked Vessel. But they're not post-black metal because they incorporate post-hardcore into their black metal, but they mix post-black metal and post-hardcore. It's hard to explain, so like I said I don't like  the post-black metal name tag at all.
 
In recent times I've been a huge fan of Deafheaven's debut album "Roads to Judah", The Great Old Ones, Altar of Plagues (everything up until Mammal), Lantlôs' two first albums), Scenery of Tomorrow.
 
 
But if you go back to the begining of it all, before it got trendy as fuck, you have norwegian black metal like Solefald, Fleurety, Arcturus, Dødheimsgard, In the Woods... and more which really stretched the sound of black metal into something quite special and unique. Really ground-breaking stuff at the time. And these bands fit the post-black metal tag A LOT better than the likes of Deafheaven, The Great Old Ones and so on as they actually set themselves apart from the traditional sounds of black metal a lot more and experiment more. But all these are also just considered avant-garde/black metal.
 
You could also throw in Celtic Frost's Into The Pandemonium as the very first post-black metal album, even though that was way ahead of the term post-black metal. But it was the beginning of it all.
 
 

I got to see Uada live at Inferno festival yesterday. Oh dear, what a band! I won't hesitate to give them 10/10. Jesus, they were so good

Game Over, Man! - This film has been panned by the critics and I can understand why, but I liked this quite a lot. It's childish, grotesque, violent, and offensive, but I don't mind any of those things. Didn't laugh at everything, but when it did make me laugh I could not stop laughing. I can see this becoming a proper cult film in the future.
 
30 Minutes or Less - Another action-comedy. I liked it as much as Game Over, Man! but it's not offensive enough. I wish it was further out there as the film has a lot of good qualities. But it kept me very, very entertained and both Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride and Nick Swardson and very funny throughout the film.
 
Kill the Irishman - Cool crime film about Danny Greene, an Irish-american thug from the 70's who more or less spent his life making fun of the mafia and how weak they had become. It was slightly disappointing, but it was good nonetheless and Vincent D'Onofrio is superb in his supporting role.
 
13 Hours - A Michael Bay film that doesn't feel like a Michael Bay film, is a Michael Bay film that I can properly enjoy. 13 Hours is pretty much the opposite of what you'd imagine a Michael Bay movie would be like, a bit like Pain & Gain (albeit not nearly as good as Pain & Gain). It's a pretty mature film, and unlike shit like Transformers this isn't aimed towards a young audience, but a mature one. It has a lot more than huge robots, big explosion and a good looking cast. That doesn't mean it's perfect though. For some reason there's not a main character here. No-one stands out. When the film is finished, you'd remember the one with the most screen time as much as the one who had 50 minutes less screen time.
 
The build up of the movie isn't too interesting and the first big fight isn't either, but around half way into the film it turns into a military version of Assault on Precinct 13 and that's when shot turns good. The battle sequences are really good, and I like the start-stop-start-stop formula. I also like how gritty and brutal it is. There's nothing glamorous about war, and it gets that right.
 
Not a big fan of the patriotism thou, and american patriotism is the worst by a long shot. I'm also not sure why these "heroes" are so glorified in the film. But it doesn't matter. Entertaining film.

Could you maybe add post-neo-oshare and post-nagoya keigaze to the poll?
 
 

Could you maybe add post-neo-oshare and post-nagoya keigaze to the poll?
 
 

Oh dear...

Judging from the OP koteosa is basically what we simply called oshare kei back in the good ol' days of VK.

Judging from the OP koteosa is basically what we simply called oshare kei back in the good ol' days of VK.

It depends on a lot of different things. It depends on the band, the genre and my first impression. I'm also more of a full album/EP person, so I play entire records from A to Z. But for most part I give every single new album I listen to at least 5 spins. Don't really have time to give each album 20-30 spins anymore, however I did in my youth when I had more spare time and got a hold of less albums. Now everything is available online and I simply don't have enough time to give all the albums the time they really deserve. Which is a shame, but that's life in 2018.

But some of my favourite bands/artists (Sigh, Kagrra, Blood Freak, Goblin, Devil Doll, Gost, Carpenter Brut, Bathory, Summoning, Misfits, Paysage d'Hiver, Lifelover, Fall of Efrafa and more) are all bands I had to work hard to get into. None of these were artists I appreciated at first even though I found several of them to have a really interesting sound, and I had to spin one/several of their albums a lot (like 20+ times) before I started appreciating the music. Blood Freak and Lifelover I even despised at first and for years I thought they were absolutely shit. Would be close to vomiting whenever I heard a single tune of either bands. But one day they both kinda stuck and my opinion had changed. Huge fan nowadays.
 
 
 
Same with TV-series. I don't give up on a TV-series after 1, 3 or 5 episodes. I'll give the TV-series an entire season to grow on me. Might not end up liking it, but something like Black Flag turned out to grow into one of my favourites TV-series from season 2 and onward. But I was not impressed with the first season. Glad I did continue though.

1.  Disorder
2. Akuyuukai
3. Cockayne Soup
4. Hankou Seimeibun
5. Madara
6. Spermargarita
7. Gama
 
And aside from Gama, Taion and 2-3 tracks off Dim I don't like anything this band did after 2004.
 
I kinda agree a bit with Ghost. I don't hear any hardcore punk influences on Disorder or any of their other releases, but I do enjoy the general punk influences and punky attitude of a lot of the songs made up until 2004. The riffs, the productions on every release, Ruki's nasal voice, the general chaos of the releases. In one way they seem like compilations as they are all over the place and seem kinda unfocused, but in another way they've managed to melt all these different influences and sounds together. Stitched it up real well.
 
 
Disorder ranks among my favourite Japanese albums ener. A complete masterpiece!

Ah, my bad. As for Inferno, you might want to pick up Argento's The Mother of Tears too. It's the third film in the Three Mothers trilogy. Not nearly as good as Suspiria and Inferno, but not nearly as bad as people make ut out to be either. Pretty decent tbh.

Aaaaand this is why no one likes gazette fangirls.
 
critizicing a band is not the same as hating them.

I don't think they have a single good live performance, so I can not name a single one.