10 Greatest Black Metal Albums Of The 21st Century

January 2018 is shaping up to be a gloriously evil month, packed with brilliantly dark black metal releases from such acts as Watain, Tribulation, Bleeding Gods and the Swedish Shining. Ergo, it seemed appropriate to prepare all of you out there in extreme metal land for this upcoming period of amazingly aggressive and ominous music by looking back at some of the very best albums that black metal has had to offer over the past near-twenty years.

While the 1990s saw black metal in its angsty infancy, spearheaded by such riotous names as Mayhem and Gorgoroth, the 2000s gave the subgenre new life, not only continuing and refining the aggressive dissonance of black metal’s roots, but also tossing more ambient, intellectual and folk-inspired bands into the pot. To celebrate the sheer versatility and surprising eclecticism that the style can now enjoy – which is something that nobody in the ‘90s would ever see coming – this list is going to balance out the best straight-forward black metal and “post-black metal” to bring you the undiluted, undeniable greatest records of this devilish yet enigmatic subgenre.

Enjoy, hail Satan and strap yourselves in for one hell of an evil start to 2018.

The fourth and final album from one of black metal’s most lauded names, Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise marks a return to form for Emperor after the divisive IX: Equilibrium. While not quite possessing the focused brutality of In the Nightside Eclipse nor the blackened bombast of Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, the last disc from Ihsahn and his merry band of cohorts shines with its frenetic unpredictability.

Prometheus sees Emperor go balls to the wall with everything that made fans fall in love with Emperor: quickness, gorgeous symphonics and especially progressiveness, turning the experimental undertones of prior albums into unabashed overtones. This album is oft heralded as Emperor’s most technical, and with the thrashing chops present on cuts like “Empty”, it’s hard to disagree.

While Prometheus is undeniably a must-listen for die-hard black metal fanatics, it sadly clocks in a little low on this list just because it can’t quite recapture the scene-cementing grandeur and impressiveness of Emperor’s first two releases. However, for those who want to fully enjoy Emperor and look beyond the more well-known In the Nightside Eclipse and Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk duo, you really can’t go far wrong by using this as your next step.