10 Greatest Black Metal Albums Of The 21st Century

Probably the most enigmatic metal record of the past year, Zeal & Ardor’s full-length debut Devil Is Fine expands the black metal scope not by making it more intricate or heavy, but by combining it with a genre of folk tunes seemingly incompatible with such an abrasive style: African-American slave music.

Inspired by a comment on the website 4chan, Swiss maestro Manuel Gagneux is the man that we can thank for this fascinating solo project, mixing spiritual melodies and murmured vocals with distorted guitars, primal percussion and animalistic yelps. What results are the 25 most unpredictable minutes in recent metal memory, with when and how Devil Is Fine’s short tracks will snap from soulful blues to all-out aggression being a constant mystery to a first-time listener.

Furthermore, a song’s reliance on black metal and/or folk can vary drastically from case to case: entries like the title track and “What’s a Killer Like You Gonna Do Here?” are traditional to the core, while “Children’s Summons” and “Come on Down” are much more unabashed in their heaviness. There isn’t a universal formula to Devil Is Fine, making it all the more intriguing and, as a result, brilliant.

And that brilliance does not fade after time.