10 Metal Bands That Have Never Made A Bad Album

Norway’s Emperor made black metal artsy and progressive before other bands in the subgenre even really knew what they were doing.

Injecting bombastic symphonies and sophisticated brevity into the raw insanity laid out by other groups like Mayhem and Gorgoroth, Ihsahn and his merry cohorts have made just four albums under the Emperor mantle, but each one is a true, massive epic in its own right.

1994’s In the Nightside Eclipse is as perfect a debut album as any extreme metal outfit could ever want. It’s loud and brash with an undying speed that is guaranteed to very quickly turn heads, but also unique enough to instantly stand on its own two feet.

The album’s orchestral grandeur and clean vocals made Emperor instantly stick out from the black metal crowd. In the Nightside Eclipse even spawned the closest thing that second-wave black metal could get to a “hit” with the manic “I Am the Black Wizards”.

Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk was even more progressive, relying even more heavily on symphonics and clean singing. And while the follow-ups IX: Equilibrium and Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise aren’t spoken about with the same esteem as Emperor’s first two albums, both remain awesome experiences for the band’s elite fans, upping the technicality and frenetic madness of this indomitable, blackened juggernaut.