On
this year a lots of excellent metal albums invaded our ears once again and it’s
time to name the greatest achievements of 2022. Indeed, this year is remarkable
for metal music albums because a plenty of excellent, engrossing, spectacular,
rich albums released. Basically, I’ve focused on critical acclaim, creative
progression, originality, song writing prowess, technical achievements and many
more dynamics. Well, here is my top listed releases of this year.
1.
Deathspell Omega - The Long Defeat

Metal’s pantheon is inexplicably vast. The entities that reside in the
depths of the abyss outstrip the heavenly host in variety, if not in devotees.
French black metal abusers Deathspell Omega are indeed one of the most
consistently exciting and forward-thinking acts in the modern black metal
landscape. "The Long Defeat" combines the angular and rabid
technicality with the experimental tinges of their previous offering. Their
soundscape initially forceful and ultimately complex, gravely riffs, extremely
raucous and abrasive sound, constant aural disharmony, and this new album
redirects the image of black metal through a dervish funhouse. This album
boasts some of the most dizzying, Avant-garde-tinged black metal and every
single song is meticulously crafted and shows an incredible sense of tension,
flow, and technical acumen. " The Long Defeat " is an incredibly
rewarding album and the musical content remains highly underwhelming. This
French black metal hybrid has built up steam, showing their ultimate
culmination thus far.
2. Mortuus
- Diablerie

Swedish black metal has their own style and heritage to be inspired by
and that is just amazing really because quite often they are very good on what
they do. Rooted firmly in the second wave of black metal’s sonic aesthetic,
Sweden based duo Mortuus added another one chapter to the genre’s storied
history unleashing their latest opus "Diablerie" on this year, the
atmospheres and infernal ferociousness of black metal resonate just as
determinedly today. This sounding excellent, raw, it is underground and has a
very cool atmosphere as well. This is cryptic black metal, featuring a varied
display of swirling chaos and brooding melodies along with ferocious riffs,
pummeling, thundering drumming, a monstrous vocal. This is the best exemplifies
the band’s capacity as composers of black metal par excellence. Overall, it's
bleakly atmospheric and brutally cold, destruction, desolation, melodic,
malicious, and brimming in black metal majesty. The veil is drawn slowly back,
and the ceremonial depths of the album emerge.
3. Darvaza
- Ascending into Perdition
International black metal super-group Darvaza unveiled their debut
album on this year "Ascending Into Perdition" that savages the senses
with its raw and rapacious malevolence with an unavoidable feeling that it is a
long-overdue violation. Vocals from start to end with no glaringly weak moments
found anywhere on this hike through the light-less catacombs of Satan's abode.
It’ll scramble your trusty scythe to cut through it. This leaving the genre’s
boundaries safe from rupturing into new pastures but with a causticity and
vitriol which ignites the senses and provides a healthy level of satisfaction.
Blazing forward with the rage of the bear and the fire of a thousand suns.
4. Ritual
Death - Ritual Death
Norwegian orthodox black metal outfit Ritual Death (Consist with
Behexen, Darvaza, One Tail, One Head, Mare, Celestial Bloodshed member)
unveiled their self-titled debut album on this year that surpasses the usual
stereotypes and presents something enjoyable, chaotic and decidedly
well-presented. Trondheim based Norwegian black metal band Ritual Death has
been quietly busying itself to recapture the essence of their nation’s golden
age. It’s harsh, dark, atmospheric, horrific, and raw but there are also loads
of brilliant style of dissonant, chaotic riffs, devilish melody in the songs.
Plenty haunting lead guitars to reinforce that uneasy and ominous mood. It’s
tumultuous, furious, and rather unrelenting. Such an execution of classic.
5. Sotherion
– Schwarmgeist

French black metal band Sotherionis BST's (VI, EX – Aosoth, The Order of
Apollyon) new project and unveiled their debut demo "Schwarmgeist"
this year via World Terror Committee. This one-man black metal band has been
making unholy noise and effortlessly combined with rumbling black metal angst.
French misanthropic bile Sotherion unrelentingly continues to create primitive,
aggressive, violent, misanthropic black metal accompanied with disgust for the
modern world and its deification. The band combines the feelings of enmity,
anger, aggression with anguish. Sotherion still intent on bruising the cranium
with their ashen style of hateful metal. Overall, it's raw, fast and heretic.
Such an appropriate introductory kick-off. Their latest effort “Schwarmgeist”
has emerged onto a new level of musical growth which provides an irrevocable
fixation consumed with indisputable darkness, a Methodical and unique piece of
black metal. Thus, an unbreakable synergy is born that's all about the
experience of misanthropic, nihilistic, bleak, gritty unsettling noise.
6. Desolate
Shrine - Fires of the Dying World

"The Dying World" is saturated to the teats with carnal death
and black metal outfits of the same retinue. Finally, they've unleashed their
latest effort "Fires of the Dying
World". They've accentuated their riffs but combining this with furious
riffage also brings about a level of melody and catchiness to the riffs, which
the drums do well to also instill this in your mind by adding well-timed cymbal
work, rolls and catchy beats to these riffs. You'll get your blast beats, but
these are used to accentuate the carefully honed song structure. The
transitions between fast and mid-paced aren't 'unnatural' but flow smoothly, like
destructive lava oozing from Earth's mantle. It's a very filthy, high-octane
ride through dark, twisted corridors. Finland based Desolate Shrine have a more
distinguished sound than most other entrants, making it their only indicator of
visibility in a miasma of smoke and darkness. A dark, underground death metal,
reeking of the devil for miles.
7. Funeral Harvest
- Redemptio
Satanic black metal quartet Funeral Harvest shared their musical and
ideological goals through their debut album of this year “Redemptio”. They are
playing the type of scathing, otherworldly black metal and manage to strike
between raw, atavistic aggression and a more sophisticated, occult approach as
they are directly assaulting with extreme malice. This record has an
unspeakably unsettling quality, its inflections quickly turning feverish and
nightmarish in its claustrophobic way. They have instant appeal also as depth
and substance. The energy and intensity of the band members individually are
also quite noteworthy, as is the nearly complete absence of purity and light
that they have snuffed out with all the dark forces of the underworld.
8. Serpent Noir / Sargeist
- Transcendental Black Magic

Athens, Attica based Greek trio religious, ritualistic, occult, Kabbalah
black metal enigma Serpent Noir and Finnish dark, suffocating, dissonant,
ghastly black metal stalwart Sargeist's latest split album on this year
entitled "Transcendental Black Magic" is a good mix of fast and slow,
gloomy black metal that marries the raw style with the more epic, melodic,
cleaner style that would become popular a few years later accompanied by a
strong dose of a guitar line and some choir inspired backing vocals this hymn
is a definite bright spot. Serpent Noir is controlled, ghost-like ghouls that
draw you into their Kabbalah fold of yoga, meditation, and concentration via
melody, perversion and complete depravity also represent the two faces of the
Kabbalah religion or some such pagan notion. I bow my head once more with
respect to the never-ending stream of evil Hellenic blood. Sargeist’s approach
to the music is a very traditional, clad in darkness and spreading like a deadly
plague, directed by fast, sharp riffs that would rip one’s ear drum from time
to time and guarded by a legion of fast as hell drum blasting. Sargeist are
simply being their most succulent version of themselves here. They expose to
the impenetrable darkness that shrouds. Both black metal hybrid has built up
steam, showing their ultimate culmination thus far with claustrophobic,
heretic, evil flatulence from below the Earth's crust.
9. Negative Plane - The
Pact...

Negative Plane plays a very exciting & passionate form of black
metal and they have taken the clear and refined focus on their latest release
of this year "The Pact..." and are embracing their darkened melodies
and disharmonic vision into a tighter and clearer whole than ever before to get
more spectacular while also adding guitar leads, synthesized keyboards onto the
recording and start utilizing more tremolo picking with intricate songs full of
instrumental acrobatics and contrasting interludes. "The Pact..."
develops into a cleverly insane display of black metal easing the listener in
with an ominous atmosphere before unceremoniously crashing into visceral riff
work accompanied by vocals. The drum patterns are unorthodox and seem to be
laid down with a calculated coarseness. Its allegiance to all things
unfiltered, unclean, unholy. The lead guitar, gliding back and forth between
weird, twisty riffs and classical motifs and virtuosity delivered with more
mystique than conceit and weirdly awesome departures that it renders the
contrast necessary to define evil obsolete. It's a nice flowing material that
captivates your attention and keeps you involved until the end; I'd say it's a
successful effort that deserves your attention. Vast emptiness is now choked by
a tortuous sonic web spanning the breadth and depth of this unholy place and
the deathly temple is drained to an inanimate void, save towering calcite
cylinders piping hymnal blasphemies. It demonstrates this facet to such a
wholly unyielding degree of worship as to make its output nearly unimportant by
comparison. Time to invite the darkness, both literally and figuratively.
10. Chaos Invocation
- Devil, Stone & Man
Luciferian terror chorale German black metal horde Chaos Invocation's
latest full-length ritual "Devil, Stone & Man" is insane, evil
black metal fury. The band becoming more experimental and ritualistic, much
like we’d expect with other black metal bands these days. This is even more
caustic, poisonous, Luciferian and chaotic. The legacy would Chaos Invocation
pass through music is fed with beliefs that many such acts adopt. Beliefs that
revolve around Satanism, which are totally against the current of Christianity
with the enhancement of the role of the fallen angel.
11. Adaestuo - Purge of the
Night Cloak
International trio black metal/dark ambient/experimental conduit of
darkness secret society Adaestuo’s latest EP of this year " Purge of the
Night Cloak" to inaugurate the transparent alignment beyond death and the
transcendence of the higher self and dedicates a large portion to building a
more brooding atmosphere. They have female vocalizations throughout that are
reminiscent of both the grandeur of the opera and the unnerving sound of a
wailing banshee. The overall effect is cold, completely exalted experience,
with vocals equally morose. The dark entity seems to be fully invoked. They are
given full reign of the rite, as the congregation watches the magnificence
unfold. This is quite an all-encompassing experience, a true feast for
listeners to devour.
12. Dunkelheit - Inner
Awakening
Hungary based orthodox, infernal black metal outfit Dunkelheit have
seamlessly adopted a nuanced sound that almost straddles borders with power at
many junctures. Their debut release " Inner Awakening"
surpasses the usual stereotypes and presents something enjoyable, chaotic, and
decidedly well-presented. This savages the senses with its raw and rapacious
malevolence with an unavoidable feeling that it is a long-overdue violation.
It’s harsh, dark, horrific, and raw but there are also loads of brilliant style
of chaotic riffs, devilish melody in the songs leaving the genre’s boundaries
safe from rupturing into new pastures but with a causticity and vitriol which
ignites the senses and provides a healthy level of satisfaction. They have
always executed with the utmost confidence but never with overt creativity that
made them truly rise above their black metal compatriots. Plenty haunting lead
guitars to reinforce that uneasy and ominous mood. Everything they strove to
accomplish with this album was unequivocally achieved, and the extra dose of
heaviness fleshed out by a punishingly passionate performance really keeps this
album fresh even after multiple playthroughs. Vocals from start to end with no
glaringly weak moments found anywhere on this hike through the lightless
catacombs of Satan's abode.
13. Deströyer 666 - Never
Surrender
Seminal Australian cruel, nasty, brutish blackened thrash nomads
Destroyer 666 added disgust and anger to the atmosphere as well as linking riff
transitions to the next which somehow adds to the brutality. Brooding opening
before a lead spiral its way out and bridging into a veritable onslaught of a
verse riff is inevitable. This fastest material and rips through its run time
with pauses for a chorus that builds behind the tracks lyrical themes before
descending into madness once again with solo’s and Thrash-influences broadly
displayed.
14. Piołun - Rzeki Goryczy

Another fantastic Polish black metal undertaking in the form of a debut
album this year entitled "Rzeki goryczy" by Piołun. People out there
who say that the genre has landed in a repetitive style, and rarely there is a
band with fresh ideas, well, just listen to this piece of black art forged in
caustic atmospheres. In their debut album, they deliver a wide range of searing
chord cascades and body-wracking riffs that lend the music an air of grandeur.
The vocals are fantastic and wide-ranging from vicious throat-cutting snarls to
crazed screams and ugly growls which have their allure. This album provides
precisely the feeling that permeates plenty of the record and it rarely
persists but always delivers a unique sense of euphoria where this band shines
in a completely different light than before. The music combines malevolent
atmospheres with occult stylings to create a masterpiece of supreme black metal
art and indeed manages to mix trauma with fear, and anger, embodying the
grimmest atmospheres that we could ever experience.
15. Ritualization - Hema
Ignis Necros

Ritualization is dedicated to keeping the spirit of the black arts alive
in their true form and unveiling them through uncompromising music. Raising the
darkness since their inception in 2007, this French quintet latest grimoire
" Hema Ignis Necros" is malevolent, evil black metal with some
old-school death metal and doom elements and embraces the blackened aesthetic
and frozen Satanic evil of the style, while still acknowledging and weaponizing
death metal’s more misanthropic qualities. These guys flow onwards and upwards
in their endeavors, a solid effort brimming with darkness and the black arts.
Embodies a dark descent into madness with the vocalist’s savage screams,
pounding tribal drums, growling bass and droning guitars but then the madness
ensues with blast beats and ferocious riffing. The album has a solid
underground sound that does the material justice, allowing it to glow with a
cold, infernal light, telling a tale of exorcism, the music dips deep into the
realm of the occult and otherworldly, fashioning hymns to blackened evil that
firmly make their mark on the listener also unsettle and disturb with their
dark ambience and morbid atmospheres. The band is equally adept at blasting
with hateful speed, slowing down to a doom-infected crawl that’s relentlessly
aggressive. Ritualization gave the impression that they have settled well into
their sound, there’s a sureness to their performance throughout the album.
Warchangel remaining that mocking presence, merely commentating on what is to
be your eventual demise at the hands of a far greater, darker force. Their
debut is an exercise in total filth, delivered with unnerving levels of
aggression, dark, dirty, and proudly invidious eruption of unholy noise.
Bludgeoning black/death attack.
So, that's it from my end. Though there are still numerous bands
unleashed their albums on this year, but I always prefer such albums which all
consist of chaotic whirling black metal riffing, putrid, devilish, occult, and
true primitive feelings of grandiosity. Hope you've enjoyed the list. Cheers!!
Published by: Souvik Basu
Published on: 16-12-2022