We love Enslaved. They are a rare long-running band that, in our estimation, have not released a bad album. Of their 15 full-lengths to date, your Radical Research hosts highly rank their sixth album, 2001’s Monumension: it’s Ginn’s #2 (just behind Eld, 1997) and Wagner’s...
Formed in the Czech Republic in 1987, Master’s Hammer summoned a singular, constantly mutating approach to black metal over two distinct lifetimes (1987-1995, 2009-2020). The band’s debut album, Ritual (1991), is described by Darkthrone’s Fenriz as “the first Norwegian black metal album, because it sounded...
For the 45th episode of Radical Research, we continue our trek north, this time landing in Trondheim, Norway, where we take a close look at the vast and fascinating discography of Manes. Well-respected in black metal circles for their personal and visionary approach to the...
From the dark past, in the light of freezing moons and through funeral fog, Mayhem reappeared in 1997, under cover of night and to relatively little fanfare. Wolf’s Lair Abyss, the band’s first release since 1994’s epochal De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, reveals a fiercer, future-forward...
Goodbye clarity, hello obfuscation… Norway’s other post-black metal duo, perhaps dwelling deeper in obscure shadows than Solefald… we hail Fleurety’s dedication to the dark arts and… which craft? All the ones that bring metal to the most precarious of left-field edges. So bizarre that it...
For the inaugural episode of Radical Research, we delve into the mysterious, magnificent William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1998), the fourth album by Norwegian shape-shifters Ulver. Note: The sound quality of RR1 isn’t exactly superb, especially Jeff's mic in the intro. This was...