Some black metal I've been enjoying lately:
Old Coven - The Awake of Ascendant Darkness
Black/thrash that reminds me of Katharsis and early Darkthrone. Utterly fucking vicious and utterly convincing! Sick riffs and atmosphere and the vocals destroy. There's a section a few minutes into the second track that channels the primal filth of
A Blaze in the Northern Sky.
Ultra Silvam - The Spearhand Salvation
I wasn't huge on their 2017 demo, save for "A Skull Full of Stars", which is also featured on this full length. I'm enjoying this one much more. Filthy and raw, but still containing lots of melodic ideas.
Funereal Presence - Achatius
Really fucking good. Fulfils the promise of
The Archer Takes Aim, although sounding quite different from that one, this is the better record imo. Lots of interesting twists and turns throughout these lengthy compositions and amazing attention to detail.
Warmoon Lord - Burning Banners of the Funeral War
CIG recommended this one to me, and it's grown on me over the year. Melodic, cold and grim. Parts of it remind me of
Under a Funeral Moon, specifically in terms of the guitar tone and melody.
Vehemence - Par le Sang Verse
Gloriously cheesy cover art! Melodic medieval black metal from France. I'm not huge on the clean vocal sections scattered throughout. but the rest of it is pretty good. Triumphant and epic.
Suhnopfer - Hic Regnant Borbonii Manes
This one isn't out for another few weeks, but the preview tracks are really good. More medieval black metal from France, but this is much darker than the Vehemence and more to my liking.
Vargrav - Reign in Supreme Darkness
Upon initial listen, I didn't like this nearly as much as
Netherstorm, due to it sounding way more standard than that one. This is clearly heavily indebted to
In the Nightside Eclipse, but let's face it, few albums of this type come close to the majestic darkness of ItNE. This is definitely one of the better attempts I've heard.