Black Metal.

I can't think of many bands with so much material that I can say this about, but I personally find all of their albums worth checking out, since they're all pretty solid, even though Andacht and Elixir of Sorrow are my favorites. If you intend to get the first two, let me know, since I can send you the remastered versions with the bonus tracks. Cold Dimensions is apparently also going to reissue Elixir of Sorrow with bonus tracks.
I guess I'll look into getting everything they've done eventually then. Thanks. Am I right in thinking that Cold Dimensions are re-releasing all of their albums within the near future?

Oh, and who are you on Last.fm?
Uncreated (as my original one with my actual screenname decided to stop working): http://www.last.fm/user/Uncreated/. I don't really post at all though, so I doubt you'll have seen me around anywhere.
 
The bonus track for Leviathan - MCAAL is an ambient track in the style of the Silhouette in Splinters LP, which I like a ton. The LP itself seems kind of noisy, and probably a better listen on cd. I would only recommend to collectors or serious fans, although the large format booklet is nice.

It's too bad this album came out this year rather than closer to when it was recorded (2005 or 2006). The whole technical black metal thing is starting to sound a little old. This stuff was written well before something like Fas..., yet years from now the two will surely be compared. There are several good songs on the album, but nothing exceptional, possibly Merging With Sword, Onto Them. I've spotted a riff borrowed directly from a Leviathan demo (c. 2000), so I wonder how many of the ideas are taken from previous works (there are lots). I haven't really gone into the dozen or so demos (I own one), but I wouldn't be surprised if a great deal of the full-lengths have borrowed significantly from them.

I wonder who owns all those old demos. They rarely show up on ebay. I bought Shadow of No Light (#6) for a pretty fair price, but some ass was trying to sell Time End (#2) for $500.

I liked the Shadow of No Light Demo a lot. Half was stuff that you would associate with proper Leviathan releases, but the other half is just so creative and inventive. Lots of clean vocals, ambient, some (good) Celtic Frost worship, oddball stuff. It's great. I like that on demos bands take chances. I probably will cave and download all of the Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice demos someday, but I'd like to own as many as I can afford. This guy as more 100x more ideas than most bands ever have.
 
So, I've finally heard "Antikosmos", and I must say that I like it so far.

It's a lot more accessible than his earlier works, but yeah, I like it too. I still won't buy it (definately not in near future, as I don't like the A5 format of the case. The cover looks badass though. :)
 
so my obscure black metal (w)rec(k) (see what I did there?) of the week is: Varuna The Epical Trilogy of Vorlaufen I: Night Master. avant garde cosmic epic progressive keyboard laden black metal hailing from China. Pretty solid stuff. if you like adventurous black metal that's pretty melodic, you might enjoy Varuna
 
It's a lot more accessible than his earlier works, but yeah, I like it too. I still won't buy it (definately not in near future, as I don't like the A5 format of the case. The cover looks badass though. :)
Dewd, I can't get enough of it. So great!!!
 
IMO nothing he has done tops Fran Marder. The only REALLY great release from his newer stuff (post Kampen) is Boka Vm Kaos imo. I haven't heard the new album yet, ordered awhile ago though so I may change my opinion after hearing it (doubt it though from the 7" EPs just released + the sample I heard from the album).
 
The problem with his newer stuff is that is is mostly catchy riffs, the awsome nature atmosphere he had in the early stuff is pretty much gone. : |