Hm...too much of an "epic" factor? All of their albums are oppressive in scope. It takes a lot to penetrate their enormous cacophony of sound.
I think this is true, which is why I try to keep my objective evaluations of bands in mind. When listening to Emperor I thought "This is good, I just don't want to listen to it". I know when I start wanting something different, it'll be there for me.Maybe you should try to move away from that mindset, and I'm sure by this time next year that you will have.
Also, that Limbonic Art song is not that bad, its not brilliant but it could be a lot worse with those keyboards.
It takes a lot to penetrate their enormous cacophony of sound.
I have heard Drowning Down The Moon, some parts of it sounded good and caught my attention, but overall I didn't take to it. It wasn't the producion that did it, cause I tend to like raw / bad production (when done right). Maybe I'll listen to it again sometime further in the future.
I'm currently listening to the Malfeitor promo album (the guy from Aborym) and it's pretty good symphonic extreme metal.... except the vocal sucks.
What was bad about the vocals?
well they should recruit a real singer instead of a guitarist doing vocals.
listen to the myspace sample to give you an idea, but I think his voice is terribly cheesy.
with an excellent vocalist like Aborym - Generator, the album would have been perfect.
I think that's part of it. Black metal is kind of my "break" metal from Brutal death, so if something is too powerful or too aggressive, it doesn't work for me, despite being a good album objectively. I think that is why I lean towards more suicidal, slow and atmospheric BM bands.
I can't think of any BM bands that have come out of nowhere to be popular this year. DsO and Drudkh have been well known since 2004. Other "new" bands that have been received well are just side projects or new bands by well-known BM people.