Resurrecting this thread because I've been listening to one of my guilty pleasures a lot lately, namely this:
Yeah, I know, this is perhaps the
original "top hat" black metal album; it's pretty much the prototype for the worst type of "symphonic" black metal. But you can't deny that this album is catchy. I remember getting this album when I was 16. By that time I was already into legitimately awesome stuff (Emperor) so at the time I found it underwhelming and kind of gay. But these days I at least find it to be very catchy and sometimes I will do one of my involuntary black metal gestures during certain parts of this album. You know, the kind of stuff that you reflexively do when you hear stuff like DMDS: arch your body backwards, lift your black metal arthritis hand to the sky and make a stupid "scary" face. Speaking of DMDS, I'm going to listen to that album in a minute over here and redeem myself in the eyes of the metal gods.