2026 and its newfound horrors may already be upon us, but there’s one last 2025 end-of-year duty I must attend to. Building upon the foundations laid during the preceding decade, 1995 was yet another stellar year for black metal. Bands began making some great leaps as they branched out into more interesting and unique sonic paths, one of the most important of which will finally be featured today. Additionally the last of the purported “big three” of Hellenic black metal will make their first appearance, along with a potentially controversial take on what is typically regarded as the greatest album within my personal favorite subgenre. Let us begin one last descent three decades into the past…
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Each part of this 1995 anniversary series I’ve made a point to feature a “weird” album; one that wasn’t exactly all corpse paint and blast beats, but something more experimental within a scene that was itself intent on pushing established musical boundaries. Following HEart of the Ages and Mid tid skal komme is with little doubt in my mind one of the most important albums in the development of black metal’s most avant-garde outskirts, whose influence is still felt to this day; this is Norway’s Ved Buens Ende and their sole LP Written in Waters. Dischord and dissonance in black metal isn’t exactly novel in 2025 with the widely-established influence of Deathspell Omega and the Icelandic scene — along with outside influences like Gorguts and Ulcerate — but I’d wager that this album was where “dissonant black metal” began.
To call Written in Waters a black metal album is to cast a fair bit of mischaracterization; the first overt black metal doesn’t even make an appearance until the second half of the fourth track (“Den saakaldte”), and a majority of the vocals are not screams but the ethereal crooning of drummer Carl-Michael Eide. While lacking overall in traditional black metal elements, Ved Buens Ende instead make their foray into the genre through a heaping dose of atmosphere as surreal as the album art. Right from the eerie start of opener “I Sang for the Swans” Vicotnik’s ominous guitar chords ooze a sense of dark dread; 28 years before he blew me away with Dødheimsgard’s Black Medium Current, he was already proving himself to be a guitar visionary with this album. His raspy harsh vocals are a great counter to Eide’s cleans as well. Holding down the rhythm section with Eide is Skoll (Arcturus, ex-Ulver); like a seasoned jazz trio they subtly develop and transform the twisted riffs with ease. I would of course be remiss if I didn’t mention the feature on “Autumn Leaves” from namesake-sharer Lill Kathrine Stensrud (who played flute on Ulver’s Bergtatt), her angelic cleans pairing beautifully with Eide on the track. The eerie, floating weirdness that permeates the Ved Buens Ende sound ultimately makes the black metal hit even harder on tracks such as “Coiled in Wings.”
Written in Waters is not an easy album to grasp, especially for a black metal listener; clean vocals many would say are bad, lack of traditional riffage and song structure, and its overall surreal atmosphere intentionally created by the preceding elements. But like Fleurety’s Min tid skal komme it still holds up really damn well over a decade since I first gave it a listen, even compared to similarly avant-garde acts of recent years. The stark division between the dissonant jams and blast beat-driven walls of black metal chords are definitely a plus; more primitive than a full-on fusion perhaps, but the dips in and out of each style give the album a sense of progress. Without Ved Buens Ende we very well might not have modern avant-black metal stars such as Imperial Triumphant, Oranssi Pazuzu, and Yellow Eyes, and for that alone Written in Waters deserves reverence, if not a long-overdue relisten.
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I covered the debut LPs of Rotting Christ and Varathron way back in the inaugural edition of this series in 2023, and now the unholy trifecta of Hellenic black metal is complete with Necromantia (they also released their debut in 1993, but being less celebrated than those of their countrymen I decided to skip it). When a black metal album opens with a music box lullaby pierced by furious riffs and ghostly choirs, you know it’s gotta be evil… and Scarlet Evil Witching Black certainly is that. While retaining some of the heavy metal influence that characterizes the Hellenic scene and its offshoots to this day, Necromantia present a more straightforward black metal assault on their sophomore album. It even features a real drummer in contrast to the drum machines of those early years, yet there’s one defining feature of the Necromantia sound that separates them apart from the others: a twin bass guitar attack. On a black metal album. You read that correctly! Aside from some solos and a few acoustic interludes the entirety of the axe work is performed by 4- and 8-string bass, and I’m so bummed I didn’t find this out as a teenager obsessed with the instrument. I won’t deny that the distorted, crunchy sound is a bit rough on the ears, but there’s an undeniable charm to it. The album was remastered in 2005 but to its detriment according to my ears (in spite of the, uh… perkiness of the updated artwork… NSFW).
Eschewing the demented Maiden/Priest melodicism of Rotting Christ and Varathron, Scarlet Evil Witching Black‘s low-end riffage tends to alternate between speedily-picked chords and slower, doomy, heavy metal-inspired riffs. Opener “Devilskin” is a more typical ripper (even featuring some dedicated bass solos!), with “Black Mirror” introducing the first overt trad metal riffs. The album has a flesh-and-blood skinsman, but in terms of the arrangements the drums aren’t exactly that different from those programmed by their peers; I’ll chalk that up to what might’ve been generally preferred within the scene at that time, a staccato attack in the blast sections and little in the way of flashy rhythms and fills everywhere else. While not what I’d consider full-on symphonic black metal synths are a common feature, aiding in the epic yet sinister feel of the album. The interlude track “The Arcane Light of Hecate” features what undoubtedly has to be one of the earliest instances of saxophone on a black metal album, its melodies giving a brief flair of traditional Greek folk. Also of note is the “Ride of the Valkyries” intro on longest track “Pretender to the Throne (Opus II: Battle at the Netherworld)”, a fitting choice considering it’s probably the most epic track on the album with its thunderous, viking-era Bathory riffs that plod along at a medium pace.
While certainly not as “out-there” as Written in Waters, Scarlet Evil Witching Black surely had to feel a bit odd for its time. Sections like the middle of “The Serpent and the Pentagram” alternating between bouncy synths and palm-muted bass chugs, the aforementioned saxophone, and the overall feeling I can’t shake when listening to any song on the album that something isn’t quite right — referring to the almost complete absence of 6-string guitar, of course. Regardless, Necromantia created what is probably my favorite album of the early Hellenic scene with this album through sheer brute (and bassy) force. And without it Phil Tougas would’ve never created Zeicrydeus and his lead bass masterpiece La grande hérésie, so it deserves eternal hails for that alone.
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“Colin, you love melodic black metal, so why do you never mention this band?” Overdue perhaps, but I am finally addressing the purple-blue elephant in the room… yes, I’m finally bringing up Dissection and their opus Storm of the Light’s Bane. I’ll start off by saying that it’s not a bad album per se — and its influence upon both melodic black metal, and the genre as a whole, is undeniable — but it just isn’t deserving of the throne atop this most canorous of blackened subgenres. The primary reason for this is (or isn’t) right there in the name of the genre; there’s just not enough of the black metal part within this supposed titan of melodic black metal for my taste. While Dissection would of course become a fully-fledged melodic death metal band on final album ReinkaΩs, even Light’s Bane strays too far outside the realm of what I’d consider black metal most of the time. Take “Night’s Blood” that kicks things off following the harmonized guitar instrumental “At the Fathomless Depths”; it’s got a thrashy energy, and in spite of its precise playing it’s got that more old school death metal nature of only throwing in occasional trem picks to serve as bridges between other riff ideas. The walls of majestic chords that are hallmark feature of melodic black metal at its finest don’t even make an appearance until the second half of the song, following an acoustic break that seems to occur more out of necessity than genuine song progression (not the only instance of this technique).
This is my problem with Storm of the Light’s Bane; for every riff and songwriting choice I do like there’s two less-inspired choices to counteract it. Riffs need not flow perfectly to make a good song, but the ability to build and release tension is what separates good from elite. “Unhallowed” starts out strong before turning to an alternating note Gothenburg-style riff that gets old fast. “Retribution – Storm of the Light’s Bane” nearly does a proper job of building up tension in its final minute but instead reverts to the same frenetic, thrashy riffs that came before. I love grand, harmonized leads in black metal a la Windir and Obsequiae and there’s some solid ones to be found on Light’s Bane, but there’s just not the proper juice to back them up (and that horribly out-of-place, bluesy flourish on “Where Dead Angels Lie” makes me cringe every time I listen to it). At face value “Thorns of Crimson Death” is probably the best that Light’s Bane has to offer as it invokes a degree of death metal groove without wandering too aimlessly from riff to riff, even if it falls off a bit in its slower second half. It’s not until the final full track “Soulreaper” that Dissection seem to remember that they should be a black metal band, and it does a commendable job of layering melodic chords without losing steam.
Am I a little salty that Dissection and Storm of the Light’s Bane take all the spotlight when it comes to melodic black metal, when Sacramentum’s Far Away from the Sun is much more deserving of the subgenre’s dark crown? Absolutely. Not that FAFTS isn’t also highly celebrated, but the degree of exposure that Dissection has (at least from what I can determine from patches/shirts at shows, attention online, etc.) in comparison is pretty stark. But as expected from Mayhem’s continual spot at the top of the black metal world, perhaps if it weren’t for the extra-musical “activities” of Jon Nödtveidt — accessory to homophobic murder, a six-year stint in prison, and suicide — Dissection today might just be another band that released two celebrated albums in the ’90s and then continued trudging along. Plus, the aforementioned melodic death metal influence that permeates the sound already gives it a leg-up in terms of attention within the wider metal community. Storm of the Light’s Bane ultimately just doesn’t have what I want out of black metal (aside from Necrolord’s legendary cover art); it’s too flashy and unsubtle, and feels too much like it’s meant to be played live for a tipsy, fist-pumping crowd. I will never deny Dissection’s tremendous influence on the genre — I have little doubt that some of my favorite bands like Obsequiae, Stormkeep, and Moonlight Sorcery would not exist without The Somberlain and Light’s Bane — but they just don’t hit the mark for these ears.
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A bit late perhaps, but thus concludes my journey through 1995’s black offerings. Another hell of a year for black metal that saw it pushing boundaries ever further, with landmarks erected that still guide the genre 30 years later. 1996 would be a little less packed with all-timers, but having my favorite album puts it pretty up there in terms of big years for black metal… I will be dedicating an entire article to Far Away from the Sun, of course, come its own 30th anniversary in May. If you’ve been reading all these (very long, I know) articles, my deepest thanks and eternal hails to you! Stay kvlt and see you later this year for the anniversary of ’96 albums.
— Colin