Thanks to motig we got ourselves some delicious Norwegian, classically-sounding Metal. Just Metal, no subgenre indicators – although the band itself seems to favor the descriptor ”Doom Heavy Rock”. I think this is just Metal as it could have been in the Eighties. Except that the band has only been together since 2004.

In the time since then, the band aired three studio albums, titled I, II and III. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

More non-Black Metal from Norway. It’s like it’s just raining down on me! This time it’s an outfit called Zaed, consisting of four dudes that have been jamming together since late 2009. Two years later, Ragnar (vocals), John (drums), Thomas (bass) and Bjarne (guitars) released their first album together and they titled it simply ‘I’.

My naïve self always held Norway responsible for the world’s main supply of Black Metal. The same brain responsible for that belief thought up that then also pretty much every Norwegian Metal band would be a Black Metal band. But lately I’ve been proven wrong in my generalization quite a few times. Like by Aspherium and Okular rather recently.

But I have noticed that Progressive Death Metal outfits like these two often do add in a thick and acid splash of Black Metal darkness here and there. The same is the case for The Fallen Divine as Toreignimmortal has already commented when he pointed you towards the free streaming album these guys have released in late November. Following in his footsteps, I’ve been listening to this highly promising debut release a bit as well.

Yes! Part 2 of the most important list in the whole wide world of Metal. The list of best albums I have reviewed all year. You can’t possibly get a more complete overview of what happened in the Metallic world, anywhere.

Seriously though, this is just a list. My own little list of fifteen albums that struck a special chord with me this year. But then again, I do hear a fuckload of Metal over the course of a year and the fact that these fifteen stood out as the top albums does make them a little special, don’t you think? Hence they are albums that I highly recommend you to listen to, and buy when you can get your grubby hands on them and have no more fuckin’ debts to pay off.

The Fallen Divine are a Norwegian Progressive Metal act, who released their first full-length, called The Binding Cycle about two weeks ago. Now one can stream the entire thing exclusively on metalunderground.com so that’s where I will be linking you to after the jump.

The Binding Cycle is not your average Progressive Metal album à la Dream Theatre or the like, no, it’s heavier, drenched in Blackened Death Metal influences and melodies. The album is very dynamic, with a lot of alternation between heavy and quite moments. With the album bordering on the 50 minutes, it’s not the longest Progressive Metal album, but with 8 songs, this is quite a reasonable length.

Closing in on year end, most sites, mags and blogs have started publishing their year-end lists. The Top 10’s of Best Albums of 2011 will rain down on you like a volley of arrows. And with a bit of luck also The Baboon will publish some kind of list. But fuck me sideways, are we glad that we waited a bit with publishing our list! Aspherium comes straight out of fuckin’ nowhere with it’s The Veil of Serenity album.

The band hails from the Norwegian town of Moss, not too far from Oslo. Them being Norwegian I was expecting some ass-ripping Black Metal, with enough blackness to make a black hole feel ashamed and enough evil to make Satan look like a schoolgirl with colorful braids. To some of our regular or irregular writers that would be very preferable per se, but not to me. Darkness doesn’t get it up for me and neither do tremolo picking and poor production.

Not that I couldn’t get it up on any song or band employing these ingredients, it’s just that it’d have to be combined with at least two of the following elements; groove, melody and intelligent songwriting. With Aspherium I find all of this. And more.

Discovering what Okular is the other day, I couldn’t help a growing impression that the group is special, or more accurately intellectual. Or well, perhaps a bit ”out there floating on the clouds”. The composer and backing vocalist of the Norwegian band, Andreas Aubert, runs his own site / blog at Andreasaubert.no, where you can read about and listen to his music, but also read other articles, about (Metal) music – nice and elaborate reads, worth some attention – and find out about his writing work on social issues, on the one hand, or ”floating stuff”, on the other.

Such as: ‘Fear as a tool in political work’, ‘Hemp as a useful plant’, ‘Is fat an essential part of a balanced diet’, ‘Self-development for men’ and ‘Repressive and authoritarian Yoga-education’. Wow. So that’s the main guy behind the band, not the band itself.

But it does explain part of the experience I’m having with Okular’s Probiotic album. It’s just that extra bit more thought through, more creative, more ‘from scratch’ and more holistic. What exactly that’s evident from? Don’t ask me difficult questions, laddy! It’s just in the atmosphere, which is open and openminded (though certainly not for pussies!) most of the time, it’s in the composition, which is creative and invigorating, it’s in the execution, which is crunchy and spicy, and it’s in variation, which is rich, broad and extensive, taking influences from many a Metal subgenre, and beyond.

Quite the crude stuff is what’s delivered by The Way of Purity, from Norway. And no, it’s not because it’s Black Metal, which would be hinted at by the cover of their Biteback EP. It’s something else. The current contribution, by the way, isn’t our first acquaintance with the band, as we reviewed their debut record Crosscore last year. Somehow that went straight past me though, as I personally didn’t get to know the band until Biteback.

When earlier this week we interviewed Heidevolk’s Joris Bochtdrincker, we asked him which band he would donate attention to were he to run The Baboon. His answer: ”Most definitely Hades from Norway. They’re a second wave of Black Metal band who never got the praise they deserved. I feel their first two CDs (“…Again Shall Be” and “Dawn of the Dying Sun”) are very underestimated and deserve more attention. Heaviness, pride, insane vocals, and a folkloristic touch to it.” And so now we’re checking them out as he suggested.

What we find is what Joris says. Hades is fuckin’ awesome, performing the optimum mix of acid Black Metal, melody and Folky Paganism. A brilliant mix and not one that I’ve come across often before. What I read is that the band was formed in the city of Bergen in 1992 by a dude named Jørn, an ex-member of Immortal, with the aim of creating a musical style ”filled with melancholy, desolation, as well as atmosphere, mystery and folklore”. Well, they did a fuckin’ A-class job!

I’m sure most of you are familiar with Dimmu Borgir and therefore also familiar with their lead guitarist Galder. Well, Galder is also the sole full-time member of Old Man’s Child, a band created in 1993 out of the ashes of Requiem, a tribute band who played Metallica and Slayer covers. I guess being from Norway in the early ’90s there was no escaping the blooming Black Metal scene there. Though Old Man’s Child has not been as influential as their peers they still play some fuckin’ sweet melodic BM. I’m a fresh fan and have only recently picked up the latest album, Slaves of the World, which is their seventh full-length and the one we’ll be serving from today.