I think that I can count on one hand the number of people I know who enjoy black metal, including myself. And I don't really count, because quite frankly, I think a lot of it is awful.
Black metal as a genre is one that absolutely refuses to move forward in any way. It clings with an unrelenting vicegrip to the early days of its past, when it was birthed by a gang of insane Satanic Norwegian teenagers who make Marilyn Manson look like Mickey Mouse. To give you an example of how completely insane black metal's past is, consider the fact that only one original member of the pioneering group Mayhem is still active - their first vocalist was committed to a psychiatric ward, their second committed suicide in a completely ludicrous fashion and then had his brains eaten for breakfast, their guitarist was murdered by their bassist, and their bassist is still imprisoned for the murder of their guitarist.
The music is often not nearly as epic as the stories of the bands, sounding like a maelstromic Norwegian winter storm at best, and an angry wasp trapped in a beer can at worst. This is because in the underground black metal scene, awful production is a virtue. Every band wants to imitate these crazed madmen who recorded on either a four-track in their basement or the cheapest studio in Oslo, when they didn't blow all the money on sheep's blood and severed pig heads. There are countless black metal imitators Stateside who mask their lack of skill behind abysmal production, releasing mediocre record after mediocre record, oblivious to all change and mentally stuck in Norway in the early 90's. This was the kind of band Nachtmystium used to be - Burzum/Darkthrone copycats who used to listen to Marilyn Manson and KMFDM before they "grew up," attempted to sacrifice stray cats to Satan before getting scratched and letting them go, and cried themselves to sleep every night wishing they were Norwegian. On the fantastic Assassins, Nachtmystium seems to have finally figured out that black metal isn't the only style of music that exists, and have found out that much like Jaegermeister, it mixes incredibly well with the right ingredients.
The style of the album is very reminiscent of Meddle-era Pink Floyd, making me think that Nachtmystium frontman Blake "Azentrius" Judd must have found his dad's old Floyd vinyls stashed in the attic, along with the weed hidden behind them. The album opens with "One Of These Nights," an obvious throwback to "One Of These Days," the closest thing Pink Floyd had to a headbanger, then progresses into the punk rock/doom/ambient title track, which I think is probably one of the best metal tracks of the year. The remaining cuts off the album are much the same, mixing the icy lo-fi fury of black metal with headbanging punk rock aggression and entrancing ambient noise reminiscent of The Mars Volta's work on De-Loused In The Comatorium. The real prize of the album is the three-part closer "Seasick," where Judd fully brings in the dark psychedelia he heard on his dad's records (while stoned, of course) with dreamy guitars, loose jazz-based drum patterns, almost-funky bass, and oh my fucking God is that a goddamn saxophone solo in a black metal record what the fuck is going on holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
I think that the best part about Assassins, by far, is that despite its multitude of myriad influences from across the musical spectrum, it's relatively accessible as far as evil underground metal goes. It even has verse-chorus-verse song structure! Most of my hipster friends who scoff and laugh to themselves about metal have been nothing but impressed with Nachtmystium, relieved to find that there are metal bands that both make serious music and can actually be taken seriously. These four Norwegian-copycats-turned-pioneers have pried black metal's cold hands off of the early 1990's and forcefully dragged it into the modern era, whether it wants to go there or not. A relief to us fans of the genre, because we'd thought the reason it wouldn't let go of the past was because of rigor mortis.
