Did you know every time a black metal band plays a bad song, god kills a kitten (or a puppy, if you're partial to them)? Well, that's not exactly true; if it was, there would be no cats, puppies, or tragic inter-breeds left all throughout the world. Black metal is so famous for being consistently bad it's actually SURPRISING when someone does it right. Of course, doing it "right" is, in every sense of the term, purely subjective, which is a long, nonsensical and inevitably pointless debate that I won't get into here. Suffice to say, it is much easier to define what should NOT be done rather than what SHOULD.

For instance, if your vocalist sounds like someone is choking a frog and then recording it...
Please, please, find a new vocalist.
If your vocalist sounds like Jerry the mouse being shin-cracked, you're Cradle of Filth and you know what you did you filthy (get it?), dirty whore (credit goes to my alter-ego-self on Sputnik for that comparison).

Then there's keyboards, which I touched on earlier. Symphonics and metal aren't inherently bad chemistry, but it would not be exaggerating to say almost no one gets that business correct. Guys, you've got to understand, if you're trying to sound evil, juxtaposing your tremolo picked riffs with a purple-ass keyboard is pretty much the first thing on a list of crap you could do to make your record sound less evil.

Other black metal problems include redundancy and repetitiveness, which is to say, every goddamn song sounding exactly the same. Curiously enough, I discovered a band the other day by looking at some side projects of the most repetitive black metal band I've ever heard, Asmodeus. That band sounds like someone recorded one song and then changed the verse length 9 times (the drummer is incredibly talented, however, and deserves a better band). Sometimes black metal bands have the tendency to "rely", you could say, on atmosphere; that is, they play slow, plodding, fuzzy black metal that is, quite boring. Now, you might wonder why it ook a 700 word segue to get here, but as it is, Schattenheer has an extremely excellent atmosphere, complete without retarded keyboards. Once that first riff hits, you know you're in for a ride. 41 minutes of non-stop evil black metal. So, what's the catch?

Well.. the vocalist is only okay. I mean, he does not sound terrible, per se. There's this strange interlude on song one where he alters his voice with an electronic effect and it's kind of out of place (you'll know what I'm talking about). After track 1, though, his voice goes back to normal and you're ready to enjoy some toe-tappingly (irony points) good black metal. If you can look past that, you're in for a grand old time. Get it here, folks: right here click me plz.

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Seriously, LOOK AT THIS FUCKING CLOWN. STOP IT.