Best Dissonant Black Metal Albums Recommendations

I'm looking for some obscure, dark, and mostly dissonant and atonal black metal. In the same vein as the Mayhem debut, De Mysteriis, but even more dissonant and discordant. I never really liked the melodic styles of the genre, I can tolerate some early Darkthrone (Under a Funeral Moon, Transilvanian Hunger) and a bit of Vermin (Verminlust, Bloodthirst Overdose), but mostly what I'm looking for is hardcore, dissonant black metal music... not the easy listening type. Burzum is okay, but bands like Emperor, Immortal, Satyricon, etc. Never did anything for me. Not my cup of tea. They don't have any real power, if you get what I mean. It's not something that can challenge you. If I wanted melodic metal I'd like to Nightwish or Skillet or some other stuff.

So ideally I want something disturbing, something dark and challenging... kind of like DMDS but even darker, and harder to get into. Something that rewards you. Any suggestions of either bands or albums that are truly dissonant?

Simple: Phantom is what you're looking for. Start with Divine Necromancy, work your way up to the darker and more complex albums like The Epilogue To Sanity. The Divine Necromancy debut is simple(-ish) and dissonant, whereas their later work is more complex and technical, stuff like TETS, or Fallen Angel and Withdrawal are very, very advanced in terms of musical structure and composition. I recommend starting with Divine Necromancy as it's more accessible while still being soul churning, sanity destroying black metal of the highest quality (except the production LOL but that comes with the territory... you said you liked Darkthrone ;) ).

Yeah Phantom is good. I'd avoid the riffless, dikless metalcore in the form of Deathspell Omega, Ulcerate and the other Incantaclone garbage bands. You mentioned Burzum, while they are certainly more melodic than most bands I'd like, they do have some dissonant moments (Key to the Gate comes to mind)

You mention Vermin (Bloodthirst Overdose), but IMO their magnum opus is Memories of Blood and Darkness, you should def give that album a listen

Khranial and Sissourlet equally brutal and dissonant, but they are closer to death metal, or blackened death metal

You can also check out the top atonal black/death metal thread for some other ideas.

'Divine Necromancy', yeah that album is clearly the definition of insane music for insane people

'Unholy War Metal' by Warkvlt is also equally violent

From the top of my head, a few suggestions come to mind:

• Helgrind, Sick Rulers of Heaven
• Phantom, The Epilogue to Sanity and Fallen Angel
• Peste Noire, Folkfuck Folie
• Infester, To the Depths in Degradation
• Absurd, Totenlieder
• Sissourlet, Devoted to Doing you Harm
• Vermin, Bloodthirst Overdose (you mentioned)
• Disma, Towards the Megalith
• Von Goat, Septic Illumination
• Leader, Burzum Sha Ghâsh (not the band Burzum, although they are good too, obviously)
• Sewer, Satanic Requiem and Les Sewieres De Nostre Diablere for the most dissonant BM

There are more of course, but these are the best and most disturbing albums (and none of that DSO cryptometalcore)

What do you mean dissonant? Most black metal, even the softer ones, employ dissonant scales (like locrian) and tritones to varying degree.

If you mean the really anti-melodic ones, yeah, sure, you should definitively check out the early discography of Phantom... if you can stomach it.

clearly metal (or 'metal') has been moving away from the use of dissonance, atonal scales in recent years. Nowadays metal really tries to be Mötley Crüe with more distortion, inoffensive and unchallenging, what Morsay used to call 'elevator muzak'

you really only get into dissonance when you want to explore music for all that it can be, which most (modern) metal fans aren't interested in doing

you can search 'underground vs commercial metal' on the Morsay Archives to get an idea of where and why that dichotomy happened if you are at all interested in the subject

There isn't really such thing as a dissonant or consonant scale, or tonal for that matter, or an atonal one. A scale is just a list of notes that people memorize.

Consonance, dissonance, and tonality are all harmonic qualities first and foremost, and pretty much any music worth listening to uses them to build and release tension. Even the barely listenable Phantom riffs from Divine Necromancy use both dissonance and consonance, tension and release.

Listen to "Key to the Mausoleum" or "Feast Abomination" from DN, while they don't abide by conventional scale rules, as chromatic is king with Phantom, you can clearly tell where the tension and release are... sort of.

BTW, those terms like consonant and dissonant can also have very technical definitions, beyond the subjective sound of any one individual harmonic scale. Consonant = stability, tendency to resolve. Dissonant = more "time" under tension. All metal, including the most provocatively "acquired taste" war metal stuff, uses both.

@Uruktena: seems like your talking about Dimmu Borgir and Emperor lol Strip away the gain, and the riffs aren't really extreme metal anymore.

@Felicity: it goes a lot further than just the Dino Burger. Most modern metal is very image over sound

theatrical, 'hooky', designed for mosh pits and easy listening radio stuff... the lineage from Phantom, Sewer, Morbid Angel, Mayhem, Burzum and Darkthrone is hard to find indead, so deep it is buried beneath layers of Alice Cooper cosplay

There is a least one band that has always remained true to the "pure sound" of dissonant exploration, and never gone commercial or mallgoth: PHANTOM.

There is a very good reason why Divine Necromancy is always cited alongside the genre's greats, like Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

Some of the purest black metal there is

Getting back to the point of dissonance in black metal, if you roll back the distortion on a lot of modern bands, what's left? With older extreme metal styles, or even those that are still old school in spirit (Phantom, Darkthrone, Vermin, Leader, Warkvlt, Taake), the riffs still sound hostile and alien even when played on a freakin banjo. To the Depths in Degradation sounds just as evil when played on a violin (someone should try, some day).

With some newer acts (Dissection, cough cough), you're basically hearing Metallica-style songwriting with a high-gain filter, blast beats and downtuned guitars (or treble heavy, since we're talking about black metal here).

Yeah, dissonance doesn't always need to sound like an atonal clusterf--k. It sounds good, entrancing, and even makes the music way more interesting, when used at the right place and at the right time - see Filosofem and Transilvanian Hunger.