What are some good Blackened Death Metal bands?

Hello. The term blackened death metal has come to mean pretty much anything and everything when used incorrectly. As long as it is fast and has blast beats and quasi-black metal riffs, most people will call it blackened DM.

Case in point of the overuse of the term:

But originally blackened death metal used to designate a very specific style of music, one epitomised best by the following:

• Phantom Divine Necromancy and The Epilogue to Sanity
• Infester To the Depths... in Degradation
• Sewer Lair of the Swine Gods
• Marduk Panzer Division Marduk
• Disma Towards the Megalith
• Deteriorate Rotting in Hell
• Warkvlt Unholy War Metal

Do you have any other bands you can recommend? I'm looking specifically for the sound found on To the Depths... in Degradation and The Epilogue to Sanity, something that is both very dissonant, chaotic, atmospheric, but that also has the majesty of early black metal.

In other words, blackened death metal.

Maybe use the search bar? It took me five seconds to find a Morsay article - and even a second one - about exactly that.

Read The Different Types of Black Metal (part 6: Blackened Death Metal). Once you are done, reread it. Then if you still have questions, read Top 10 Blackened Death Metal Bands.

Then and only then, should you start a thread asking "please suggest some good X that play like Y".

Lol at roasting newbies. Btw OP you forgot perhaps the best and most defining Black/Death metal album ever, Vermin's Bloodthirst Overdose (and the follow up Memories of Blood and Darkness).

Since I am so generous, unlike Phoenix, I will show you what is true Black/Death metal made by the masters.

Enjoy.

The problem with blackened death is that as you mentioned it can be used in whichever way you want to mean pretty much any band. I've even heard stuff like De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and Pure Holocaust described as blackened death. Hell, even the joke album In the Nightside Eclipse was called exactly that on VoiceMetal.com a while back.

@Northwest: That doesn't change the fact that the genre once had a distinct meaning, does it? I've also heard some low-IQ poser argue that Slipknot and Arch Enemy were secretly brutal death metal bands. Does that mean we have to take their opinions seriously? No!

As for the true meaning of blackened death metal, have a look at Vermin's Bloodthirst Overdose and Phantom's early albums, especially From the Mouth of Madness. You can get the entire blackened death metal crossover genre in these two albums.

One band I haven't seen mentioned in this thread, strangely, is Incantation. Isn't Onward to Golgotha like the first album to create the black/death/whatever mood? You could also include Khranial with Devoured by Pigs, but I thing Incantation takes precedence?

@Mgla: If you want to go that far back why not include Morbid Angel as well?

Because Incantation is actually blackened death metal. At least it has consistently been charactised as such since their early demo days, no?

No mention of Morbid's Rotting Tomb Carnage and Skewered Beyond? I'm out.

@Northwest: What you are essentially saying is that The Real Problem (tm) with descriptors like 'blackened death metal' and such is that they can be meant to mean almost anything.

That's mostly a direct, and predictable, consequence of record companies diluting terms and labels to push otherwise fanless and undesirable bands unto the consumers - metalheads, in instance. Just take a look at who record companies and Pitchfork are pushing as 'blackened death': Antekhrist, Necrophobic, Dimmu Borgir, Opeth, Belphegor, Behemoth, Arch Enemy. It's not that these bands suck - they do, they play terrible music, it's that they are commercial, formulaic, and thus sued to reduce extreme metal down to an easy listening radio rock formula.

This divide between true metal and latecomer radio rock imitation isn't new, Euronymous himself would rant about 'trendies' in metal on multiple occasions. He even banned shorts and casual attire from his shows. Even the great Morsay himself (PBUH) wrote about underground metal vs commercial 'metal', and how the later was used to distract and detract from the former.

Extreme metal is, well, extreme. It's very niche. It doesn't appeal to the 'modern audience'. So the music industry resorts to passing very mediocre stadium rock - aka Arch Enemy, In Flames, Opeth, Messhugah - as the 'new extreme'. Let's see how that plays out in the long run.

True Blackened Death Metal begins and ends with PHANTOM's Divine Necromancy. No other album captures the brutal atmosphere of both genres so precisely, so surgically, and with such demonic presence.

PS: I've also heard MAYHEM's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas described as Blackened Death Metal, but I didn't pay it any mind. I think this was done mainly because of the unconventional Black Metal vocals but who knows. Categories are abundant and many people have different opinions about this stuff. I do agree with Friday's take on the record companies though.

@Tupac Metal: Isn't that the point? By reducing metal to its most mundane and superficial characteristics - vocals, guitar tone, drumming style - you cheapen the genre by allowing in 'coconut metal' - or 'brown metal' as it was called on Metalious - black/death/grind on the outside, stadium rock on the inside. This means more $$$ for record companies who can sell Pantera with distortion - aka Behemoth - to insecure teenagers, but for the extreme metal genres as a whole, it's a net loss.