Metallicas second best album by a long shot. jameses vocals on this are just insane. kirks guitatr work was a little sloppy but he joined the band very shortly before the recording of the album so its understandable. if he had more time he could have made the album a lot better but its still really fuckin good regardless. daves guitar work echos throughout the album and i kinda wish he wasnt kicked out before they recorded this. daves demo takes and old live versions would have made it so much better

Contreversial take, but in my honest opinion this album is just pretty average black metal.
Once you expand your taste and listen to more it really just sounds like the bare minimum when it comes to black metal.
In the title track it just sounds like atilla is yawning some of the vocals which is pretty funny to be honest
There are some pretty fuckin good tracks here like life eternal or the title track but a lot of it feels like filler.
best to worst:
life eternal
De mysteriis dom sathanas
from the dark past
pagan fears
Buried by Time and Dust
freezing moon
cursed in eternity

This album is probably one of if not THE most important album of 1982 and highly influential to bands in loads of different subgenres, everything from helping tgrash metal develop its sound, helping death metal get its agression, and giving the name to tge subgenre of black metal (even though the album itself is not a black metal album stylistically).

Sound wise, Venoms approach to song writing has not really changed from what it was like for their debut *welcome to hell*, but at that it did not really need to be changed. This album while being called black metal is more of a speed metal album than anything.

Song wise,
My least favourite song on this album was hard to choose but the song *To Hell and Back*, while being a pretty good song, it just is not as good as the other songs.
My favourite song by far on Black Metal has to be *Don"t Burn the Witch*. It is just a good as hell song and in my opinion a solid 10/10 speed metal metal song. Has a cool solo too. ... See More

The title of the album translates to *razor blade waltz* which i think is appropriate with this album being a concept album about a failed then succeeded suicide attempt.

The album itself has a very raw, atmospheric, repetitive and almost improvised sound to it. Kims guitar work on this album sounds almost as if the guitar itself is shrieking in pain and the drums add a heavy drive towards these low tempo riffs at times (for example the intro to the albums third track) and a pushing force to some of the faster riffs like on the majority of the second track.

The album itself i feel is a perfect example of raw, unfiltered DSBM as apposed to kims other work (with the almost post-punk at times sounding songs of lifelover) and not only retaining the heavy feelings of emptiness and despair of his other works but with this release, it probably has the most intense emotions of all of his work.

The only addition i would make to this album is more bass (which could have made the riffs on this album and overall vibe a lot heavier), as i am almost certain there is no bass guitar on this album and if there is it is almost inaudiblaly quiet.

That last note asside, this is a solid 10/10 album ... See More

For a short release, the Dekadens EP by Lifelover is an amazing mini album, with not only really good guitar riffs from Jonas (like the 'Sweet Illness of Mine' intro riff and the main riff in 'Myspys') that prove not everything has to be really technical to be good (not saying technical riffs are bad), but also has really good vocals from Kim that are a really good example of what DSBM should sound like, and also really catchy drum beats from Bengt.
The standouts for me on this album are 'Myspys', 'Lethargy', and 'Androider', which are the 3 tracks i gave a rating of 100 on.
I 100% recomend this release for anyone into DSBM, shoegaze, or just sad music in general.
(un)Happy listening!