Help me decide what to listen to next!

Also if you like gothic metal, try Dreadful Shadows and Yearning. 

Still, you've given enough examples there to convince me that there might be other bands in the genre who are more likely to push my buttons so I'll see about giving them a try.

 

Whatever it is, it�s highly recommedable and an extremely influential death metal album. Actually all their albums up until "Heartwork"  were extremely influential on various extreme metal genres and that�s what makes them such an important act in the history of extreme metal wether it be goregrind, extreme cover artworks, splatter lyrics, the low growling vs high pitched sneering vocal style, melodic guitar solos in death metal and of course their impact on the Swedish melodeath scene.

It's about as progressive as Entombed's first two albums.

I really don't buy the "apolitical" claim when bands make it. The way I see it, your political ideas - if you genuinely, sincerely believe in them - are going to reflect your worldview, and any competent artistic expression is going to reflect and be an expression of the artist's worldview. I think it's quite hard to build that sort of firewall between your personal ideology and your lyrics; I think post-prison Burzum accomplishes it mainly through drawing lyrical inspiration from age-old poems rather than Varg writing his own stuff. Simply saying "we aren't political" isn't enough, especially when there are plenty of bands who make the apolitical claim who go on to say things in their lyrics which clearly reflect their political and social philosophy and worldview.

I mean, in that interview Varggoth talks about how it's a tragedy that cultures are mixing and so forth and puts it in very religious terms. When someone believes that to the core it's incredibly hard for it not to come out in their work, especially since so far as I can see Nokturnal Mortem are still banging the nationalism/traditionalism drum to a certain extent. They're only "apolitical" in the sense that they're not advocating any specific party, and as for them being a religious project - well, Varggoth's political views and religious views clearly overlap to an extent to where they can't really be separated.

In any case, it isn't really Varggoth's choice any more whether or not the band is political: NeChrist happened, and was pretty undeniably NS-oriented, and anything the band does in relation to that album and that material is inherently going to be a political act no matter how much he says "Apolitical! Apolitical!" Continuing to make the album available and play the political songs on it is a political statement, withdrawing it is a political statement, condemning it is a political statement. Saying on the one hand that you don't want to push a political agenda but on the other hand saying that cultural mixing is tantamount to the end of the world is a political statement.

In particular, censoring the English version of NeChrist but not the Ukrainian one is a political statement, and a ridiculously weaselly one - it says to me that the band aren't sorry that they said those things, they're just sorry that they got in trouble for saying them, and they're hoping that by trimming the English lyrics they'll fly under the radar.

You kidding me?

To be honest I'd rather shun them altogether. Oxygen of publicity and all that.

Then again I understand NM weren't into the whole NS deal when they did Goat Horns, which I see is very highly rated, so I might give that a spin. I mean, I'm cool with listening to Burzum mainly because Varg's political ideas don't really factor into his lyrics.

 

Nope, I meant the Swedish one. A favorite of mine.