France have long since been established as one of the genre's most important and prolific countries, with countless bands producing some of the most original and high quality Black Metal albums of recent years. Today is a fine day for French Black Metal, with three of France's most prominent Black Metal bands releasing new material.

Deathspell Omega - Drought

First up, one of France's most well known Black Metal acts, Deathspell Omega, who are based in Poitiers and have been active since 1998, are set to release a new EP titled "Drought". As with all their studio recordings since 2004, ...

This week, continuing where we left off with our Kings of Black series of articles, we will take a look at none other than Darkthrone, one of Norway's longest standing and most influential Black Metal bands of all time, playing a key role in the evolution of the genre.

Throughout their 25 year history Darkthrone have released a total of 14 full length studio albums, as well as 4 demos and numerous compliation albums, including some of the genre's most influential and revered works such as "A Blaze in the Northern Sky", "Under a Funeral Moon" and "Transilvanian Hunger".

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Today we proudly present what will be an extensive series of articles titled Kings of Black, presenting background information and detailed biographies for some of Black Metal's most prolific and well known bands.

We will start off by presenting two of Scandinavia's most influential and long lasting Black Metal bands: Mayhem from Norway, and Marduk from Sweden.

Mayhem

For Mayhem, being one of the most controversial Black Metal bands, we have focused slightly on resuming the well known albeit frequently exaggerated events surrounding the band during the early years of the Norwegian Black ...

Fans of Black Metal will be pleased to hear that Marduk, one of Sweden's pioneering Black Metal bands, will soon release their 12th full length album, titled "Serpent Sermon", on the 25th of May in Germany, Austria, Norway and Switzerland, and on the 28th of May for the rest of Europe. The release date for Australia and New Zealand is the 1st of June, while fans in North America will have to wait until the 5th of June.

This album will be the follow-up to their 2009 release "Wormwood", and will be their first album to be released through Century Media, in partnership with their own label. The ...

It has sadly been confirmed that Trond "Trondr Nefas" Bråthen, known by many as the singer, lead guitarist and co-founder of Norwegian Black Metal band Urgehal, passed away on the 12th of May from natural causes at the age of 34. Urgehal released an official statement on the 16th of May, mourning the loss of Trondr Nefas:

The greatest is gone. Trondr Nefas, our dearest friend and companion for more than 20 years, suddenly passed away last week. He died a peaceful and natural death at one of his favourite places, surrounded by woods and crystal lakes. Thanks for all the years with friendship, ...

Almost one year after the site's first inception, we have decided to give BestBlackMetalAlbums.com a much needed overhaul, not only giving the site a complete re-design, but also incorporating countless new options to help users while browsing our growing Black Metal album database.

Most important of all is the all new Search feature, which works in a similar fashion to any standard search box. Just type in the criteria you want to filter, (album title, band name, country, year, subgenre, song title, etc...) and all matching albums will be shown in the results.

It should be noted that the ...