Leviathan - Three (1998)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Leviathan - Ten (2001)
Leviathan - A Silhouette in Splinters (2005)

20 years ago, Jeff Whitehead mastered an otherworldly, dissonant, but riff-y style of black metal that people are still trying to figure out in 2018. Wasn't gonna post anything tonight but since I can't sleep, I might as well help y'all start your Sundays off right.

Seven tracks, titled "I" through "VII"

The feet wait silent
In a pool of excrement and blood
And still the mouth gurgles forth
A black matter thick and putrid

You should also listen to:

Crebain -
Night of Stormcrow (2003)

Alignak -
Mainlining Goats Blood (2005)

Leviathan - A Silhouette in Splinters (2005)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Leviathan - Ten (2001)

Haunting, evocative dark ambient from one of the US' finest BM acts. Amazingly, he's as good at making dark ambient as he is at making black metal. A Silhouette in Splinters was actually the first Leviathan record I heard, and I'm still holding out hope that he'll make something along these lines again.

Track listing:
1. A Silhouette in Splinters
2. It Comes in Whispers: Part 2
3. Blood Red and True: Part 2 (A Spell to Vanquish Sea Serpents)
4. Traveling Over the Ocean's Skull
5. Particular Dis-Ease
6. Shimmering with Horn of Woe

Dead except the eyes

More along these lines:

Aghast - Hexerei im
Zwielicht der Finsternis (1995)

Kerovnian -
Far Beyond, Before the Time (1999)

Leviathan - Ten (2001)

Regardless of controversy, or the fact that he is American (a major faux pas in the global black metal community), Jeff Whitehead a.k.a. Leviathan is responsible for some of the most advanced black metal ever to be made. An otherworldly, often sickly mix of dissonant guitars, kick-ass riffage, intricately programmed drums, dark ambient/drone, and monstrous, heavily treated vocals.

BTW that's not the proper album art. I can't find an image file that's bigger than a thumbnail, and it's a shitty cover anyway (a closeup of Whitehead in a ski mask), so I just turned a Beksinski painting black and white, as Leviathan did for the cover of Verräter.

Track listing:
1. Heiress of Worms
2. Shrapnel
3. Red Sands
4. Those Slimy Things Are Real
5. Somnolent
6. Just Under Tainted Grace
7. Angelic Fece
8. Descent Through the Womb of the Moon
9. Outro

Screaming all the meat away
In an epileptic frenzy
Searching to not exist
The feet wait silent
In a pool of excrement and blood
And still the mouth gurgles forth
A black matter thick and putrid

More phenomenal US black metal:

Demoncy -
Joined in Darkness (1999)

Black Funeral -
Ordog (2006)