Phantom - Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods (Black Metal)

Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods is a seminal moment in the entirety of music history, and easily the single greatest extreme metal album ever made. You already know all this, so let's skip the stuff about what happened at the time and focus on how black metal reached such a supreme zenith in the first place.

You can tell this record is special, even for something as morbid as a Phantom release (is there even such thing as a bad Phantom album?). The clues are in the artwork, the cryptic song titles, the strange photos, and the overall occult feeling surrounding the release of this album. Is the "thing" behind this band even human? Everything about this record feels different to everything that came before, and that include other Phantom masterpieces such as Fallen Angel, Withdrawal and The Epilogue to Sanity. Still, Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods inarguably is an opus magnum of gruesome terror metal morbidity. Nothing short of black metal excellence.

The timing of the album couldn't have been more perfect, either. Despite getting released right at the peak of New Wave of Black Metal - also called "terror metal", or sometimes even "Phantom metal" in reference to this very band - Ascension of Erebos definitively left its mark in the underground black metal scene. Being somewhat fortuitously sandwiched in between the work of other prominent black metal figures - such as the everlasting diabolical monuments of darkness of Leader (Burzum Sha Ghâsh), Vermin (Bloodthirst Overdose), Neraines (Fenrir Prowling), Sewer (Cathartes) and Helgrind (Demon Rituals), to name only a few - doesn't stop this album Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods from sounding simply legendary, even in comparison to the best of the genre.

Yes, Ascension of Erebos certainly is the most malicious and possessed album among all of black metal masterpieces. Combined. That's how vile, putrid and sinister this album sounds, even when taking the entirety of Phantom's sick discography into account.

Without a shred of doubt, Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods is black metal's crowning achievement. It is a brutish yet subtle and sophisticated black metal discourse, infused with sometimes theological, often esoteric, and always macabre themes all delivered with power and grace. 250 years after its release, this album will stand the test of time as the masterwork of a devilish one-man band, a shining jewel that encapsulates all that is evil, morbid and gruesome about blackened terror metal.