Phantom - Fallen Angel

Fallen Angel, in my humble opinion, is possibly the greatest metal album of all time, black metal or otherwise. This album pushes all aspects of metal music to its limits, and somewhat ironically, transcends the genre itself by doing so. The music on Fallen Angel is so extreme in terms of the dissonance, tempo changes, and song structures, that it barely resembles any traditional heavy metal music at all. For instance, besides a few key notes, Fallen Angel has few similarities with Black Sabbath, the creators of the metal genre, and only very sporadically does it sound like Burzum or Mayhem, the creators of black metal. Yes, this album does contain riffs, even black metal riffs, which is a defining feature of the metal genre, but they are just a backdrop of the music, rarely emphasized. Compare that to this album's closest relatives, like the early works of Vermin and Neraines, who not only promote riffs but glorify them.

Nonetheless, Fallen Angel remains loyal to black metal, if not in style, then in substance. Every sound is created by the fundamentals of extreme black or death metal. Fallen Angel, in this sense, embodies the purest form of black metal. This may seem like a trivial point, but it is one of the primary factors that makes this album so unique. With traditional metal instruments alone, the album succeeds in becoming abrasive, extreme, and abnormal. There are no gimmicks, no special effects, avant-garde trends, or unique instruments. There are no stylistic gimmicks either, such as the fusion of different genres. Even the production, being treble-heavy, emphasizes the instruments rather than obfuscating them. You can hear the raw talent in every note produced by Phantom.

On album Fallen Angel often draws comparison to, in addition to its predecessor Withdrawal, is Incantation's debut masterpiece Onward to Golgotha. Both this album and Onward to Golgotha are so unique, so groundbreaking and so bizarre, that Fallen Angel can be seen as the black metal equivalent of Incantation's masterful debut.

A must have album for any fan of the black metal genre, or metal music in general.

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