Gorgoroth is a more riff based band than Emperor ever was. Trym's drumming is perfectly suited to the wall of sound approach that Emperor employed, especially on their earlier material. Even the Enslaved albums that Trym played on don't emphasize the riffing like Gorgoroth does. Plus, Trym is just a much more skilled drummer, at least I think so.

yeah, you have a point there. i was mostly thinking of the constantly out-of-time double kick, but otherwise he's just unremarkable.

Ever listened to DSBM? most of it is drum machine, but the ones that are not are just terrible.

If we're listing awful drummers, there's some very questionable drumming over here

I've not heard Koldbrann, but I don't think that the drumming on Battles In The North or Pure Holocaust are bad at alll...Sloppy yes, clumsy even, but perfect in adding a chaotic atmosphere to Immortals music. Compare the drumming on Battles...with Blizzard Beasts. Battles is so much more dynamic, but BB sounds very cold and clinical almost (which does suit the music); the snare almost sounds like an 808 sample.

The drumming on early Mutiilation and Vlad Tepes is up there (down there?) the worst I've heard, with very little redeeming qualities.

The worst triggered drumming would have to be on Cradle of Filth's Cruelty and the Beat album; thin and really dull, the clicky kick sound is almost as piercing as the snare drum.

Worst live drumming; check out Catamenia's "Bringing the Cold to Poland"; embarassingly bad.

Here's the thing about Abbath. While his performance on Battles in the North did indeed suck, his performance on Pure Holocaust was great. On that record he was on time, fast, not sloppy, and just a good drummer. What happened to cause the Battles in the North performance I will probably never know, but there was a time when Abbath was a pretty decent drummer.

I looked up that Polish Catamenia concert on YouTube and listened to some track called cold, and that was horrible... The drumming ain't the only issue in that band...

^Catamenia are actually quite good if you want simple, fast melodic black metal with absolutely no depth to it. That live performance is incredibly amateurish though...

The guy who followed Cernunnos in Enthroned made two full-lengths totally unlistenable with his "drumming", I place my vote on him.

Leprosy's drumming is pretty terrible. Bill uses the same drum pattern in every song. There's not a ton of variation even in fills and the like. It's substandard and definitely drags the album down a bit, but not by much, because the riffs and vocals are still killer.

Leprosy's drumming is simplistic but it fits the music on that album perfectly. Spiritual Healing's doesn't. That record, despite being my favorite Death record, has the least good drumming of all of them.

Definitely not. The songwriting, the vocals - everything is horrid. Good for teenagers, maybe.

Please stop talking shit, or at least go and try to play on a drumset before. Blastbeating and double bassing on a tempo as fast as Battles in the North requires A LOT of training, even for a long-time drummer. I've played the drums for more than ten years and I still have to struggle to pass over the 260BPM ceiling for double bass and 320 BPM ceiling for blastbeat. The tempo on Battles in the North must be something like 360 BPM (at least)...

About Bill Andrews, I already said on another topic that his drumming was very uncreative, but it kinda fits with the clinical/dead dimension of Death's music. Of course I would have preferred more variety and subtlety.

Someone mentioned Enthroned. On the first album, drummer Cernunnos was pretty irregular. On the third album, the drums sound sloppy too, but their production is quite blur.

Battles in the North is no faster than any other black metal album being released at the time. As said previously, for whatever reason Abbath's drumming degenerated from Pure Holocaust to Battles in the North considerably, meaning the genuinely great performance on Holocaust was now sloppy and messy on Battles, and even then it's still far more on point than many other black metal records.

Yes it is! Battles in the North is clearly and largely faster than Pentagram and Stormblast. I could find many other examples.




I've never remarked anything like that, I think Abbath's drumming is great on both albums. I never read anything like that anywhere else than here. But I guess this topic is full of great drummers/drumming experts...

Well I am a drummer, so I do in fact know a few things about drumming.

Then try to play the drums while listening to Pentagram and Battles in the North, and come back afterwards to repeat that the tempo is similar.

I can play the whole Pentagram album, fills included. I couldn't even play a song from Battles in the North...

Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. Besides, Emperor was smoking both Immortal and Gorgoroth in terms of extremity at the time.

Also, for comparison's sake with a black metal record that came out in 1995, compare the tempos of Battles in the North to the tempos of Vempire. Vempire is way faster than Battles across the board.

I disagree. Faust was indeed a killer drummer, but In the Nightside Eclipse is slower than Battles in the North as a whole. Battles in the North is fast and intense, there is neither respite nor calm parts. The slowest song is "Blashyrk", and it's not easy to play at all. I tried to drum-cover the Emperor EP and it's affordable.




Are you joking man? This comparison is nonsense, Vempire is neither fast nor intense. Vempire is in terms of drumming a mix between technical death/thrash and slow gothic metal.

Vempire isn't fast? Did you listen to the same record I did? Listen to The Rape of Ruin of Angels.

"The Rape and Ruin of Angels", what a frustrating song: excellent beginning, then some gothic piano and slow ballade... I'm too lazy to check right now, but the fast part in the beginning doesn't last more than one minute and a half. The same structure (very fast beginning, then slower melodic parts) applies to most of the songs.

I don't consider Vempire as pure black metal anyway, so please choose a better example.

On Battles in the North, nearly all songs consist exclusively of blastbeats and double bass.

For a more "true" example, Heaven Shall Burn by Marduk from a year later. It's Legion-era Marduk, so it's almost nothing but blasting and double bass.

Wrong comparison: Battles in the North should be compared to Opus Nocturne. The World Domination compilation (which was released in 1995) featured a sample track of each album.

Maybe Opus Nocturne matches the speed of BittN, but I have to go to sleep now.

sounds like country at 2:28