I was listening to 1349's Hellfire this morning and realized that it might be one of my favorite black metal records, in spite of the fact that I very rarely talk about it. But, every single time I listen to it, I'm really impressed with the consistency of the quality of the performance by the whole band. From really intense riffing, to the frantic and varied drumming, to the longer drawn out minimalism of the last song - it really is just one hell of an album. I bought it when it came out and after looking at my last.fm I realized how many times I've listened to it, and was surprised by the number. It's become one of my "staple albums" - just something I put on when I'm walking through DC or when I want a fast and heavy album, but I would never go out of my way to explain to people how awesome 1349 is, nor how much ass the album kicks.

So, I guess I'm wondering if you guys have any sort of accidental favorites, or albums you find yourself listening to randomly - ones you may have had for a long while, but never really realized how much you listen to it, or enjoy it when you do. If so, explain why and perhaps maybe discover a little something about yourself.... -sheds tear-

Feel free to post as many as you want. I'm sure I'll think of a few more.

To me a staple album is one you listen all the way through, no skipping, every time you put it on. It's a whole other category from "I love To the Nameless Dead because the opener and closer are among my favourite songs." A staple album might even lack that signature moment, but as a whole you just can't stop coming back.

With that definition, my staple album is Walpurgis Night by Stormwitch. It doesn't matter what I'm doing: walking the dog, raking leaves, shoveling snow or just sitting on my ass. It's always the right time for that album. That entire album, no exceptions.

I think things get even more notable when a "staple" album is also unusually long - it's obviously harder to keep that "listen to every track" consistency when you have more tracks. In that case I'd nominate Septic Flesh's Sumerian Daemons. Heavy, intense, theatrical, some cool electronic elements that don't overshadow the metal - It's an intro+12 tracks that I listen all the way through almost every time. While I have a few favorite albums I like more (SD is probably #6 on my all-time-favorites list), its length definitely makes it notable in this case.

For quite a few years I have found myself coming back to Spite Extreme Wing's "Vltra." I rarely discuss it, and I don't bring it up that much, but no matter how much time has gone by I still come back to it. For my money, it is one of the better black metal albums released after 2000 and a magnificent opus of cinematic riff after cinematic riff. The album is remarkably consistent throughout, unique in it's style, and aided by a perfect retro production. It took my years to figure it out, but after I actually thought about how often I've played it, I realized that it is definitely one of my all time favorite albums.

There are some albums I carry with me no matter where I go. From those, I would say the following are the ones who I listen in a daily basis (being in full or selected tracks):

Arcturus - LMI and TSM.
Empyrium - Songs of Moors and Weiland.
Borknagar - from Borknagar - to Empiricism.
Morbid Angel - from A to D.
Kampfar - from Kampfar to Fra Underverdenen.
Deicide - S/T to OUTC.
Samael - Worship Him to Passage, sometimes I add Above/Lux Mundi/Solar Soul.
Rotting Christ - Triarchy + Dead Poem + Theogonia. I usually add Non Serviam, TMC or Passage to Arcturo.
Dead Congregation - PCG and Graves. I need to listen the last one.
Vintersorg - HH, TF, ÖS, CG + any other one.
My Dying Bride - everything up to Songs of Darkness + A Map.
DHG - everything
Varathron - Mostly Walpurgisnacht and Stygian, but I also love His Majesty.

Today's playlist, for example:



The VA folder has a selection of songs from various bands like Belphegor, Ulver, Otyg, Code, Alcest, Bloodbath, Code, Pink Floyd, Rammstein, Satyricon, among others.

I can play Sonata Arctica's Ecliptica and Pariah's Child, Edguy's run from Hellfire Club to Age of the Joker, the classic three Tad Morose albums (and Trail of Murder and Project Arcadia), a bunch of Slough Feg albums and Iron Maiden's 80s run pretty much any time and enjoy them. Sabbath's classic stuff and Tarot's Suffer Our Pleasures are also ones I go back to when not in the mood for anything specific. I wouldn't say these are accidental; they're just the stuff I go back to any time.

I suppose I have a staple band in Inquisition. Walking to and from class, I don't have the time for an album so I just listen to songs and at least two-three times a week I'll find myself listening to a handful of Inquisition songs without really putting much thought into it.

If I ever feel like listening to bestia goatwar gasmask metal, there's a 98% chance I'm going to be listening to War Cult Supremacy. It's just everything I could ask for in a bestial goatwar gasmark metal album.

Same thing with thrash metal and Persecution Mania.

I don't know if these count per se though, cause pretty much any chance I get, I tend to talk these bands/albums up on here.

For me it would be Voivod - Angel Rat. It's not considered one of Voivod's best by any stretch and is probably one of the albums that killed whatever goodwill the band had with metal fans, but I have probably listened to it more in the past few years then any of their other albums. It's not even my favorite of theirs or anything, it's just a weird unique album to listen to while driving to and from work I suppose. I guess I have a new found appreciation for it.

I usually tend to listen to full albums from start to finish all the time, or with breaks if I have to, but I rarely skip tracks. A staple album has to be one that I constantly go back to when not specifically in the mood for a certain type of music.

Virgin Steele's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part One is definitely one of these. No matter how I'm feeling or what I'm doing the glorious riffs and brilliant songs contained within never fail to make my day.

Another metal album of this kind is Forefather's Steadfast and also pretty much anything by Bal-Sagoth (bar A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria which doesn't excel in quality quite as much as the others).

Edit: Re-reading the original post I realised that, in particular, Virgin Steele doesn't really fit as I go on and on about that band all the time to anyone willing to lend me an ear.

An album by a band that I never even think of to discuss with anyone but still listen to very regularly is Spiritual Beggars' Mantra III. Something about it's uplifting sound, heavy southern rock-tinged riffs and general good time vibe makes it pretty much ideal listening for any moment for me even though I've never really seen cause to sink my teeth into anything else by the band.

I'm exactly the same way. I firmly believe that songs need context, so skipping songs doesn't give you the full picture - for better or worse.

My most listened-to albums are Cynic's Traced in Air and Cattle Decapitation's Monolith of Inhumanity. These are both anomalies because I don't really like those bands' other albums or even genres much. But they represent everything I love about metal in their own unique (almost opposite) way and are flawless from start to finish.

a lot of my potential entries in this thread are former favourites - albums from subgenres and bands i don't really listen to any more, but when i do i'll choose one album and that'll do me. like savatage's streets if i want to hear rock-opera-frilly-shirt metal, or dream theater's train of thought to cover any and all prog. or any corpsegrinder-era cannibal corpse album if i want to hear american death metal that has no real distinctive qualities. or eternal nightmare for all thrash metal that's not either big 3 (cause bugger anthrax), sepultura, or agent orange. basically, the albums that have stood the test of time even though i have no active interest that particular sound.

I've quite a few of these, but most notably I'll go with the following:

Blood Farmers - Permanent Brain Damage - This is listed as just a demo, but I've always looked at is as more a full-length given that the run time is a bit over 45 minutes and the quality is spectacular. Blood Farmers strike the perfect middle ground between stoner groove and traditional doom occult anguish. I never get tired of this one ever, and always find myself getting lost in the guitar work and distinctive vocals.

Rites of Thy Degringolade - The Caryatid - The idiosyncratic songwriting and off kilter atmosphere here differentiates this release from not only the rest of Rites of Thy Degringolade's discography, but also the majority of black/death metal that I've heard. It's dark, surreal, and haunting yet laced in brutality. It's also an album that I find new layers in the more familiar I become with it.

NME - Unholy Death - 30 minutes of unhinged satanic slop and aggression that hits the spot, always. Unholy Death also contains one of my favorite bass tones in all of metal. More often than not this is what is going to be in my car stereo.

Pale Divine - Thunder Perfect Mind - I'm a sucker for the laid back 70's psych freak out jam like quality a lot of the compositions tend to lean towards on this release. The eschatological and existential themes of the lyrics are a plus for me too, as I think it fits the material well, and heightens the listening experience--even if the quality of the lyrics are pretty standard.

Despite the fact that these albums are ones that I sort of listen to non stop, I don't really discuss them much with people or stop to think about how important the albums are to my overall tastes. This most likely falls in line with the fact that the bands that the albums belong to are often overlooked by other fans of these genres that I know.

For the last year or so it's been most of Marduk's 1990s albums (maybe not so much Dark Endless despite it being rather good and not Panzer Division Marduk because I'm really not that familiar with it). Basically, they're excellent black metal that's very well-played and written that happens to fit most of my moods. I mean, it's very rare that I'm not into some dark and atmospheric with interesting lyrical themes (alright, so maybe the "I am in Satan's great army and we get to wear a sweet uniform" stuff isn't so unique, but I generally enjoy it just as well).

A few years ago it was Running Wild. Especially at university it would get me through boring study sessions, get me up in the morning to face the day/hangover and get me excited to go out at night. You really couldn't go wrong with that stuff.

An oft-used analogy is that listening to only one song is like only reading a few pages out of a book, but I think a better comparison is to reading only one chapter out of a short story collectuon. Sure, there's occasional albums that are singular, cohesive artistic statements, but I think that most often the ties between songs are more intangible and inconsequential than that. All of the music on an album is certainly tied by virtue of the fact that it comes from the same source of artistic inspiration, and sometimes tied in terms of more direct thematic aims, but in most cases, single songs are still independent compositional entities which can be perfectly reasonably appreciated on their own.

Re the actual thread topic: I really often listen to Drudkh's Autumn Aurora. It seems to perfectly suit every scenario to which it could be applied. A measurable level of enjoyment and appreciation is garnered from it, whether I'm listening as I go to sleep, listening while I mess around on the internet, or just revering the music. Also, the relatively short length means it's easy to play it when only a short amount of time is available.

Another album I really enjoy in a similar way is Fates Warning's Awaken the Guardian. Particularly on this site, enough positive words have been said about it that it's really pointless for me to ever talk about how good it is, but it really is an amazing album.

Humm goto monthly must listen albums
Origin - Antithesis
Belphegor - Lucifer Incestus
Immortal - At the heart of Winter
Severe Torture - Feasting on Blood
Fleshcrawl - Structures of Death
Fleshcrawl - Made of Flesh
Blotted Science - (first album the name I can never remember 2 lazy to look)
RunemagicK - Enter the Realm of Death
Devin Townsend project - Addicted

Let's not turn this into an "albums you listen to a lot" thread, now.

After seeing this thread the other day, only now did it randomly occur to me what my staple album was: Be'lakor's Of Breath and Bone. Really, this band in general is one I just realized I actually listen to a shitton, even if I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend them to many people. I don't listen to nearly as much melodeath as I did before, yet this album still represents everything that makes the genre good for me: oodles of memorable riffs, cohesively woven into a slideshow that given everything this huge, atmospheric feel. It's really strange because there's a lot of things I'm actually critical about regarding the band (Stone's Reach is really disjointed at times), and there are better melodeath bands out there who I'd say I get more enjoyment out of at this point (Insomnium of course), yet whenever I have a melodeath itch a song like "Fraught" or especially "Remnants" just checks all the boxes. Lots of great riffs that sound great at any time in any setting.

Really, this band was probably the biggest "grower" I've ever had. When I first heard Stone's Reach I thought it had some decent riffs but suffered from an amateurish sense of Opeth syndrome (ie writing bridges that are way too long as an excuse to jam together dissimilar riffs), but then I found myself craving the opening build in "Outlive the Hand" and the long, drawn out melo-core riffing and within a handful of months it became one of my most-listened to melodeath albums. Then, with high expectations heading into Of Breath and Bone, I found myself considering it merely okay, but after giving it some time to sink in there's something I can take out of every track and it's one of my top 5 melodeath albums.

Basically I went from being "meh" about this band to being a fanboy, and I didn't even notice it happen.

Dark Tranquillity - Projector. When I bought this album and gave it a listen I hated it save for like one or two songs. But being the budding DT fanboy and also being in my "melo death is the greatest and bestest thing ever for realz" phase I would periodically listen to it just to see if anything changed. Then one day something must've changed in my brain because I went from pretty much hating it to being head over heels in love virtually over night. To date it's safe to say Projector is my favorite DT album and my general favorite album that I own. I'll listen to it any day, any time, always in the mood for it. Weird how that happens.

Altars of Madness comes to mind for me. When I want to listen to Morbid Angel I go to this album because I don't skip a single track. Another favorite of mine would be the Monotheist album from Celtic Frost. That entire album is pure genius, in my opinion.

The two that immediately come to mind are Dusk and Her Embrace and Sunbather. Dusk is absolutely perfect for when I go do a night walk, and Sunbather has been the soundtrack to dozens of my cross-state drives. A non-metal example is The Dark Side of the Moon. I actually made a rule for myself that I can only listen to Dark Side in full from start to finish unless it's a live show. If I employed that rule live, I wouldn't be able to watch the Live 8 performance from a decade ago.

Definitely Welcome My Last Chapter by Vinterland. I'm so happy I found 'em but so sad at the same time that they only have one album. I think it encompasses everything black metal is supposed to be. I've found quite a few more black metal bands since finding Vinterland but I always come back to it. I believe I will always want to listen to it. Will never get sick of it!

I second Dusk and Her Embrace. The atmosphere on that album tops anything else they've ever done, in my opinion.

For me it's gotta be Judas Priest's Painkiller, Sepultura's Arise, Amon Amarth's Twilight of the Thunder God, Running Wild's Death or Glory, and Sabaton's The Art of War.

Two that come to mind for me, vastly different though they are, would be Blood's O Agios Pethane and Glorior Belli's Manifesting the Raging Beast. Both of them have a very well sustained mood, a lack of meandering, and the kind of atmosphere that not only drowns out the outside world but shuts up my inner critical voice. Neither gets talked up too often, but that could be because neither feels that "aspirational," at least in the areas of defining a genre or pushing envelopes or whatever. They're just excellent at what they do, driven by pretty remarkable energy/focus.

Oh, and though just about everyone else seems to hate it, Abigor's Satanized absolutely falls into this category for me. I don't even know why. It's just got that way of neatly meeting the demands of my psyche at almost any time.

edit: oh jesus, Artimus Pyle's Civil Dead too. Kind of harrowing. Damned if it isn't like taking a pill that turns my mood perfectly apocalyptic for a quick 23 minutes.

Good question... and very good the chance to post multiple albums as they surface to memory.

Then, of course the first to come are worth a mention, and mine are
Graven/Barad Dur split CD, it's always a pleasure to listen to it and the entry riff of the first Barad Dur song to me is, always was and always will be one of the best riffs in the whole black metal history

The Elysian Fields - We... the enlightened
Damn, this CD is simply perfect. A lesson in arrangements and in composition skills

Pure holocaust by Immortal, a dive into the heaviest storm ever and any other norwegian album has ever made me feel the same. I can recall a lttle of the first Isvind but not all the album is worth the first three songs there, so it doesn't count here.

from Minas Morgul onward, everything Summoning has written has a steady place in my heart

The Adversam "The black diamond gates" demo. Pure listening black metal pleasure. You should give a listen to it, you'd agree
Aborym - KaliYuga Bizarre Althought what they released after is absolutely out of my tastes, this album is simply perfect. It's always a great time when I throw it up in the cd player

More to come.

whooops! me again....

I have forgotten two great albums by Nocte Obducta Galgendammerung and Schwarzmetall, there is not a moment of pause or a boring part, always attractive.
How about "Left hand path"? Anybody out there finds this piece of history boring even if it's turning into the stereo for the dozenth time?
Same goes for Bathory - Blood fire death, a continuous shiver from the intro to the epical end of the title track

Solstafir- Köld... I cringe before it, I guess I'm even goin' to listen to it right now

Too many to list them all, it's almost impossible

Whenever I go back to Cradle I stick mostly to Cruelty, but it's probably a tossup between the two.

As for the topic, I don't think I approach my listening that way. I mean I always go back to these
-Neurosis - Times of Grace
-Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken
-My Dying Bride - The Dreadful Hours

...but I don't listen to these in specific occasions, they are more or less always in rotation, so, ehh, I dunno. Maybe I'm totally missing the point of the thread.

Very underappreciated band! That instrumental bit to end "Herbst: Lenkte Einsam Meinen Schritt"

Holocaust's Covenant immediately came to mind, an album that simply snuck up on me as a favorite. I've listened to it every few weeks for the past few years, never realizing just how far it had vaulted upward into my favorites of all time. Built on a foundation of amazing NWOBHM and classic rock riffs, Holocaust elevates them with some of the most creative songwriting I've ever heard. It's a very weird and eclectic stew of ideas, with a suitably strange vocal performance to boot, and it all comes together in staggering fashion on sixteen minute epic "The Battle of Soaring Woodhelven" (definitely their "Jack Luminous"). Check this and their other 90s/00s albums out if you dig proggy shit that doesn't forget the riffs; they're amazing.

Some new things I always shiver when listening the whole album into my hi-fi:
The principle of evil made flesh, by cradle of filth
The shadowthrone, by Satyricon
Sventevith, by Behemoth
Rigor Mortis, the self titled album (damn, I own CD vinyl and picture disc, how come I forgot this before? Must be alzheimer....)

The new order, by Testament
MInd Wars, by Holy Terror

I repeat there's too many to mention. Heavy metal is simply an universe beyond.

These are probably the records I've listened to most in my life. Some of my favorite albums, let alone my favorite bands, aren't even listed here, but there's something about these records that makes me go back to them more often than not... some compulsion of sorts.

Solitude Aeturnus' Through the Darkest Hour
Anathema's Eternity
Therion's Lepaca Kliffoth
Death's Symbolic
Necromantia's Scarlet Evil Witching Black
Helstar's Nosferatu
Rotting Christ's Non Serviam
Hypocrisy's The Fourth Dimension
Savatage's Sirens
Theatre of Tragedy's Velvet Darkness They Fear
Candlemass' Ancient Dreams
Anacrusis' Screams and Whispers
Katatonia's Discouraged Ones
Gorefest's Mindloss
Wolf's The Black Flame
Dismember's Indecent and Obscene
Iced Earth's Days of Purgatory

...and non-metal
Dead Can Dance's Toward the Within (live)
Al Di Meola's Elegant Gypsy
and George Dalaras/Stavros Kougioumtzis' Angel Hymns to Human Rhythms

For me, its Dusk, but Cruelty is a secondary go-to album from CoF. I just think it has more bad songs, and Dusk has literally none. It amazes me to think I've been listening to it for almost 20 years...

Immortal-At The Heart of Winter is a definite favorite but I openly like Immortal, so perhaps doesn't count.

I'm not a huge Electric Wizard fan, but I find that I can put Come My Fanatics on pretty much anytime and it works.

Catamenia: Location COLD. Not much worthwhile in their back-catalogue, but this is some of the best energetic hyper-melodic, cold black metal. I heard it about 7-8 years ago during my metal renaissance and its stuck with me,; in fact, it really added momentum to my renaissance... Just simple good music to me.

I have a sneaky favorite non-metal album. By a dude called Vector Lovers. I know nothing about him or whether he still makes music, but his album Afterglow is this perfect, somber and atmospheric glitchy IDM stuff. Its accompanied me 'across the world' and now evokes so many different things. I always play it on long drives. Perfect album, and I don't know any of the song names....

These are the albums I come back to time and time again, and just HAVE to listen to as a whole entity, no skipped tracks here:

The Gathering - Always...
Moonspell - Wolfheart
Tiamat - Clouds
Amorphis - Tales from the Thousand Lakes
Impaled Nazarene - Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz
Rotting Christ - Thy Mighty Contract
Masacre - Requiem
Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon
Paradise Lost - Gothic
Master's Hammer - Ritual
Therion - Theli / Vovin