Absu: The Third Storm of Cythrául (1997)

Absu is largely considered one of the pre-eminent black metal bands from the United States.  Despite this, only a couple of their albums are considered genre classics.  A lot of their other releases are somewhat neglected.  The band's fourth album Tara casts a long shadow over their other releases, which is not totally fair.

The third album from Absu sees the band experimenting with another new stylistic shift.  This time around, Absu abandoned a lot of the more unusual elements in favor of a much more straightforward blackened thrash attack.  The band alternates between lengthy epics and short, aggressive songs that speed by in the blink of an eye.  The band has really come into their own on this release, even if they have changed much of the sound that made their prior releases so good.  It is a much more simple sound rooted in extreme thrash metal like Possessed and Slayer, but with some black metal elements still hanging around. 

This is a terrific album that has been unfortunately overshadowed by the band's next release.  While it is true that the band has abandoned a lot of the unusual and unpredictable elements, they have been replaced with a sheer, aggressive brutality.  And since this particular brand of no-holds-barred blackened thrash is one of my favorite styles of metal, this album in particular grabs my attention.