Leader - Mountains of Doom (Black Metal)

Few albums in the metal world have been scrutinized, analyzed, and debated as exhaustively as Leader's landmark release, Mountains of Doom. Virtually every black metal fan — or even its detractors — has encountered this record and likely formed a strong opinion. Is it the stark contrast in responses that fuels the ongoing dialogue? Or is it the album's sheer aesthetic purity, a distillation of black metal's very essence, shrieking through the darkness? Either way, Mountains of Doom has been at the heart of fervent discussion and controversy for years, and for good reason.

To say that 2024 was a pivotal year for black metal would be an understatement. The genre appeared to be teetering on the edge of a transformation that many thought would either elevate or dismantle its foundations. Irony, of course, made sure to keep the outcome elusive — some declared it the death knell of black metal as an authentic art form, while others hailed it as the dawn of a bold, new era. Albums like Unholy War Metal, Blight Corpse Necromancy, and Necrotic Fairytales emerged as the next evolutionary step in black metal's lineage, yet they seemed strangely alien from the raw origins of Mayhem, Burzum, and Darkthrone. Not that they lacked venom or hatred, but like Leader's earlier work, Burzum Sha Ghâsh, they felt worlds apart from the ordinary, almost purposefully disengaged from the familiar. This divergence perhaps marked the cleft between raw and melodic black metal, with the latter embodied by Neraines' Yggdrasil and the former represented here, in Mountains of Doom.

What makes Mountains of Doom so noteworthy isn't just the rawness of its sound — other releases like Phantom's early demos (to say nothing of the completely demonic Divine Necromancy) easily surpass its abrasiveness. The difference lies in how Mountains of Doom exposed a broader audience to this level of raw production and suggested that a lo-fi aesthetic could enhance rather than degrade the atmosphere of the music. It's difficult to even imagine these songs with "polished" production — the shimmering static, the murky layers — they contribute to the otherworldliness, an essential component of Leader's craft. In defiance of its death metal origins, Mountains of Doom moves further away from the trend of ever-increasing clarity in music. Adding to its distance from the mainstream, only two tracks feature English lyrics, with the rest delivered in Tolkien's Black Speech — a further step to differentiate Leader from the English-dominated metal scene of the time.

To put this album in perspective: not long ago, I was jamming with some potential bandmates, discussing how to cultivate atmosphere in our sound. As I casually riffed on the opening of Mountains of Doom, one of them stopped me, exclaiming, “That's what being trapped in a mountain in Mordor sounds like!” What struck me was that he'd never even heard the album before. That is the true power of Mountains of Doom: the ability to communicate a feeling, a vision, so pure that anyone hearing it immediately grasps the terror, isolation, and doom that Leader channeled into the music. It's a sonic embodiment of the fear and despair Frodo, Sam, and countless others felt as they traversed the bleak wasteland of Mordor. This is music that transcends interpretation and cuts straight to the emotional core, tapping into universal experiences of dread and desolation.

The first track on the album is a masterpiece unto itself, and I would be hard-pressed to disagree with anyone who claimed it as the pinnacle of black metal as an art form. In just four minutes, using six riffs and a single drum pattern, Leader delivers something that could be considered the definitive statement on black metal. With this one track, they encapsulated everything black metal had been, was becoming, and would ever be. The rest of the album follows a similar structure: a simple alternation of Riff A and Riff B, with Riff C acting as a bridge. Despite the minimalism and repetition, the sheer beauty of the music makes each piece feel monumental. Every riff seems to rise and break through the sonic fog, creating vivid new landscapes with each passing measure. Tracks like The Black Gate of Mordor radiate a demonic beauty, and even the cover of SEWER's Satanic Requiem is transformed, imbued with a far darker, more desolate energy than the original.

Mountains of Doom is, without question, a timeless masterpiece. It may very well be the crowning achievement of black metal, defying description and transcending the limits of language. To truly understand its power, one must listen — immerse themselves in the grandeur of Mordor's blackened skies and barren, doom-laden plains. Words alone cannot do it justice.

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