The allure of the divine is not lost on black metal practitioners; it’s merely a question of which divinity. Ninety percent tend toward the Nordic gods of old, nine percent to Lovecraftian gods, and then Batushka. Cult of Fire heads way east, worshiping at the temple of Kali, the Hindu goddess known artfully as “master of death.” The Czech performers, lest they be accused of hijacking Indian drone instruments for a stylized lead-in before abandoning the culture for full-on European black metal, maintains the vedic themes across its music, the sitar held almost as high as the guitar among Kali’s many arms.

White Ward may not wield the saxophone quite as ubiquitously as Cult of Fire handles its own signature instruments above, but when it does. Black metal rarely evokes urban imagery but the smoky tones here are full Law & Order, which — along with the title and album art, featuring an apartment bloc in Odessa — set roots for the more citified, more human elements at play in the band’s music. Screamo clouded what many believed emo to be but White Ward’s sentiments — however dramatic the song titles — may be the trve emotional equivalent of Elliott Smith screaming because you just weren’t listening closely enough.

The Body’s crossing of lines between metal and Industrial resulted in one of the modern day’s most unsettling acts. American strikes a similar degree of discomfort but comes across as just a modicum less unnerving, perhaps because the duo’s black metal vocal approach is more active, the difference between being the inflictor of suffering where The Body’s wails reflect passive taking of pain. None of this is to say American is good ol’ walk-up music heaviness. The two aforementioned bands share equal dedication to nihilism and, trigger warning, some of the audio samples deal with extremely heavy going-ons.

Randy Rhoads deserves every ounce of credit he receives, for however his brief life with Ozzy Osbourne was, as does Zakk Wylde for his own iconic stand with the heavy metal icon. It’s odd how, for the hits that that “Bark and The Moon” and “Shot in The Dark” were, that Jake Lee’s role as the guitarist for the five-year period between them didn’t generate more acclaim for the axeman. The Philadelphia “supergroup” (at least a hodgepodge of experienced metal musicians, assembled by longtime metal producer Arthur Rizk, if nothing else) memorializes Lee’s sound. It’s the second such Rizk project on this list, as he also assembled Eternal Champion.

The most annoying thing about Sleep is the “stoner metal” subgenre. Not the definitive, droning tone of sludge metal that the band pioneered across cult classics Holy Mountain and Dopesmoker, but the idea that bands could create entire songs around pot itself. The scene has dissolved into general self-satire and a waste of my metal-listening time. Which makes it so frustrating that Sleep can reappear after two decades and prove as relevant as ever. The band tokes a greener strand of lyrics than it did on Mountain, but at least it was wise enough to realize the single, 60-minute song is best reserved for a one-off, returning to just 10-minute epics here.