I would guess that there are more one-person bands in black and blackened death metal than in any other genres of extreme metal. I’m not sure why that is, though I guess it’s in keeping with the lone-wolf, outsider status that second-wave black metal can trace back to its roots.

Of course, there are a lot of mediocre or downright awful one-person projects out there, but some very good ones, too, and you’ll find four of them in today’s collection, along with music from a few more-filled-out groups, who are also very good.

MERDA MUNDI

The first of the one-person projects whose new music I’d like to recommend today is Merda Mundi (“shit of the world” — or maybe “shitty world”), the raw black metal vehicle of the prolific Belgian musician Déhà, whose resume at Metal-Archives includes participation in 19 active bands and previous roles in 17 others, spread across numerous genres, as well as guest/session work on two dozen other releases. The latest output of Merda Mundi is an album aptly named Hatred. Continue reading »