When it comes to Black Metal, it can either be really bad or great. It’s certainly one of those genres that is an acquired taste and most of it you have to be in the mode for. I can probably name just a handful of Black Metal bands that really stand out and my favorite of the bunch is Dark Funeral from Sweden. On this day, Friday August 21, 2026, they released their live album A Beast To Praise (Live In Stockholm). Let’s take a look……
When it comes to great black metal, Dark Funeral does it best. If you’ve seen them before but especially within the last few years, then you know that they put on one hell of a show!! This was definitely one of those live albums that was teased for a good while and seeing ads for Dark Funeral on my social media feed is always great. Interestingly, this was actually recorded in 2022 at a show in Stockholm during the tour cycle for We Are The Apocalypse. Why they waited so long to put this out I’ll never know but this was definitely worth the wait.
Dark Funeral is one of those underrated bands for sure and on this live album, they are firing on all cylinders. Vocalist Heljarmadr sounds absolutely badass and he screams the vocals so brilliantly. Guitarists Lord Ahriman and Chaq Mol make for one hell of a guitar team. When it comes to Swedish guitar players, I think that both are very overlooked. Lord Ahriman who’s the main songwriter and guitarist isn’t one of those shredders like Yngwie Malmsteen but more of the Tony Iommi type of player who’s riffs are absolutely crushing. And of course, you have the rhythm section of bassist Adra-Melek and drummer Jalomaah who both hold down that low end and percussion. Fun fact and that is Adra-Melek (real name Fredrick Isaksson) used to be in one of my favorite bands Grave and played on a few of my favorite albums!!
Now obviously as it goes with most bands they’re always going to leave songs you love off of their set and this is no different. However, they do play a good chunk of my favorite songs and what’s even better is that they cover pretty much all of their albums. More bands need to do that when putting together live sets. A Beast To Praise is one of those live albums that perfectly captures their sound and when listening to it through AirPods, it’s almost as if you are there. Lately it seems like when metal bands release live albums, it always seems to be at a festival like Wacken or Summer Breeze but this is at a club show so it sounds like one of those old school live metal albums which is kind of a throw back and definitely reminds me of the first live metal albums that I’d buy from places like Warehouse Music. I’ll give this album 9/10
Standouts: The Arrival Of Satan’s Empire, Goddess Of Sodomy, Nail Them To The Cross
Sinister Reviews 