As frontman of the vastly important avant-garde metal bands Celtic Frost and Hellhammer, Swiss orc-man Thomas Gabriel Fischer was figuring out new ways to channel darkness back when many of his present-day underground metal peers were hiding behind their living-room couches every time Skeletor came on the TV. With Melana Chasmata, Fischer has just dropped one of the heaviest anvils of his entire career. The album gracefully moves from majestic goth to grime-permeated sludge with an authority that only an OG like Fischer can bring, and its handful of genuinely beautiful moments never detract from its all-encompassing ugliness. –Tom [LISTEN]