Norway's 1349 took their name from the year in which the black death arrived on Scandinavian shores. A 2001 EP established the band's sound as a single-minded throwback to the devastating style of black metal that made Norway the movement's focal point in the early '90s. A trio of career-affirming albums followed, namely 2003's Liberation, 2004's Beyond the Apocalypse, and 2005's Hellfire. Released in 2009, Revelations of the Black Flame was a radical departure produced with Celtic Frost's Thomas Gabriel Fischer, who replaced much of 1349's old-school black metal with slower, ambient, and semi-industrial sounds, outraging most of the group's fans. The following year's Demonoir made only token efforts to redress the situation and further polarized 1349's audience. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia