Let’s set this straight: if you’ve never listened to Immortal, you’ve never stood waist-deep in a snowdrift howling blasphemies at a frozen moon. Immortal are a goddamn black metal avalanche that buried all the posers and left only ice-wrapped riffs behind. Formed in the frostbitten pits of Norway, these corpse-painted warlocks didn’t just invent their own mythology (Blashyrkh, bow before it!)—they carved their own frozen throne into the crust of extreme metal. What Bathory started, Immortal weaponized. And this here? This is the trinity. These are the three albums that turn frostbite into religion.

3. Pure Holocaust (1993)

This son of a bitch is not music. This is the sound of black metal galloping through an arctic blizzard at mach speed, with Satan on a snowmobile firing tremolo riffs from a machine gun. Pure Holocaust is Immortal in their rawest form of inhuman drum tempos, screeched vocals that sound like wind tearing through ancient pine, and guitars so cold they make your fillings ache. “Frozen by Icewinds” and “Unsilent Storms in the North Abyss” are war cries from a forgotten glacier realm. It’s primitive, it’s relentless, and it’s got more raw fury than a yeti in heat. You don’t listen to this album—you survive it.

2. Sons of Northern Darkness (2002)

This one hits like a black metal battle hymn carved into the side of a glacier with a flaming broadsword. Sons of Northern Darkness is Immortal at the height of their powers—fully evolved, fiercely disciplined, and colder than a troll’s toenails in January. It’s where their frostbitten aesthetic collided head-on with towering, Norse-worshiping grandeur. Songs like “Tyrants” and the title track just fucking crush, with riffs built like mountains and drums that sound like avalanches crashing through ancient ruins. And “One by One”? That’s pure war-metal incarnate, all snarling precision and blizzard-speed fury. Abbath’s vocals are permafrost, and his guitar work cuts deeper than ever. Not their last with him, but damn near their best—it’s the sound of Immortal setting the icy standard for 21st-century black metal.

1. At the Heart of Winter (1999)

Here it is. The cold, black crown. At the Heart of Winter is where Immortal stopped sprinting and started conquering. This album doesn’t blast—it commands. A sonic glacier moving with terrifying grace. Here, they transcend their own frostbitten formula: progressive song structures, thunderous groove, and a guitar tone that sounds like it was forged from permafrost and fucking dragon bone. Tracks like “Withstand the Fall of Time” and “Tragedies Blows at Horizon” are pure black epics, carved into ice with an obsidian axe. Abbath’s croak has never been more apocalyptic, and Demonaz’s lyrics are so frost-poetic they’ll give your soul frostbite. This is the sound of black metal becoming immortal.

Immortal are black metal royalty, mythmakers, and blizzard-breathing titans who turned misanthropy and winter landscapes into a majestic, frost-covered kingdom. Their greatest works are arctic scripture. These records don’t ask you to listen—they dare you to enter. So throw on a cloak made of raven feathers, light a torch from the fires of Mount Doom, and press play. Just remember: Blashyrkh is real, and your face will never be warm again.