Occultation

Best known for having U.S. black metal biggies Negative Plane's EMM (or Nameless Void or whatever name you want to make up), Brooklyn, NY spookies Occultation will be known for more than that once people hear this debut album. Given that everyone's loving Ghost and groups like the Devil's Blood are getting a bit of attention, this is a good midpoint between the two; it's keyboard-y and schlocky like the former but with the latter's sense of seriousness and, well, spookiness. It's still a hard sell having those "eerie, woman sighing" vocals over anything resembling heavy music, but, luckily, the music is barely heavy in any modern sense. Instead, it's heavy in a '70s kind of way: heavy in vibe, heavy in what would later become proto-metal and heavy in spirit. At times, it's heavy in an '80s Mercyful Fate way, but death or doom this is not. And Occultation do this stuff quite well, conjuring up if not Satan then at least an evil elf or displeased troll or something.