Search results
Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw recording, unconventional song structures, and an emphasis on atmosphere. Artists often appear in corpse paint and adopt pseudonyms.
- Early to mid-1980s, England, Scandinavia
- Venom - Black Metal. (Neat, 1982) Not only did this faux-Satanic British power-trio's second album coin the name of a new genre; it also inspired an ultra-violent, nihilistic ideology that inspired the band's Norwegian successors to burn churches and commit murder.
- Bathory - Bathory. (Black Mark, 1984) This cult Swedish studio band took the lo-fi shittiness of Venom and added icy Norse paganism to the garbled mix. Written and coproduced by vocalist-guitarist Quorthon (who died in 2004), Bathory's homonymous debut also features drummer Jonas Åkerlund, who went on to direct videos for both Madonna and U2 (plus the 2002 crystal meth flick Spun), not to mention the forthcoming controversial Lords of Chaos movie.
- Hellhammer - Apocalyptic Raids. (Noise, 1984) Before vocalist-guitarist Tom G. Warrior formed Celtic Frost with bassist Martin Ain, he was the leader of another Swiss metal trio called Hellhammer.
- Darkthrone - A Blaze in the Northern Sky. (Peaceville, 1991) This Norwegian duo's second album marks drummer-lyricist Fenriz and vocalist-guitarist Nocturno Culto's defection from the traditional death-metal territory of Soulside Journey to the chilling realm of "unholy black metal."
- Watain – Casus Luciferi (2003) It really was quite something when Watain stepped onto the stage at London's much missed Verge in March 2004 for their first gig on UK soil.
- Deathspell Omega – Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice (2004) Where once the French black metal scene revelled in primitiveness (and, indeed, such pleasantness as sending people dead rats in the post), with Deathspell Omega it showed it could also boast a wealth of depth and intelligence.
- Nachtmystium – Instinct: Decay (2006) While in Europe black metal found itself an underground foothold reasonably quickly in the ’90s, in America things were very different.
- Blut Aus Nord – The Work Which Transforms God (2003) “Blut Aus Nord is an artistic concept. We don’t need to belong to a specific category of people to exist.
- Venom – Black Metal
- Mayhem – de Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
- Enslaved – Eld
- Cradle of Filth – Cruelty and The Beast
- Alcest – Écailles de Lune
Although the black metal manifesto was formalised by the “inner circle” of the 90s Oslo scene, it by no means invented it; 80s inspirations like Bathoryand Venom are nowadays worshipped as the first wave of black metal. The latter iconoclasts had the strongest impact on the genre to come – and not just because it took its name from their raw-as-red...
Mayhem’s debut is the scariest metal album of all time. Even without context, it’s a chilling listen, defined by its icy tremolo picking and screeching hymns to the dark side. But then you learn the backstory. The band were the nucleus of Norwegian black metal. Guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth defined its sound, vocalist Per “Dead” Ohlin inve...
After Euronymous died in 1993, the Norwegian black metal scene sonically splintered. Immortal built their lyrical landscape of Blashyrkh and delved deeper and deeper into old-school metal. Emperor grew in their symphonia and technicality. Ulver flourished into an industrial jazz post-rock thing, because why not? Meanwhile, Enslaved became the band ...
Between Dusk And Her Embrace and Cruelty And The Beast, Dani Filth’s macabre cabaret courted the mainstream by generating as many headlines as Norwegian black metal, but killing 100% less people. Two fans were arrested for wearing that ‘Jesus Is A Cunt’ shirt in 1997 and '98, inspiring widespread scrutiny. Like Iron Maiden amidst the ‘satanic panic...
Stéphane “Neige” Paut was just a kid with a dream. Literally. When he was young, the Alcest mastermind had repeated visions of a blissful landscape, which were so vivid that he believes they were flashes of a life before life. Neige’s MO for his band is to bring the sound of that personal paradise into reality. The musician was also a child of the ...
Explore the evolution of black metal, from its death metal roots to its Norwegian revolution, and its dark and extreme subculture. Learn about the pioneers, the controversies, and the aesthetic of this extreme sub-genre of heavy metal.
Dec 1, 2021 · 2021 proved to be a bumper year for black metal as a genre, its landscape reflective of just how much the genre has evolved since both its birth in the early 80s and eventual infamy of the 90s. With that in mind, here are 10 records that represent the very best of what black metal has to offer in 2021. 10.
Dec 16, 2022 · 2022 has been a great year for black metal, a wealth of releases from the likes of Midnight, Wiegedood, Belphegor, Mantar, Panzerfaust and beyond ensuring that honestly, we could have stacked our official critics poll with nothing but black metal and still not cover every base.
