Genres Heavy Metal Black Metal (First Wave)
Black Metal (First Wave)
Before Norway. A scattering of early-eighties bands who turned Satanic imagery and deliberately filthy recordings into an entire aesthetic.
- Peak years
- 1982 – 1992
- Origin
- UK / Europe
- Family
- Black Metal
- Bands here
- 18
Before you press play
Graphic lyrics and artwork are a defining feature of this genre rather than an occasional accident — which of violence, gore or sex depends on the band. Worth knowing before you put it on in a room with other people in it.
Start here
Five records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.
-
Under the Sign of the Black Mark Bathory, 1987 The landmark
Quorthon, alone, with a reverb unit and no interest in fidelity — and the record that gave Norway its blueprint five years early. The production is famously terrible and completely inseparable from the atmosphere.
-
Black Metal Venom, 1982
Barely competent and completely essential. It gave a genre its name and half of Scandinavia its blueprint.
-
Melissa Mercyful Fate, 1983
The odd one out and the best-played: actual songs, actual singing, and King Diamond doing things with his voice nobody else attempted.
-
Apocalyptic Raids Hellhammer, 1984
Three chords and total conviction. Widely mocked at the time and audible in everything extreme that followed.
-
To Mega Therion Celtic Frost, 1985
The same people as Hellhammer, a year later, suddenly ambitious — horns, timpani and a Giger painting on the sleeve.
What it sounds like
Thin, treble-heavy and made on almost no money, which turned out to be the aesthetic rather than a limitation. The guitars buzz rather than crunch, the drums are barely audible, the vocal is a hoarse rasp somewhere behind the mix, and the whole thing sounds like it was recorded in a garage because it was. Musically much of it is speed metal with Satanic imagery bolted on and played by people still learning their instruments. What made it matter was atmosphere: the murk and the incompetence combined into something genuinely unsettling that a well-produced record could not have achieved. Every band in the Norwegian second wave was deliberately imitating this sound a decade later.
- Heaviness 3 out of 5
- Speed 4 out of 5
- Aggression 4 out of 5
- Technicality 2 out of 5
- Darkness 4 out of 5
- Melody 2 out of 5
Where the name came from
Named after Venom's 1982 album Black Metal — a deliberate, provocative statement of Satanic intent. The album title became the genre's name; a rare case of a single record directly christening its own subgenre. 'First Wave' or 'Proto-Black' was added retrospectively to distinguish it from the 1990s Norwegian explosion.
The bands
Hear these first
- Venom UK
- Bathory Sweden
- Hellhammer Switzerland
- Celtic Frost Switzerland
- Mercyful Fate Denmark
And 13 more
- Sodom Germany
- Tormentor Hungary
- Root Czechia
- Bulldozer Italy
- Necrodeath Italy
- Schizo Italy
- Mortuary Drape Italy
- Master's Hammer Czechia
- Langsuir Malaysia
- Parabellum Colombia
- Reencarnación Colombia
- Bazzah Malaysia
- Blasfemia Colombia
Where it happened
Counting this genre and everything descended from it.
- Bergen Bergen Black Metal 5 bands
- Oslo Norwegian Black Metal 5 bands
- Medellín Ultra Metal 3 bands
- Brazil Brazilian Thrash & Extreme Metal 4 bands
- Chile Chilean Extreme Metal 4 bands
- Italy Italian Power, Gothic & Extreme Metal 4 bands
- Colombia Colombian Metal — Medellín & Bogotá 3 bands
- Netherlands Dutch Symphonic, Gothic & Death Metal 3 bands
What it led to
If you liked this
Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.
- Metalcore Metalcore
- Industrial Metal Industrial / Post / Avant
- Speed Metal Heavy Metal Origins