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Heavy Metal Thunder Second Wave (Norwegian)

Genres Heavy Metal Black Metal (First Wave) Second Wave (Norwegian)

Second Wave (Norwegian)

A tiny Norwegian scene in the early nineties made the coldest, most hostile music imaginable, and changed metal permanently.

Active years
1991 – present
Origin
Norway
Family
Black Metal
Bands here
12

Before you press play

Explicit content Extremist politics in the scene

Burzum is one man, Varg Vikernes, who murdered Mayhem's guitarist in 1993 and has published far-right and neo-pagan racial politics ever since. The records are foundational and the politics are not incidental to them. Darkthrone, Emperor, Immortal and Enslaved are none of this.

Start here

Three records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Mayhem, 1994 The landmark

    The most notorious record in metal, and it earns the reputation musically as well as biographically: Euronymous's riffs are genuinely strange, and Hellhammer's drumming holds an unlistenable thing together. Recorded before Euronymous was murdered by the man playing bass on it.

    Listen to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

  2. A Blaze in the Northern Sky Darkthrone, 1992

    A death metal band throwing away everything they were good at to make something deliberately worse and far more frightening. The start of it all.

    Listen to A Blaze in the Northern Sky

  3. Pure Holocaust Immortal, 1993

    Relentless, cold and weirdly exhilarating. The one to reach for when the second wave feels like homework.

    Listen to Pure Holocaust

What it sounds like

Tremolo picking — a single note or chord picked as fast as possible — held for bars at a time over a blast beat, so the riff stops being a riff and becomes a drone. The guitars are trebly and thin on purpose, the bass is often inaudible, and the vocal is a high shriek rather than a growl. Everything is mixed to sound cold and distant. What people miss on a first listen is that the melodies underneath are frequently very simple and quite sad — this is not primarily aggressive music, it is bleak music played aggressively. Compared with death metal it is higher, thinner and far more concerned with atmosphere than with impact.

  • Heaviness 3 out of 5
  • Speed 4 out of 5
  • Aggression 5 out of 5
  • Technicality 2 out of 5
  • Darkness 5 out of 5
  • Melody 2 out of 5

Where the name came from

The 'Second Wave' label was applied retrospectively by music historians to distinguish the tight-knit Norwegian early-1990s scene — Mayhem, Burzum, Emperor, Darkthrone — from Venom's First Wave. 'Norwegian' reflects the near-total geographic concentration of the movement around Oslo and Bergen.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Mayhem Norway
  • Darkthrone Norway
  • Burzum Norway
  • Emperor Norway
  • Immortal Norway

And 7 more

  • Gorgoroth Norway
  • Satyricon Norway
  • Enslaved Norway
  • Taake Norway
  • Carpathian Forest Norway
  • Ulver Norway
  • Thorns Norway

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

  • Athens Hellenic Black Metal 5 bands
  • Bergen Bergen Black Metal 5 bands
  • Oslo Norwegian Black Metal 5 bands
  • Poland Polish Black & Death Metal 8 bands
  • Greece Hellenic Black, Death & Power Metal 7 bands
  • France French Extreme & Atmospheric Metal 6 bands
  • Iceland Icelandic Black & Post-Metal 5 bands
  • Scotland Scottish Metal 5 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.