Black Metal

In the early eighties, the very first bands that were able to pioneer black metal music were mostly bands that performed thrash metal which formed the Black Metal prototype; collectively they were referred to as the First Wave. The First Wave consisted of very few bands like Mercyful Fate, Venom, Celtic Frost, as well as Bathory.

Later on in the latter part of the eighties and the early portion of the nineties, there was a Second Wave that emerged, which primarily consisted of Norwegian bands such as Mayhem, Burzum along with Darkthrone. Even though there wasn’t a Third Wave that was well-defined, the modern styles of Black Metal bands have been able to incorporate new lyrical and musical trends right into their music.

From the mainstream culture, Black Metal has received a considerable amount of hostility, mainly due to the anti-Christian and misanthropic attitude that many of the bands have. It is typical to find iconoclastic ideology in bands that perform Black Metal. Additionally, there are a couple of bands that perform Black Metal that at some point and time have been associated with murder, church burnings, as well as socialism. Generally, Black Metal is viewed as a form of underground music, mainly because it doesn’t appeal to the tastes of the mainstream due to its musicians choosing to remain obscure.

The First Wave of Black Metal:
Black Metal’s first wave relates to the bands that were able to influence the sound of Black Metal first, which was often thrash bands. Black Metal as a term was coined first by Venom which was a British band, with their ’82 “Black Metal” sophomore album. Even though the musical style was considered to be thrash metal or speed metal, there was a glorified and heavy emphasis on occult and Satanic themes, both in imagery and themes, was very distinct. In many ways, the music was unpolished in its production.

The guitars were found to be a lot more blistering than the other heavy metal subgenres and the vocals were very unclean and relied less on the melody than they relied on the raw, as well as shrieking screams. The members of Venom also adopted pseudonyms which was something that wasn’t popular among the metal bands at this particular time.

Bathory, which is a Swedish band led by Thomas Forsberg, was another band that was considered to be a pioneer of this genre of music. This band focused on the suboptimal standards of production in order to better suit their furiously fast tempo and raspy vocals, as they were heard on the earlier albums.