Black metal

Lay down your soul to the gods of rock’n’roll

Born as a shocking, provocative and gleefully juvenile variation on NWOBHM noise, black metal is perhaps the most successful and fascinating extreme genre of all, thanks to an unpredictable artistic evolution that has managed to adapt its spirit to the most disparate forms. From the lo-fi satanism of Venom and Hellhammer to the dreamy elegance of Alcest and Negura Bunget, by way of the tragic chill of the Norwegian scene, we'll present a necessarily brief overview of essential albums to get to know and understand what has, for twenty years now, been the most popular form of metal in the underground.

Once upon a time there were three degenerates from Newcastle armed with instruments they could barely hold and a theatrical setup somewhere between a Hammer horror film and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They picked B-movie horror stage names like Cronos, Mantas and Abbadon, and filled their shows with upside-down crosses, chalices brimming with fake virgin's blood, chains and weapons that were clearly blunt – all combined with gaudy poses and lyrics extolling the triumph of Satan and sex with their schoolteacher. If you're a fan of the genre, you'll have already guessed I'm talking about Venom, the band that would influence at least a couple of decades of heavy metal aesthetics, getting it banned from polite rock society before it even had a chance to set foot in it.

Brian Eno famously said that the first Velvet Underground album was bought by only a hundred people, but that every single one of them went on to start a band. I don't think it's blasphemous to say that Venom's debut ("Welcome To Hell") was even more influential, not just because it sold extremely well (for the genre), but because it spurred the formation of a far larger horde of bands. After all, if you're 14, the Devil and extreme violence are a lot more appealing than a bohemian life in New York amid heroin and crumbling hotel rooms.

Obviously the worst possible disservice one could do to Venom was to take their theatrical side seriously (something they themselves certainly never did), but it was almost inevitable that this would eventually happen. At first everything went smoothly, with the emergence of equally brilliant and influential bands inspired by them, such as Switzerland's Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Sweden's Bathory or Italy's Bulldozer. But when the seeds of Venom's exciting, raucous music spread among the Norwegian fjords (and among the equally ignorant and disaffected youth living there), something short-circuited, giving birth to what is still known today as "black metal" (taking its name from the title of the band's second LP).

And at this point, forget the irony and the satanic "Animal House" vibe of Cronos and his cohorts! Norwegian black metal is cold, pummeling and deeply malevolent music. Judging by the photos the musicians take of themselves, any trace of fun seems to have vanished – everyone takes themselves damn seriously, despite a high degree of unintentional comedy caused above all by the overuse of corpsepaint, which makes these guys look like a cross between poor man's Kiss and malnourished pandas.

However, there'll be precious little to laugh about when it comes to the true-crime events surrounding the so-called "inner circle" of this scene, which revolved mainly around the figure of Øystein Aarseth aka Euronymous, leader of Mayhem and owner of the "Helvete" record shop in Oslo, the meeting point for the first blacksters. Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind have already written about the burned churches, suicides, murders and neo-Nazi ravings in detailed, exhaustive fashion in their excellent "Lords of Chaos", and I have no intention of straying further than necessary from pure music criticism. Because, thankfully, music is what we're talking about here – the expression of an extraordinary creativity that not only survived the season of madness in which it first presented itself to the world, but that has managed, better than many other genres, to transcend the barriers of time and, above all, geography. Black metal has adapted to every kind of contamination (especially with classical and traditional music, but also with electronic music, progressive and psychedelia) and to every language: unlike other forms of heavy metal, the use of Latin languages, and even dialects, doesn't just fail to clash – it actually enriches with further nuance a musical style that is already inherently evocative in itself (Sicily's Inchiuvatu or Bologna's Malnatt are clear proof of this).

This flexibility has allowed black metal to evolve in a far more branching, varied way than other sub-genres, which, after an exhilarating initial period, quickly showed their limits due to the inability of second and third generations to come up with truly original solutions (this applies to classic metal, NWOBHM or the epic scene, and above all to thrash). Sure, even within black metal there's no shortage of revivalists or devotees of the so-called "true" sound, but in most of the noteworthy cases, the basic template has been readily adapted to the most disparate musical guises, right up to the complex, elegant forms of today's French and American scenes.

The fact that this music is far more "open-minded" than a (superficial or otherwise) glance at the bands' aesthetics might suggest is also proven by the remarkable artistic evolution of many of the scene's prime movers: just look at Ulver, who for twenty years now have been joyfully wrongfooting their fans with albums that are diametrically opposed to one another. One could also cite the progressive turns taken by Enslaved and by former members of Emperor, the industrial-leaning direction of Satyricon, the techno-pop of Mortiis, the "back to roots" approach of Darkthrone, and the ambient path of Burzum.

In short, almost all the bands belonging to the first wave, without ever disowning their past, have had the curiosity and intelligence to venture into other musical territories, always with excellent results. What's more, in some of its forms black metal has also proven to be an extraordinary sales machine, without watering down the heaviness of its output (it takes some nerve, even though many do it, to call Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir "commercial" – it's hardly the kind of music that would get played on our radio stations). Clearly, the adaptability already mentioned has given it an appeal unknown to bands from other extreme scenes.

The intention here, then, is to offer an overview of albums and bands united by their shared belonging to what has by now become a broad, generic "black scene", taking you on a journey through different eras and regions, all equally dark.

Of course, there's no longer any trace of the "gods of rock'n'roll" to whom Venom had sold their souls. Those gods feel far more at home being summoned in the warmth and chaos of an English pub than in some freezing Scandinavian forest.

VENOM – Welcome To Hell

(England)

It seems hard to believe now, but Satan used to be nowhere near as fun as he is today! Too many people took him seriously, and not only in the sanctuaries of teenage bedrooms where kids ruined their vinyl by spinning it backwards hoping to catch some "mysterious satanic message". Even musicians pestered the Evil One with Aleister Crowley's theories (Jimmy Page) or with hippie-tinged utopias (Black Widow). That was the case until 1981, when the debut album by Venom hit British record shops, titled ("Welcome To Hell") in a way that left little to the imagination, matched by a cover depicting a goat's head inscribed in a pentacle. On the back, the three musicians - saddled with such unlikely stage names as Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon - pose by the seaside with an attitude somewhere between warlike and constipated (they were probably bent over so the photo would also catch their reflection in the water), brandishing axes straight out of a medieval-village souvenir shop. It all already hints at lyrics glorifying the triumph of the forces of evil, drug abuse, hyperviolence, sex & gore.

If rock music had, for a few decades, been trying to cloak itself in an adult, respectable image, one glance at this LP's artwork is enough to put an end to any such pretensions of growing up, and send us hurtling back to an adolescence that may have been troubled, but was definitely not unhappy. Because "Welcome To Hell" is about as exciting and fun as anything you could listen to at the time, and it's no coincidence that all extreme metal - thrash, black, death - would unquestionably trace its roots back to these forty minutes of music, whose success, commercial included, should come as no surprise.

Just moments after the needle starts running through the vinyl's grooves, "Sons Of Satan" comes crashing down on the listener with the fury of a pack of rabid dogs. It brings to mind Motorhead, but Lemmy and co., who were no slouches when it came to decibels either, had never sounded this raw and noisy. And above all, the throaty rasp Cronos seems to sing with turns out more extreme than any vocal style used at the time. What follows is a race toward vocal extremism that will eventually lead to the growl and the scream.

It's also clear the three of them can barely hold their instruments, but we've just put punk behind us, so it's fair not to dwell on that, especially since, despite their shaky musicianship, they manage to pull memorable moments out of the hat, like the epic riff that opens the title track, or the devastating tribal pounding of the single "In League with Satan". Formally, Venom get lumped in with the NWOBHM scene of the time, but the points of contact, though they do exist (see "Live Like An Angel"), are ultimately secondary. Like all masterpieces, "Welcome To Hell" makes history rather than being shaped by it.

Indeed, the record is full of moments that were nothing short of futuristic, like the furious speed of "Angel Dust", the noise-drenched closer "Red Light Fever" (which some have called the extreme metal equivalent of "Sister Ray"), and above all that dark marvel "Witching Hour", which, after a brief horror-movie intro, explodes into something hyper-fast, filthy and majestic - like a bacchanal you'd want to join even at the cost of an eternity of damnation.

In case anyone hadn't noticed, thrash metal is born right here, well ahead of the Bay Area scene's eventual explosion. But that's not all: even though today "black metal" refers to a fundamentally different kind of music, the early Venom records (this one especially, and, fittingly, "Black Metal", released the following year, which repeats the formula with a bit more skill and a bit less filth) remain an essential and widely acknowledged influence on it, both musically and iconographically. The only thing that would, sadly, get lost along the way is the trio's bawdy sense of humour, which would often be replaced by the (unintentional) comedy of their many imitators and followers.

MERCYFUL FATE - Melissa

(Denmark)

Belonging in the "icon" file alongside figures like Lemmy, Ronnie James Dio and Rob Halford, Denmark's King Diamond is one of the greatest metal singers of all time, and his falsetto a jewel that ought to be kept in an ultrasound-proof glass case. Likewise, his band Mercyful Fate has been a fundamental influence, on several levels, for the metal that would follow: both the American epic and thrash scenes (Metallica have paid tribute to them more than once) and the death metal scene, especially in its more melodic forms, and - here's the part that concerns us - black metal.

Just to be clear, the ever-present corpse paint of the Norwegian bands doesn't owe its origin to Kiss (in case anyone had wondered), but to King Diamond's voodoo-sorcerer make-up (who, incidentally, looks uncannily like the twin brother of Giorgio Moroder), and his voice is the true dark object of desire for black metal singers everywhere. Vocal extremism (besides being a way to underline the viciousness of the music) has in fact often been a naive attempt to recreate its effect without having the original's ability.

On top of that, the frontman's theatricality (inspired by Alice Cooper and by that proto-death-metal singer Screaming Jay Hawkins) set a precedent, especially within black metal. The fact that the album isn't strictly "extreme" in the proper sense, but rather a solid classic-era product heavily indebted to NWOBHM, doesn't take an ounce away from its importance. And in any case, there's no shortage of genuinely unsettling tracks, like "Black Funeral", the lengthy "Satan's Fall", or the closing title track, dedicated to a witch ancestor of King Diamond's, whose skeleton the singer is said to keep at home, and who apparently possesses him every time he unleashes his hair-raising falsetto (once again, Alice Cooper is the reference point).

Unlike Venom, Mercyful Fate can really play: Hank Shermann and Michael Denner are a phenomenal pair of axemen who, throughout the record, string together epic riffs and possessed solos, while the rhythm section of Timi Hansen (bass) and Kim Ruzz (drums) throws in constant time changes without a single slip.

Even today, "Melissa" is an album that masterfully combines historical importance with total listenability. If someone asks you for an example of pure metal, this record is as valid an answer as the classics by Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, and at the same time, it stands as an unquestionable bridge to the genre's future.

HELLHAMMER - Apocalyptic Raids

(Switzerland)

“The most terrible, obscene and atrocious thing musicians have ever made”. Oh yeah! This one review, which appeared in Rock Power magazine, is enough to make Hellhammer a band worth paying attention to, at the very least. Convinced as I am that director Edgar Wright's words (“there's no such thing as good or bad films, only good or boring films”) apply to music as well, a work of intellect that provokes such an outright rejection can't leave you indifferent. And that's without even factoring in the influence that the first band of Thomas Gabriel Fischer aka Tom G. Warrior aka Satanic Slaughter (note the Venom influence in the choice of such tasteful nomes de plume) had on the nascent black metal scene. I have no intention of playing the superior critic toward those who, at the time, brutally panned the Swiss band's work: after all, hindsight is cheap, but above all, I can understand that, in a period when heavy metal (understood as an offshoot of hard rock) was regaining ground and audience after the years of punk and new wave, thanks above all to skilled musicians like those of the American thrash scene, these three chancers from a country that had given rock music nothing but Yello, and who played in a manner that was, to put it mildly, “approximate”, without stumbling into a melody even by accident, reeked rather strongly of “consorting with the enemy”, or at any rate of irritating incompetence.

In truth, the only thing punk about Hellhammer was the attitude, since they were devoted admirers of Black Sabbath, Motorhead and, above all, Venom, whose sonic impact and stance they tried to emulate.

After three demos released in 1983 (“Death Fiend”, “Triumph Of Death” and “Satanic Rites” – recently remastered and reissued on the double CD “Demonic Entrails”), which quickly became cult items in the metal underground despite already being savaged by the specialist press, the trio (alongside Herr Fischer, his future partner in Celtic Frost Martin “Slayed Necros” Ain on bass, and drummer Bruce “Denial Fiend” Day) recorded their only official release for the German label Noise: the four-track EP (later expanded to six on the 1990 reissue) “Apocalyptic Raids”. It's a sort of “ground zero” of the most rotten, catacomb-dwelling black metal, marked by ragged, deliberately basic riffs, hoarse and atonal vocals, and a hammering rhythm section with neither the time nor the room to get fanciful. While the first two tracks (“Third Of The Storm” and “Massacra”) find the band flooring the accelerator, the lengthy (almost ten minutes) “Triumph Of Death” is built on para-doom passages of clear Sabbath-ian origin, hinting at the interest in decadent, diseased atmospheres that would be developed in the band's next incarnation. On the closing “Horus/Aggressor”, the group empties out its full technical arsenal, even allowing itself, believe it or not, the odd tempo change.

Even though hundreds of bands from various extreme scenes, including Mayhem, Sepultura, Napalm Death and Darkthrone, would later name Hellhammer as one of their most important influences, it really wasn't easy, in the year of grace 1984, to foresee the weight that such seemingly cut-rate music would come to carry. Certainly not even Tom Warrior and his bandmates could have predicted it: tired of being a punching bag for critics, they broke up right after the release of “Apocalyptic Raids”, two-thirds of them regrouping under the name Celtic Frost. Perhaps they hoped this would earn them oblivion in the eyes of journalists, but unfortunately for them it didn't work out that way, since Kerrang!, reviewing “To Mega Therion” (the new project's second album), wrote: “the execrable Hellhammer may have become Celtic Frost, but they still suck!”.

BATHORY – Bathory

(Sweden)

The day we metalheads finally claim the kingdom promised to us by Manowar, every city will have a “Quorthon Square”, and a statue of Thomas Forsberg will stand proudly in front of the Tribunal of Ordeals.

His Bathory (let's speak of it in the plural, even though it was, in fact, a one man band) is probably the single most seminal project in the entire history of heavy metal (and it's in the running for the podium of rock tout court): not content with having invented black metal in its rawest form at least five years ahead of the neighboring Norwegian scene, the Swede Forsberg was also the very first viking and pagan metal artist in history. In short: a good third of metal output over the last twenty years is directly or indirectly influenced by Bathory's records. It seems incredible, but until a decade ago their role was underrated not only by the mainstream press (whatever people say, it's not metalheads who lack curiosity toward other genres, but rather listeners of other genres who suffer from an unjustified prejudice against metal), but by the specialist press too.

If, especially after the mastermind's death in 2004 from heart complications, time has been kind in granting near-unanimous recognition of Bathory's fundamental importance in the history of extreme music, today a different sort of problem arises: which of the wonders Quorthon committed to tape should best represent his discography?! In the end, I opt for a choice guided more by historical importance than by outright quality.

The self-titled debut caused, entirely unintentionally, an earthquake in the heavy metal scene. With those 8 short tracks, poorly recorded and even more poorly played, the Venom-style lesson was pushed to its extreme, creating an utterly unprecedented rotten, diseased atmosphere. Obsessive rhythms, grating guitars that leave not a shred of empty space, brief and graceless solo-vomit, and vocals worthy of the witch in some cheap horror film. But the record's main virtue is having introduced “do it yourself” into the metal world. After “Bathory”, tape trading began to flourish among enthusiasts in every corner of the globe: to make music like this, all you needed was the desire to grab hold of an instrument and beat it senseless until it bled sound. If, since the days of the NWOBHM, metal has had an ambiguous relationship with punk (formally it constituted a rejection of it, yet in practice the gap between hard rock and heavy metal is unthinkable without punk's dynamism), Bathory appropriates the genuinely innovative elements of the genre from the Ramones onward, purging them of all mannerism and adapting them into a form of extreme music never before even imagined.

But Quorthon goes even further, excluding from his musical project the very existence of a band and of live activity – he may not have been the first, but it's no coincidence that, in the black metal scene, one-man bands devoted to a misanthropic contempt for live shows would spring up like mushrooms. In short: bedroom music well before the advent of electronics. Onto this bare-bones model would later be grafted the essential embellishments that, thanks to a greater awareness of the genre's expressive potential, would lead to the masterpiece “Under The Sign Of The Black Mark”, before the equally indispensable viking turn of “Blood, Fire And Death” and “Hammerheart”.

DESTRUCTION – Sentence Of Death

(Germany)

Corpse painting, leather jackets and bandoliers slung over the shoulder, against the backdrop of a graveyard. Ridiculous, and yet iconographically seminal: this is how the Teutonic Destruction appeared in 1984 on the cover of their debut EP “Sentence Of Death”, the first cry of glorious German thrash, which in barely twenty minutes already laid out both its virtues and its flaws – on one hand, feral violence, infectious enthusiasm and thoroughly rotten atmospheres, on the other, production and technique that were, to put it mildly, amateurish, and a distinct lack of imagination.

For years, the German scene was considered the “wannabe” of the American one. In truth, the differences between the two started right from their premises: Metallica & co. had been raised on a diet of NWOBHM with a thick spread of hardcore on top, but above all, they came from a country where making music is considered a dignified way to earn a living and build a career. The Europeans, on the other hand, were devoted to the trinity of Motorhead, Venom and Slayer, whose ferocity they obsessively tried to replicate (or surpass), convinced, among other things, that there was no future for them after adolescence – at least not in music.

On the early Destruction, Sodom and Kreator records (and Tankard, Assassin, etc. too), there's no ambition beyond posing as evil troublemakers to shock parents, neighbours and schoolmates (secretly hoping that, deep down, it might also get Heike's knickers wet). This might seem tragicomic—and it is! But it's always been the most genuine spirit of rock'n'roll.

And, surprise: while the much-hyped American thrash scene would take an irreversible downward turn, their German counterparts would mature against all odds, gifting us works ranging from excellent to solidly respectable right up to the present day.

Not only that: at the birth of the black metal scene, countless bands would declare their devotion to this ungainly, hammering, thoroughly amateurish strain of metal. The reason lies in the fury with which tracks like "Total Desaster", "Black Mass" and "Mad Butcher" were played—packed with skeletal riffs reeking of mould and basements, needing only a few degrees shaved off to reach the chill of the fjords, and topped with a snarling vocal delivery that seems to foreshadow what Mayhem and Immortal would later use. Extreme music that stripped away (as far as possible, given it's still a form of rock) any trace of the blues and, despite its meagre means, aspired to a post-atomic Wagnerian grandeur—more through cultural inheritance than conscious intent.

Let's call it "black thrash", the crucial link connecting the extreme music of two decades.

SLAYER – Hell Awaits

(USA)

Now the usual pedantic metalhead will pipe up: "And why not 'Reign in Blood'? Trying to be a contrarian, are we?" Not at all! "Reign In Blood" is a cornerstone of extreme metal's construction and, arguably, the first death metal record in history. Certainly Slayer's masterpiece—though the band had already been seminal before it and would remain so well into the future (at least until "Diabolus In Musica", not coincidentally their last album with significant compositional input from the late Jeff Hanneman). Still, we're talking about black metal here, and "Hell Awaits" left its mark on the genre, both musically and iconographically, far more deeply than its monumental successor.

The "Venom-esque" imagery was already well in place on the Los Angeles quartet's debut, the thoroughly enjoyable if still not especially incisive "Show No Mercy", which delivered at least two classics in "Evil Has No Boundaries" and "Die By The Sword". But it's with the follow-up "Hell Awaits" (with the already seismic "Haunting The Chapel" EP in between) that the hymns to evil reach a power and viciousness never touched before, putting to shame not only the British masters but nearly the entire contemporary American thrash scene. Unlike Exodus or Metallica, Slayer push technicality into the background (though it's still there, especially in the drumming of the never-praised-enough Dave Lombardo) and stake everything on atmosphere and aggression, helped along by Brian Slagel's production, lighter-handed than some of his metal peers but certainly sharper.

The title track seems to rise straight from the depths of the abyss, thanks to a noisy intro made of malevolent invocations and guitar hisses, which then sheds its skin into a martial midtempo before erupting into a riff so fast it'll singe the listener's hair with the heat of eternal flames! Over it all, Tom Araya's almost paroxysmal vocals push the extremity dial closer to screaming and growling. In short: a marvel that alone would justify buying the record, and it's no coincidence it opens nearly every one of the band's live shows.

The rest, while not quite reaching the heights of track one, is more than generous, especially the intricate "At Dawn They Sleep", the wicked "Necrophiliac", and the apocalyptic closer "Hardening Of The Arteries".

It's hard to imagine black metal without "Hell Awaits", without its legendary cover art, and without the hellfire unleashed by the guitars of the Hanneman/King duo—and it's no accident that the fanzine which would accompany the birth of the Scandinavian extreme scene took its name directly from the American band.

For years, Slayer were rightly considered the most extreme force in the metal scene, utterly deaf to the sirens preaching that softening up was the only possible path to evolution. Today, partly thanks to them, we know that stuffing albums with pathetic ballads, as the sorry likes of Metallica did, was anything but a sign of maturity—it was a dead end—and that the band's sonic extremism was the starting point for the most important mutations in heavy music over the past thirty years.

BULLDOZER – The Day Of Wrath

(Italy)

Part of black metal's underground appeal lies in the fact that it was born and raised in the most extreme sort of backwater—one that, as far as rock music goes, (almost) never counted for a damn thing. If Sweden, before Bathory, had given us, at best, ABBA, Norway, at least until the '90s, hadn't even given us that. Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, for their part, hailed from the land of banks, chocolate and Dj Bobo—but, at the time, no rock of any real standing. So why be surprised if a country like ours, which did have a respectable tradition with peaks of real excellence (from Morricone to Moroder, by way of Pfm, Area and the whole progressive scene) managed, despite its backward culture and chronic lack of infrastructure, to have its own say in the genesis of black metal?!

In the photos showing the inside of Helvete, the record shop owned by Euronymous and focal point of the Norwegian scene, you can spot a few LPs by the Milanese band Bulldozer proudly on display. On the "old school" black metal compilation curated by Fenriz of Darkthrone, there's a track called "Whisky Time"—again by Bulldozer. Two clues that, at the very least, justify some curiosity about the band, who in the '80s produced four wonderful records of pitch-black thrash, inspired more by Motorhead and Venom than by the Bay Area (and all of them thoroughly panned by the Anglo-centric press of the day, Kerrang chief among them). Music this noisy and direct bears more than a passing resemblance to the much-maligned records of Kreator, Sodom and Destruction. What made the band's output unmistakably Italian was the raucousness of the vocals, the anarchic filthiness of the sound, and an ever-present theatricality (traits already found in Italian metal pioneers Death SS), creating atmospheres that would carry real weight in the genre's evolution. Moreover, unlike what was happening north of the Brenner Pass, Italy's first extreme scene (Bulldozer and Schizo above all) showed clear punk influences—and not only in its amateurish attitude.

Their debut "The Day Of Wrath", produced by Algy Ward of Tank, is a great example of their sound - less sharply focused than the more mature "IX" and "Neurodeliri", but irresistibly savage. Over minimal but explosive riffs and devastating rhythms, the hoarse, evocative voice of AC Wild rises up (a singer-bassist, as per tradition in extreme metal power trios).

If, for three quarters of its length, the album plays on neck-breaking speed, the last two tracks ("Welcome Death" and "Endless Funeral") are marked by slow rhythms that create morbid, unsettling atmospheres, almost anticipating the band's future work.

Priceless is the photo on the back cover, which mocks the po-faced, grotesque poses of metalheads: Bulldozer deserve to be loved if only for having been, pretty much, the only band to inherit a sense of humour from father Venom.

CELTIC FROST – Into The Pandemonium

(Switzerland)

It would have taken real foresight to predict that the ungainly caterpillar named Hellhammer would turn into a gorgeous, multicoloured butterfly by renaming itself Celtic Frost. Though the transformation was certainly not immediate.

Recap of previous episodes: the Swiss duo Tom G. Warrior (born Thomas Gabriel Fischer) and Martin Eric Ain are coming off the Hellhammer project, panned by critics but a cult favourite in the metal underground. Being ambitious lads, they're not about to sacrifice a possible music career in the name of pig-headed consistency, so while Kerrang! is still telling readers to use copies of the "Apocalyptic Raids" EP as cat litter, they change their name to Celtic Frost, inspired by the title of a Cirith Ungol album.

The new band's early output doesn't stray too far from its recent past: together with drummer Stephen Priestly (later replaced by Reed St. Mark), they record the EPs "Morbid Tales" and "Emperor's Return", which, while showing a marked technical improvement over the shambolic incompetence of Hellhammer, remain works almost as dark and monolithic as those of their previous incarnation - save for a couple of experimental tracks, like the brief intro "Human" and the terrifying, violin-laced "Danse Macabre". Their image certainly hadn't changed, as the album photos show them striking grim poses, decked out in studs, bullet belts and face paint (along with King Diamond, they were among the first to use it in extreme metal), in clear homage to their idols Venom.

But with "To Mega Therion" (its blasphemous cover courtesy of fellow Swiss artist H.R. Giger), a first revolution takes place: while keeping the crushing heaviness of their sound intact, the trio has the courage - almost unheard of at a time when the boundaries between genres were fiercely guarded - to bring a soprano voice, classical instruments and samples of various kinds into their arrangements, with results that must have seemed nothing short of disorienting at the time (whereas today such contaminations are the norm).

The follow-up, "Into The Pandemonium", goes even further, a work of unmatched genius that would come to be defined as "avant-garde metal". As if to make clear the band's intent to defy every form of purism, the tracklist opens with "Mexican Radio", a cover of new wave band Wall of Vodoo, about as far removed as one could imagine from their usual sound. "Mesmerize" brings the record back to darker territory with its slow, hypnotic pace and Tom's chant-like vocals. "Inner Sanctum" is a fine thrash outburst, while "Sorrows Of The Moon" verges on gothic, both in its decadent atmosphere and in the singer's pathos-laden delivery. But the album's most blasphemous affront to the metal gods is "One In Their Pride": an avant-garde electronic track that reveals passions and interests transcending the genre itself. "Into The Pandemonium" also features arrangements close to classical music, only here the band collaborates with a full orchestra, as on the majestic "Rex Irae" - the album's peak, and perhaps of their entire output.

Without fear of exaggeration, this is one of the ten most important records in the history of heavy music. Certainly the tendency toward experimentation and crossover between different genres that would characterize the evolution of extreme metal (the noteworthy kind, at least) has its roots in the grooves of this LP. Such courage was obviously never going to be properly rewarded, and so, after the relative failure of "Into The Pandemonium", Celtic Frost embarked on a path of self-sabotage, releasing two albums in glam style (in hindsight, telling signs of the band's artistic restlessness) that alienated their fans and led to their breakup, until a brief reunion in the last decade, during which the excellent "Monotheist" was recorded. Today, instead, we find Tom Warrior leading the experimental doom band Triptykon, a worthy continuation of the Celtic Frost adventure.

 SARCÓFAGO – INRI

(Brazil)

Corpse paint, leather jackets and bullet belts slung across their chests against a graveyard backdrop... yes, I've already written this, but it was to see if you were paying attention, and to underline just how seminal Destruction were. But their devoted followers Sarcófago also, from their dark and deep South American crypts, grunted loud and clear their own contribution to the birth of black metal.

One wonders whether Wagner Lamounier kicked himself over the success achieved by the band he had fronted in the first half of the 80s: it's hard to imagine the Brazilian frontman conceiving songs ethnically or ethically similar to those that would lead his former bandmates in Sepultura to sell records by the millions, so I really don't think so! Even if it hasn't padded his bank account, Lamounier can take comfort in having been one of the most respected godfathers of extreme metal, thanks to his second creature Sarcófago and, in particular, to their debut album "INRI" - a work far more ferocious and dark than Sepultura's shaky early steps ("Bestial Devastation" and "Morbid Vision" are certainly not the works for which the Cavalera brothers will be remembered).

This is 28 minutes of catacomb-deep music in which the tones of the voice and guitar - incredibly down-tuned and, in many cases, so slow as to border on doom - counterbalance drummer D.D. Crazy's obsessive use of blast-beats (a technique that would become almost a must in the black metal scene).

The most obvious influence, besides German thrash, is Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, but unlike the Swiss duo, Sarcófago seem to aim purely at feral violence. The riffs don't evoke anything you couldn't find at least a foot underground (soil that Lamounier seems to have his mouth caked with throughout the whole album), and the lyrics are a shocking (for the time) blend of satanism and horror.

Obviously this isn't a varied or particularly enjoyable listen by today's standards, now that extreme metal has proven itself an incredibly versatile genre.

And yet “INRI” can't be sidestepped by anyone looking to analyze the origins of black metal (of which it represents a bare-bones, basic, yet almost fully realized form). Proof of this lies not only in the statements of the usual Euronymous and of Gorgoroth, but also in the musical evolution of Darkthrone (particularly on their masterpiece “Panzerfaust,” which pays tribute to the funereal sound of our heroes – albeit with far more accomplished songwriting) and of Satyricon (who would record a cover of “INRI”), as well as the entire Finnish scene, especially Beherit, utterly devoted to the Sarcofago style.

TORMENTOR – Anno Domini

(Hungary)

The problem with today's music certainly isn't a lack of talent, but the fact that the internet has made us so distracted and fickle that it grants both genius and lucky mediocrity the same standard fifteen minutes of fame (while rampant downloading has stripped value from every single creative act). It's hard to imagine that back in the 1980s, you could change the world armed with nothing but stamped envelopes and a healthy dose of recklessness, creating a legend that has now lasted decades. And yet Hungary's Tormentor pulled it off, recording, from the other side of the Iron Curtain, an extreme metal masterpiece like “Anno Domini,” distributing it exclusively through tape trading among enthusiasts and becoming a legend for many kids in the Western Bloc.

A story that rivals the Rocky Balboa vs. Ivan Drago clash for sheer epic scale, with the difference that this one is absolutely true: a “pen pal” of Euronymous, Attila Gabor Csihar is a Budapest student who, in the cultural desert imposed by Eastern Europe's regimes, falls in love with heavy metal – yet instead of slavishly copying its formulas (as often happens in disadvantaged environments), he sets out to create a personal form of it, tied to his passion for history, horror cinema and theatre.

At 14 he founds the band Tormentor, with whom, two years later, he records the already-interesting demo “Seventh Day Of Doom” – at 17, when most human beings are still working up the courage to make a move on a classmate, he churns out an indisputable masterpiece like “Anno Domini,” without a record label behind him (good luck finding one in 1980s Hungary willing to release a metal record...) and with truly limited recording means.

From the very first minutes of listening, our heroes' approach reveals a class and personality that leave you breathless: after a brief intro echoing the theme from the film “Phantasm” (did someone say “Left Hand Path”? Well, Entombed's debut came two years later!), the track “Tormentor I” kicks in, with a rhythm section firing on all cylinders and a guitar grinding out intricate riffs with an evident gothic, Maiden-esque flavor. While instrumental incompetence is a constant among many of the bands examined so far, Tormentor, by contrast, play superbly, all while steering clear of any pointless virtuosity.

Then, when Attila enters the scene, it's as if the Apocalypse of Saint John has begun: never before had such a snarling voice been heard, yet one that was, in its own way, virtuosic. It doesn't feel like the frontman is pushing his tone to extremes to hide an inability to sing, but rather to embody a character – and the incredible control he displays throughout the record is proof of that. In short, black metal hasn't officially been born yet, but the genre's best vocalist has already emerged – and Euronymous will notice it right away, calling him in to record the genre's manifesto “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” in place of the (ahem) late Dead.

In just forty minutes, Tormentor push the bar of ambition and expressive power in extreme metal further than ever, delivering, among other things, an absolute genre classic like the wonderful “Elizabeth Bathory,” a shocking coupling of melody and power at a time when everyone was getting off exclusively on the latter – and thanks to a thriving trade in dubbed cassette tapes, plenty of people would take notice, not just in Norway but across the rest of Europe too.

MAYHEM – De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

(Norway)

Forty-six minutes of pure iconic status! Any account of black metal as it's currently understood has to start here, even though this wasn't the first album of its kind to be released – quite the opposite, it actually came relatively late. There can be no doubt, however, that it was Mayhem who blazed the trail in radicalizing the lessons of Venom and Bathory, introducing defining elements such as cold, evocative riffing and obsessive double-bass drumming. All of it wrapped in a tragic, diseased atmosphere that would go on to define black metal and all extreme metal to come. Founder and guitarist Øystein Aarseth, aka Euronymous, is universally regarded as the father of the Norwegian scene (and, more broadly, the man we have to thank for that Scandinavian country's entry into rock history), and proof of this can be found in the wonderful recordings of the German gig “Live In Liepzig,” dating back to 1990, where we find already-perfect versions of no fewer than four tracks that would appear on “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas,” the band's sole official studio output (if we set aside the thoroughly filthy, still very old-school “Deathcrush” EP from 1987) with Euronymous in the lineup.

A record that, as mentioned, was a long time coming: due to the proverbial slowness of its mastermind, driven by his perfectionism (or his laziness – sources disagree), certainly, but also because of far weightier matters like the suicide of vocalist Dead in 1991 and the murder of Euronymous himself at the hands of Varg “Count Grishnakh” Vikernes, his former protégé and, at the time, Mayhem's bassist, shortly after recording had wrapped. And yet, when the album's eerie black castle cover art hit record store shelves, it was clear to everyone that they were looking at the state of the art of a movement that had already become a genre in its own right.

We can start with the lineup, which was nothing short of stellar: alongside the six strings of Euronymous, inventor and master of a style as devastating as it was refined and varied, there's the earth-shaking rhythm of the man who would become "the black metal drummer", namely Jan Axel Blomberg aka "Hellhammer", whose double bass drumming saturates every groove of the album. On bass, the luxury guest Varg Vikernes, head of the Burzum project (regarding his involvement in the album, legend has it that after the leader's death, the tracks he recorded were erased – in reality, Hellhammer has stated he simply removed Varg's name from the album credits), and on second guitar Snorre "Blackthorn" Ruch, who had already made some fine demos with his band Thorne. But above all, "De Mysteriis dom Sathanas" is the crowning achievement of the greatest extreme vocalist of all time: after the suicide of Per Ingve Ohlin, known as "Dead" even while still alive, a frontman gifted with a deranged voice and undeniable stage charisma as well as author of all the band's lyrics, Euronymous, who certainly couldn't settle for just any replacement, brought in Attila Csihar from the former Soviet bloc, already the leader of the miraculous Tormentor. It's the perfect fit: the Hungarian singer's snarling, theatrical voice blends flawlessly with the barbaric medieval atmospheres (unmistakably Nordic and Central European) that emerge throughout the album. "Funeral Fog" opens the record with an assault on the senses never attempted before, built on an obsessive rhythm, guitars that are icy but never sterile, and a declamatory, mysterious voice that seems carried by the wind. The weave grows more complex on the incredible "Freezing Moon", featuring sickly melodic openings that stun the listener even more than the faster passages. And these are just the first two tracks, with the rest of the tracklist maintaining extremely high levels of creativity, from that gem of dark psychedelia "Life Eternal", with its cadenced, hypnotic pace, to the concluding, hieratic title track, a recitative tour de force from Attila Csihar.

Euronymous would never live to see his masterpiece finished, but without his genius, extreme metal would have grown up missing one of its main branches – probably the one that, nowadays, has borne the most fruit (poisoned from the root, of course). Today "Black Metal" means countless things, and yet no album embodies its spirit better than "De Mysteriis dom Sathanas".

DARKTHRONE – A Blaze In The Northern Sky

(Norway)

The birth and evolution of black metal happened largely through countless demos recorded and circulated via tape trading, as well as through the direct personal connections among many musicians. It's therefore pretty pointless trying to pin down which was the first record of the Norwegian scene to be released. It's likely, though, that the honor goes to "A Blaze In The Northern Sky", the second album by Darkthrone, following their death metal debut "Soulside Journey".

Obviously the album wouldn't deserve our attention for that reason alone, but as it happens, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto's band was among the main codifiers of the black metal gospel: in fact, what today gets labeled as "true" is essentially a rehash of the stylistic traits found in works like "Under A Funeral Moon" and "Transilvanian Hunger". And so is "A Blaze In The Northern Sky", of course, a work that, while pushing forward (we're in 1991), also explicitly pays its debts to past influences, Celtic Frost first and foremost.

Steeped in a recording so lo-fi that the term is a pure understatement, the album's six tracks alternate black metal onslaughts marked by Fenriz's obsessive drumming with old-school slowdowns that build an oppressive, dark atmosphere.

Compared to their comrades in the inner circle, Darkthrone don't favor external settings, be they warlike, evocative or mysterious, but instead dwell in the same catacombs as Hellhammer, Sarcofago and the like, lighting black candles and drawing pentacles on the walls. Over everything hangs the smell of sulfur constantly conjured by the trio, one that would have made the Venom dads proud.

Within the grooves of "A Blaze In The Northern Sky", in short, the same rot of the past decade's masterpieces resurfaces, but the concept of black metal expressed here is the one devised by Euronymous, who is in fact explicitly thanked in the album credits. It should also be noted that, compared to the works that immediately followed, this second album is bolder in its arrangements, not only inserting atmospheric passages worthy of a black sabbath, but even using acoustic guitars perfectly woven into the song structures, often paired with a murderous rhythm section.

The result: a classic – the first of Norwegian black metal, discography-wise, starting right here. It won't be Darkthrone's only masterpiece; in the future they would even find the nerve to tell the scene to go to hell, turning their hardline black metal into a thrilling punk-crust, right up to the recent "The Underground Resistance", which marks an epic turn in their output.

IMMORTAL – Pure Holocaust

(Norway)

You could call them the Manowar of black metal. Not for stylistic rigidity (a charge that, incidentally, is unfounded even for Joey DeMaio's band), but for their total dedication to the cause as well as their boundless, sincere love for metal music. And also for being joyously over-the-top in an environment as pathetic as it is self-serious, namely Euronymous's inner circle.

If you search YouTube for "the ten most ridiculous black metal videos", you'll notice they take up a good three spots (and, in this writer's opinion, "Call Of The Winter Moon" thoroughly deserved to win!). Anyone who thinks this is mere youthful posturing (after all, at their debut they were about 16-17 years old) will have to think again after looking at footage from their recent shows: they're perhaps the only black metal artists from the first wave who never gave up studs and corpsepaint.

Despite this, Immortal (who are essentially Olve "Abbath Doom Occulta" Eikemo and Harald "Demonaz Doom Occulta" Naevdal, though the latter has for some time now only served as the band's lyricist) have always steered clear of the ideological excesses of many of their peers and, above all, of the crime-news headlines. What mattered (and still matters) to the two was playing the most aggressive and arrogant black metal possible, moving from the shaky but thrilling debut "Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism", through the sonic holocaust of their mid-career period, to eventually and successfully land on a much more measured, classic style that still defines them today.

Although "Battles In The North" is generally considered their masterpiece from the black metal period, my personal preference goes to the earlier "Pure Holocaust", every bit as compositionally sharp, but without the annoying, excessive drum arrangement (blast beats like there's no tomorrow), which may serve the snowstorm atmosphere the band was going for, but is absolutely limiting when it comes to actually enjoying the record.

Album number two, on the other hand, is a continuous pleasure across all of its 33 minutes: setting aside the Bathory-esque black metal of the debut, the duo let themselves be influenced by the new Oslo sound, freezing the guitars and beefing up the rhythm section. Demonaz proves to be one of the scene's most creative axemen, filling the tracks with sinister harmonic passages and riffs that cut like a blade. "Unsilent Storms In The North Abyss", "The Sun No Longer Rises" and the monumental "As Eternity Opens" are the masterpieces of an album that doesn't waste a single instant of its destructive fury.

The lyrics, free of any pretension, deal exclusively with fantasy themes, evoking the imaginary world of Blashyrkh created by Demonaz, whose tales are narrated by Abbath's low, snarling voice.

Grim posturing aside, in short, Immortal have embodied from the very start the most fun and irreverent soul of black metal. And, not to be underestimated, they're among the few bands to boast a career essentially free of slumps. Any Immortal record, worst case scenario, is still an incitement to the most unhinged headbanging.

IMPALED NAZARENE – Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz

(Finland)

Take the very concept of black metal (or extreme metal in general), compress it into a can, like Piero Manzoni's shit, and set it off in your stereo, but watch out for the splatter of dubious nature that comes flying out.

That's the effect of the debut by Finland's Impaled Nazarene, the band with the most crassly blasphemous moniker of all time: 29 minutes of sonic butchery telling the tale of a black mass that has nothing to do with the ones staged by the likes of Black Widow or Coven. Here, just as with Venom, the Devil, stripped of any pretentiousness, is merely a sponsor for sex, booze and ultraviolence.

And the irony? For once I'll make you happy: in this constant quest for paradox, there's plenty of it. Maybe at the time of the debut it was less obvious, but in the following works it's undeniable, despite the stance taken by a thoroughly offended Mika Luttinen (the band's mastermind and the only constant presence from 1990 to today), who insists on being taken seriously. But frankly, with titles like "Steelvagina", "Motorpenis" and "I Eat Pussy For Breakfast", who'd want to?!

But it's not only for the sake of a good laugh that IN endear themselves to us: in order to reach their ground zero of violence, our heroes crack open the old trunk of early black metal influences and put its contents to glorious use. Motorhead and the snottiest strains of punk (the forgotten GG Allin chief among them) surface clearly through the album's minimal weave, achieving results very close to the early grind scene. "Tol Cormpt…" is a headlong dash toward Satan's asshole, something only Slayer's "Reign In Blood" had dared conceive before, and with a good deal more recklessness.

Then, sure, the following "Ugra-Karma" (early, brave dabbling with electronics in an extreme context) and "Finland Suomi Perkele" (decidedly more punky) are of higher quality. And yet, conceptually, the debut by Sir Luttinen's band (a man who has made paroxysm his reason for living) is essential for the way it freeze-dries black metal, not without parodic intent (just listen to "Goat Perversion" to believe it!). They were also among the first to drop corpse paint, favouring instead a nihilistic/post-atomic look better suited to their sound. Curiously, the other Finnish band that could have contended with Impaled Nazarene for a mention in this piece, Beherit, is instead defined by an almost maddening slowness.

BURZUM – Hvis Lyset Tar Oss

(Norway)

Christian Vikernes is a grim and wretched figure: already accused of assaulting Norway's cultural and human heritage through his involvement in the church burnings of the early '90s, in 1993 he stained himself further with the murder of his friend and mentor Øystein Aarseth, under circumstances that were, to put it mildly, squalid (a brawl over a pittance). As if that weren't enough, he's a committed proponent of Nazi-adjacent theories that he still doesn't hesitate to spread in his deranged interviews today.

Varg "Count Grishnackh" Vikernes (incidentally, the same poor wretch mentioned above) was one of the greatest poets of extreme metal. With the creation of the Burzum project he would produce the most evocative and mature pages of the entire first wave of the movement. Subgenres such as "pagan", "depressive" or "atmospheric" black metal are unthinkable without masterpieces like "Hvis Lyset Tar Oss" and "Filosofem", which arrived in stores after the already quite excellent "Burzum", "Aske" and "Det Som En Gang Var".

Even from the earliest work, it's clear that Varg has no interest whatsoever in death- or thrash-derived fury (something other artists of the time, Euronymous first and foremost, had not the slightest intention of doing without, despite certain shrewd official statements), but instead aims at conjuring atmospheres as majestic, wild and sorrowful as the Scandinavian winter landscape.

The picture the band's mastermind has in mind is already perfectly sketched out on "Hvis Lyset Tar Oss" — a work worth buying if only for the wonderful cover artwork by Norwegian painter Kittelsen. Just four tracks, each around 10 minutes long, dominated by monumental guitar riffs, often repeated to the point of obsession and so imposing they sound like organ chords.

If slowness and heaviness in metal had, up to that point, been the preserve of a genre like doom, Vikernes radically shifts the perspective, lifting the listener into the sky so they can take in with a single gaze a silent, uncontaminated world, whose mysterious, legendary bygone times are a source of wonder and heartache — with more than a passing resemblance to Bathory's records from their "Viking" period, "Twilight Of The Gods" above all. Indeed, almost all the lyrics speak of the loss of "what once was" (the album's opening track is titled, fittingly, "Det Som En Gang Var") in a time that perhaps never existed at all. The artist's much-discussed screaming (genuinely grating at times) is, ultimately, in service of this deep melancholy. And yet the record, as only masterpieces manage to do, never crosses over into sheer annoyance (something that will happen often enough with overzealous followers, like Kanwulf of Nargaroth), thanks to that sense of balance typical of the greats. On "Hvis Lyset Tar Oss", every chord, every riff and the solemn accompanying keyboards become, as you listen, part of the landscape itself, no different from rivers, forests and rocks. To speak of "ambient music", as with certain works by Brian Eno, is no exaggeration, and proof of this lies in the closing "Tomhet", a long instrumental piece made of just a handful of synth notes, conjuring an eerily suspended atmosphere.

The Count would do even better on the following "Filosofem", before prison kept him off the scene for almost two decades (upon his release he would produce two more masterpieces, "Belus" and "Fallen", before putting out a few predictable, by-the-numbers records); still, "HLTO" remains an incredibly innovative and daring work. More than a milestone, a cornerstone.

ROTTING CHRIST – Thy Mighty Contract

(Greece)

When it comes to black metal, the first country that rightly springs to mind is Norway. A distant second, and somewhat by osmosis, is neighbouring Sweden, whose scene—excellent as it is—never influenced the genre's evolution as much as the darker, Greek one. The Greeks deserve credit for carrying forward what Venom and Celtic Frost had started, doing so in an entirely personal way, and in the same period as the Norwegian "inner circle", no less. Less ferocious, perhaps, but every bit as wicked and thrilling!

The spearhead of this Mediterranean scene, Rotting Christ (a band name that sounds like it was pulled out of a schoolyard blasphemy contest), formed by brothers Sakis (vocals and guitar) and Themis (drums) Tolis, debuted in 1991 with the excellent EP "Passage To Arcturo". Their black metal has more than a little in common with that of Darkthrone (who that same year released "A Blaze in the Northern Sky"): favouring measured tempos over frenzied blasts, and atmosphere over sheer aggression. What stands out in particular is an evident passion for every strand of metal: classic metal, doom, and even death metal—much despised by Scandinavian blackster types.

These traits would already reach full maturity on their debut full-length, "Thy Mighty Contract", a metal masterpiece tout court, on a par with the following "Non Serviam". The eight tracks that make it up are a triumphal march for the lord of the underworld, on the night when the stars will finally go dark and hell will reign on earth. Presiding over it all is Sakis Tolis, one of the finest guitarists in metal—not because he's a virtuoso (Satan forbid!), but because he does simple things with staggering effectiveness. The riffs he pulls out on gems like "Exiled Archangels" and "The Fourth Knight Of Revelation" would, with different arrangements, sit perfectly on epic or classic metal records (and it's no coincidence that, at least over the last decade, one of the leading scenes in those genres has been the Greek one).

His brother Themis, for his part, pounds away at the drums, crafting a minimal rhythm section that's nonetheless perfectly suited to the atmosphere, light-years away from the supersonic onslaughts of the likes of Hellhammer and Frost. Adding further shine to the tracks is the use of keyboards (among the very first in black metal), never excessive or symphonic, but sinisterly evocative.

Dark epic music, devoid of Nordic chill, yet with a Lovecraftian allure that hasn't faded with time. These are the very traits that would define the Tolis brothers' entire output, right up to the present day, with unwavering quality.

CRADLE OF FILTH – The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh

(England)

I can already picture a great many raised eyebrows, and imagine the objections of tiresome purists about this English sextet's lack of credentials. A gothic band using black metal as a pretext? Perhaps later in their career (starting with the excellent, and hugely successful, "Dusk And Her Embrace"), but certainly not on this splendid debut. Commercial sellouts? Once you're past 15, physically or mentally, I don't see how that could be considered a flaw—not to mention how amusing it is to hear someone call music this heavy and dark "commercial". I'll go further: if black metal today is one of the most beloved and widely played genres, that's partly thanks to the huge success COF achieved around the mid-90s, not only for (re)bringing the genre out of Scandinavia, but also for being among the first to show just how versatile it could be. In their music, black, death, gothic influences, orchestration and keyboards galore all coexist alongside a serious passion for Iron Maiden. And this on an album that hit the shelves before Dimmu Borgir's "For All Tid" and Emperor's "In The Nightside Eclipse". If those aren't merits...

Last but not least, the band fronted by the histrionic singer Dani Filth (able to switch with nonchalance from an ultrasonic scream to a dark death growl) was among the first to reject the po-faced atmospheres of the Norwegian scene, favouring dark, vampiric, pulp-novel settings dripping with blood and sex, both in the lyrics and the artwork. And that too, if you like, is a strong sign of openness to the outside world.

We could go on talking about "The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh" purely for its historical importance, but that would mean forgetting that much of its tracklist still sounds exceptional today. From the wonderful opening one-two of the title track and the insinuating "The Forest Whispers My Name", all the way to the absolute masterpiece that closes the record, "Summer Dying Fast", the album feels like a journey through the depths of some dark, abandoned castle, the perfect soundtrack to a Mario Bava gothic horror. All of it wrapped in flawless production and, for the time, thoroughly innovative arrangements.

Unlike most first-wave black metal bands, however, COF, after the end of the 90s, went into decline with a string of uninspired and fairly repetitive works, even if still big sellers. Evidently the English lacked the knack for reinvention that their Norwegian counterparts possessed.

ENSLAVED – Frost

(Norway)

"Frost" battled it out right down to the wire with its predecessor "Vikingligr Veldi", which is equally deserving of a place on this list. These are two records that, despite both being released in that same fateful year of 1994, differ considerably: the first is monolithic, evocative and dark, its successor decidedly more dynamic and imaginative. The reason for preferring the Vikings of black metal's second effort has to do with its historical importance—if it isn't the most imitated record in the history of extreme music, it's not far off.

There's frequent debate over whether the "viking" and "pagan" subgenres should really be classed as black metal, given the undeniable influences of Bathory and the American epic metal scene (Cirith Ungol chief among them). Well, "Frost", together with Ulver's "Bergtatt", is the clearest proof that they should. And not just because of lyrics steeped in Norse legend, but above all because of music that's devastating yet unspeakably evocative and melodic. There's nothing of Mayhem or Darkthrone's dark malevolence in the grooves of "Frost", but rather a genuine passion—one that would set a precedent—for the history, myths and traditions of their homeland. This attitude is reflected in the band's look too, which eschews spikes, corpse paint and satanic nicknames in favour of a style more tied to the Scandinavian past.

After the atmospheric intro that gives the album its title, "Loke" opens ominously before breaking into a wild gallop, as Grutle Kjellson's shrill voice narrates the deeds of the antagonist of the Norse gods. But the frantic pace of this opening track remains an exception on a record dominated by long, measured pieces with only moderate use of the blast beat so popular among other blackster acts. The intricate "Fenris" and "Svarte Vidder" are like a flight over the Norwegian mountains, where, in glimpses, one can already spot the progressive influences that would define the band's "mature" career. Leader and composer Ivar Bjørnson ventures, beyond the systematic use of keyboards, into numerous arpeggios and melodic passages that heighten the tracks' epic breadth, going as far as attempting something of a "near-ballad" on the closing "Isolders Dronning".

After “Frost”, the band would enter a fairly transitional period, from which they'd emerge brilliantly in the 2000s with a series of masterpiece albums blending extreme metal, progressive and psychedelia. None, admittedly, as influential as “Frost”.

EMPEROR – In The Nightside Eclipse

(Norway)

When people discuss Emperor's full-length debut, following the self-titled 1992 EP, they tend to emphasize the importance of introducing keyboards to the movement, crowning the quartet as the forefathers of symphonic black. Hmm... Aside from the fact that keyboards were already being used extensively by contemporaries (see Enslaved) or predecessors (Burzum), and that Cradle Of Filth's debut — released earlier, no less — was decidedly more "symphonic", the band's real merits (led by Ihsahn and Samoth; a third founding member, Mortiis, shaken by the criminal exploits of the inner circle, thought it best to take refuge in Sweden to avoid the attentions of the law — we'll meet him again in an unusual and worthwhile solo career) lie elsewhere.

First and foremost, in hybridizing progressive music with black metal: Emperor's songs share the same structure, free of formal restrictions, as bands like King Crimson and their peers — on top of a technical ability well above average. The parallels would become even more evident as the band's short career progressed, and in the solo albums of frontman Ihsahn.

Furthermore, “In The Nightside Eclipse” plunges black metal into an esoteric, fantastical atmosphere (amplified by Pytten's "murky" production) that seems far removed from the Nordic setting of much of the scene's bands, yet is incredibly evocative. But above all, the band's debut doesn't put a foot wrong. The dark intro is the omen of an approaching storm, which materializes in the devastating “Into The Infinity Of Thoughts”. Ihsahn sings like a fury, moving from the shrillest scream to the most guttural growl, while his bandmates weave intricate yet instinctively enjoyable textures around him. “Cosmic Keys To My Creation And Time” opens with one of the most beautiful and evocative riffs in the history of extreme metal, while “Towards The Pantheon” shifts just as brilliantly from dream to nightmare.

The album's gems, however, are found in the closing one-two: “I Am The Black Wizard” is marked by a dark grandeur that sends chills both in its devastating opening and its stately, Ossianic finale. “Inno a Satana” is pure black-mass solemnity, with the frontman's voice seeming to rise to the heavens (were we not certain it was instead aiming straight for the bowels of the earth), and the guitars trading brilliantly sinister phrases. A fitting close to one of the most significant albums in black metal history.

The band's subsequent troubles (drummer Bård Faust's arrest for murder, and guitarist Samoth's for the desecration of cemeteries and sacred sites) would undermine the group's stability, though they would still manage to deliver at least one more masterpiece: the elegant “Anthems Of The Welkin At Dusk”.

ULVER – Bergtatt

(Norway)

Look up Ulver's page on Wikipedia and check the "genre" field: no fewer than nine categories are listed, from "black metal" to "psychedelic rock", by way of "trip-hop", "electronic" and "folk metal", proof of the sheer versatility and inexhaustible curiosity of singer Kristoffer "Garm" Rygg and his cohorts.

Never standing still and never derivative, the wolves debut in 1995 with an album that marks a turning point in the black metal scene, coming after the first wave of masterpieces (and thus with the looming risk of standardization). “Bergtatt”, a concept album inspired by an ancient Scandinavian legend about a young girl bewitched and "taken" by the mountain, sets out to move beyond the "Mayhem template" and succeeds right from the first of its five tracks: “I Troldskog Faren Vild” opens with a drum roll and an electric-ballad chord progression, over which the frontman's trained, and (gasp!) completely clean, vocals soar. The track stays wonderfully measured for almost all of its 8 minutes, while the voices multiply with a magical, disorienting effect, almost like a church choir, allowing themselves a shift in tempo only in the finale, with an almost "epic"-style passage that wouldn't look out of place on one of Manowar's early records or a Bathory work.

“Soelen Gaaer Bag Aase Ned” (all the lyrics are in Old Norwegian) goes even further, opening with a melancholy acoustic guitar progression accompanied by a flute, suddenly interrupted by a black metal outburst that is nonetheless completely devoid of the coldness and malevolence of other bands on the scene — proof that for Ulver, black metal is above all a means of recreating the epic quality of ancient Scandinavian folk songs. It's no coincidence that it's from “Bergtatt” onward that one can truly speak of "folk metal" in the fullest sense.

Utterly foreign to the Nordic-satanic posturing so dear to the likes of Immortal or Darkthrone, the band, despite their very young age, maintain an admirable musical and narrative rigor throughout the record, rich in gripping choirs, attacks as fierce as the winter wind, and acoustic interludes that are never predictable, coming close to the style — albeit with greater lightness and variety — of early Enslaved. The arrangements are varied, carefully crafted and, very often, unusual (for instance, in some of the more aggressive passages the bass doesn't chase the speed of the other instruments, but stays solemn and slow, grinding out notes and creating a disorienting polyrhythm), all without ever losing spontaneity.

Folk metal and Viking metal are born here too, but we're talking about an extraordinary work destined to remain unique in its genre. After this debut, Ulver would continue their work of destabilizing the black metal scene, first releasing an entirely acoustic album (“Kveldssanger”) and then an extremely heavy, decidedly lo-fi record like “Nattens Madrigal” (both masterpieces!), before deciding they'd given enough to metal and beginning to drift away from the genre starting with their next concept album based on the poetry of William Blake, very much in an avant-garde style, and finally ushering in the new millennium with a wonderful electronic record titled “Perdition City”.

VED BUENS ENDE – Written In Water

(Norway)

If Norway was the bottleneck within which black metal as we know it today incubated, it's likewise from that Scandinavian country that we must start when discussing the broadening of the genre's stylistic, and later geographic, scope from 1995 onward.

Because it's precisely from that year that people would begin speaking of "post" or "avant-garde" black metal, and they'd do so mainly because of this work, in which extreme metal, jazz, and experimentation reminiscent of the Louisville scene coexist.

Yusef “Vicotnik” Parvaz on vocals and guitars, Hugh “Skoll” Mingray on bass and Carl-Michael “Aggressor” Eide behind the kit are members (or former members) of major bands like Arcturus, Ulver and Aura Noir, and together they were Ved Buens Ende – authors of a single work as seminal as it is hard to digest. Much like “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Written In Water” is a mysterious, maybe frustrating monolith, but one that can't be ignored (at most, you can piss on it).

Setting aside icy guitars, epic or esoteric atmospheres, suffocating rhythms, Satan and Odin, the trio opt for an abstract sound with an evident jazz matrix, though undeniably sinister. Vicotnik's guitar roams freely through territories of elusive nightmare, the kind of which only vague impressions remain the next morning, now scraping mercilessly, now indulging in dark arpeggios with a psychedelic aftertaste. The murky production and the vocals (desperate yet distant) heighten the music's dreamlike feel. Skoll and Aggressor, for their part, set the pace of the journey with an unpredictable rhythm section full of nuance.

I repeat: this is not an easy record, and, all things considered, memorizing its individual passages is no small feat. But it's a fundamental work for how it pointed, right in the midst of the black metal scene's explosion, to a "beyond" that was hardly imaginable within the folds of the genre. Many recent bands, like the rightly praised Deathspell Omega, owe an enormous debt to the “metal abstraction” of “Written in Water”.

MARDUK – Heaven Shall Burn… When We Are Gathered

(Sweden)

While the black metal of the early '90s is mostly a Norwegian affair, the scene in neighboring Sweden, better known at the time for its death metal output, made its mark through sheer violence and intransigence. While their neighbors pondered the expressive possibilities of extreme music and Scandinavian folk tradition, the Swedes were busy slitting goats' throats on pentagrams and, amid the blood, deflowering your thirteen-year-old daughters with old thrash records playing in the background. In short: satanism without limits, and red-hot metal!

It's hard to pick one band from the wondrous triad of Marduk-Dark Funeral-Dissection, but in the end I'll go with the first: seniority, popularity and, above all, consistent quality tip the scales in favor of guitarist Morgan Steinmeyer Hakansson's band, the only constant presence across the group's many lineup changes over the years.

Another problem is choosing which of their records to feature in this rundown, since, if you set aside the immature early efforts still heavily tied to death metal – the “Fuck Me Jesus” EP (and you haven't even seen the cover yet!) and the full-length “Dark Endless” – the band didn't put a foot wrong at least until the mid-2000s, with some dizzying peaks like the point-blank gut-shot of “Panzer Division Marduk” (1999) and this stunning fourth album, the first to feature the abrasive voice of Erik “Legion” Hagstedt.

A hallmark of the Swedish approach is a mix of unheard-of violence and epic melody. Far from alternating dissonant assaults with keyboard or acoustic-guitar interludes, Marduk never let up, blending “classic” metal-school riffs with steamrolling rhythms, like a car hurtling at 300 km/h with its headlights off in the dead of night that, for some miraculous reason, stays glued to the asphalt.

The opening “Beyond The Grace Of God” sets the coordinates perfectly, with that gorgeous early-'80s-school guitar submerged in a sonic inferno. What follows is a string of thrilling power black charges (“The Black Tormentor Of Satan” and “Glorification Of The Black God”, which opens with a quote from Mussorgsky's “Night on Bald Mountain”), harrowing doom slow-downs (“Dracul Va Domni Din Nou In Transilvania”) and devastating para-grind attacks (“Darkness It Shall Be”).

Metalheads to the core, Marduk have always understood black metal as an exhilarating carnival ride to stir our inner child through sheer battering-ram force and gratuitous blasphemy. Not innovators like Mayhem, nor brilliantly creative like Ulver, but proud blacksmiths who, as such, hit incredibly hard.

SATYRICON – Nemesis Divina

(Norway)

“Shadowthrone”, Satyricon's second album (following the debut “Dark Medieval Times”, not without interesting ideas but decidedly immature) is a masterpiece that would have every right to feature on this list: incisive, varied sound, great creativity in the arrangements, top-notch production and a flawless tracklist featuring gems like “In The Mist By The Hill” and “Dominions Of The Satyricon”.

There's a problem, though: the follow-up, “Nemesis Divina”, is not only superior to it, but is perhaps, quality-wise, the finest work (though not the most important) of the first wave of black metal. And it's no coincidence that, after its release, every band on the scene, Satyricon included, began drifting away from the genre, each seeking its own new direction: frankly, beyond “Nemesis Divina”, it was hard to go further while keeping to those same stylistic tropes.

It's also the album that contains “Mother North”, and that alone would be enough! If you want to give a friend an idea of what black metal is, play them these six minutes, which leave out absolutely nothing: gripping Viking melody, miraculously icy riffs brimming with pathos, battle-ready percussion and solemn atmospheric interludes. It sounds like the soundtrack to a film you'd give a finger to see (though you'll have to make do with the accompanying video, notable only for the “barely legal” pin-up who appears in it).

But it's not the only killer track that Satyr (vocals, guitar, bass and keyboards, as well as the band's sole composer), Frost (a drummer less devastating than Hellhammer, but decidedly more technical and imaginative) and Kvelduv (aka Nocturno Culto of Darkthrone, second guitarist only on this album) drop on the record. Even the opener “Dawn Of A New Age” astonishes with its variety and creativity, a chase of wonderfully intricate riffs building to a chilling, cadenced finale. “Forhekset” and “Immortality Passion” transport the listener to an imagined Nordic Middle Ages and evoke images of masterpieces like “The Virgin Spring” or “The Seventh Seal” by Ingmar Bergman, while the closing “Trascendental Requiem Of Slaves” is a sinister ambient piece.

As mentioned, this is probably an unsurpassable record within its genre: starting with the follow-up “Rebel Extravaganza”, Satyricon would abandon black metal to pursue a path (littered with controversial albums, some of which are, objectively, not very successful) toward a starker, slower metal with clear industrial influences. A brave choice, even if the band would never again come close to the heights of “Nemesis Divina”.

WINDIR – Arntor

(Norway)

Love for the history, myths and traditions of one's own people is one of the many facets of black metal, probably the one that has most taken root in the imagination of its fans, on a par with satanism and esotericism. Almost every European country (and beyond) has its own bands that fuse extreme sonorities with folk melodies, rigorously using their native language or dialect, following the path blazed by Bathory and Enslaved.

Generally speaking, we talk about "folk metal"; more specifically, when the influences are Scandinavian or Baltic and the epic quality is particularly warlike, we talk about "viking metal" — and, to worthily represent this scene amid a vast and talented field of contenders, I choose the artistic achievement of the late Terje Bakken, known as "Valfar", and his band Windir.

Arntor was a farmer-warrior (a Windir, precisely) who sided with the Norwegian king Magnus Erlingsson, deposed by the wicked Faroese usurper (and therefore something of an outsider) Sverre Sigurdsson, meeting the fate history always reserves for the good guys: brutally killed by the despot's henchmen while defending his own farm.

So much for the concept. What makes the second Windir album a masterpiece is its masterful execution: the fusion of Scandinavian folk and extreme music isn't limited to alternating fast passages with melodic inserts, as was often the case in the past — instead, across all seven tracks on the record, the metal is shaped to fit the form of folk music, deviating from it only just enough to avoid its inherent repetitiveness.

A perfect example of Valfar's style can already be found in the album's prologue: a melancholy accordion theme, made sturdier and more epic first by the pairing with the rhythm instruments, and then by the electric guitar that reshapes its structure. It's the classical that dictates the rules, which the modern breaks whenever a new perspective needs to be found.

It's an introduction that also serves as a manifesto for the rest of the album: rather than relying solely on speed and aggression (which are nonetheless present), the mastermind's guitar rarely dwells on riffing, preferring instead to play on high notes, creating atmospheres that are by turns harsh ("Arntor, Ein Windir") and dreamlike ("Svartesmeden Og Lundamyrstrollet"), leaving it to the phenomenal rhythm section to keep the intensity high. The synthesizers and accordion tint everything with livid Nordic atmospheres, as do the warlike choirs, especially on the tracks where the folk influence is stronger ("Kampen"). At its peak, it's a flawless fusion of every soul of the band ("Kong Hydnes Haug", "Ending").

In short, an unquestionable milestone of a (sub)genre now fully aware of its own uniqueness and potential.

Valfar left us far too soon, but we can take comfort in thinking that, somewhere among the Norwegian fjords, his spirit now walks alongside Arntor and the other heroes of his pantheon

ABORYM – Kali Yuga Bizarre

(Italy)

A well-placed iron-fisted punch aimed at every kind of purism, thrown by one of the most creative and daring outfits on the black metal scene. In 1999, the debut of this Puglia-and-Rome-based band carried enough weight to put Italy back at the center of extreme music (a scene the country had, after all, helped codify thanks to the likes of Bulldozer and Necrodeath), in years when, north of the Brenner Pass, all we seemed to export were dragons, goblins and ultra-kitsch orchestrations.

"Kali Yuga Bizzarre" is such a masterpiece that it earns forgiveness even for its obvious flaws: a murky production that doesn't do it justice, excessively redundant arrangements and, above all, a pointless, gratuitous fascist rant dropped in the middle of the record.

That's because the album codifies — and does so brilliantly — what would come to be defined as "industrial metal", wrapping beloved black metal in layer upon layer of electronics, thereby bringing to full maturity the intuitions of Celtic Frost (the blasphemous "One In Their Pride"), Impaled Nazarene (the album's title quotes a track from "Ugra-Karma", and it's easy to see why) and Mysticum.

The effect is disorienting (all the more so given that the album's concept revolves around the mystery rites of ancient Rome) and undeniably compelling. The flirtation with synthetic music doesn't stop at the use of a drum machine: the pervasion of circuitry into the diseased flesh of metal is total, as if we were inside a Cronenberg film (telling, in this sense, is the cover of a Coil track, "Hellraiser"). The rhythm section alternates black-metal-derived blast beats with break beats lifted from the most obsessive strains of techno. The keyboards slip into the tracks like so many sharpened blades. But above all, what gives the record its inhuman edge are the voices of Yorga and the guiding spirit Attila Csihar (a guest on three tracks), true damned souls dropped into a hyper-technological setting.

Wonderfully, "Kali Yuga Bizzarre" also avoids the trap of the operating-room atmosphere typical of many similar works — one that Aborym themselves would occasionally fall into later on. The sound is at times ice-cold, but never at risk of losing its personality, thanks to the enthusiasm of a debut record and the band's passion for classic metal, made explicit in tracks like the masterpiece "Roma Eterna Urbs".

While in Scandinavia (and elsewhere), many of the black metal scene's "second movers" were sinking into the tired rehashing of Mayhem-esque tropes (the pointless "true Norwegian black metal"), the experimentation and appetite for risk-taking typical of the genre found a home in the rest of Europe, our own country included. It's curious that a genre often (not unfairly) considered far-right has always been marked by a pronounced progressive, internationalist spirit.

WEAKLING – Dead As Dream

(USA)

Up until the 2000s, the United States had had no significant presence in the world of black metal. Sure, early Slayer had always been an essential influence, and some artists from the Norwegian scene (Varg Vikernes chief among them) had voiced their admiration for the likes of Von (authors of a single, rather questionable demo), but it was only after entering the new millennium that people began talking about USBM (United States Black Metal) as one of the most revolutionary movements on the extreme music landscape worldwide.

"Dead As Dream", the sole offspring of California's Weakling (a name taken from a Swans song – and that's no coincidence!), can be considered not only the founding stone of that scene but also one of its most emulated templates (just ask the acclaimed Wolves in the Throne Room). Not to mention an unquestionable masterpiece.

To paraphrase what was written about "Pacific Rim" on the well-known blog "i400calci", the mere five tracks that make up the band's entire body of work are "huge, so huge you could shit yourself". I couldn't put it better myself when it comes to the sense of disorientation that overwhelms you listening to "Dead As Dream". It makes you feel tiny, utterly at the mercy of terrifying, majestic events. And that's true from the frightening riff that opens "Cut Their Grain And Place Fire Therein" onward, like a mass of pitch-black clouds gathering on the horizon. From there on, everything is monolithic: the guitars are, even in melodic interludes like the disorienting one that opens the title track, as are the keyboards, the earth-shaking rhythm section and the searing voice of frontman John Gossard.

The primary influence is, evidently, Burzum. The vocals make that explicit, but the sense of environmental grandeur is the clearest trait d'union. The difference is that Varg's absolute point of reference was the untouched beauty of his own homeland, while the canvases painted by Gossard & co. have more to do with universal human anxieties and suggestions. There is, in fact, nothing distinctly Nordic about Weakling's atmospheres. Even the riffs aren't as jagged as the tenets of more canonical black metal would demand, but thick and numbing, almost doom-like. The use of noise and hissing textures, especially on the closing "Disasters In The Sun", instead recalls the New York noise school, though without its abstraction, keeping the sense of tragedy running through the whole record intact.

In short, "Dead As Dream" invents "American black metal" as a new conception of the genre. And it does so by gifting us 76 minutes of tremendous beauty.

NEGURA BUNGET – Om

(Romania)

Yes, the album's title doesn't deceive. Can extreme metal be transcendental and meditative? By this point in the article, you should be answering yes. Even if you're already familiar with the drone-metal of Sunn O))) and their ilk.

Romania's Negura Bunget had, in truth, already accustomed listeners to unconventional works, miles away from canonical black metal. Starting out in the vein of folk-metal, the band's first four albums are marked by a growing focus on spirituality, particularly tied to the Transylvanian land. "'N Crugu Badului", for instance, across its four lengthy compositions, tells of the forest's transformations from one season to the next. Nothing to do with inverted crosses and armies lined up on battlefields.

"Om" goes further still, transcending local boundaries to deliver a work that speaks to the human soul, one in which folk elements appear in smaller doses than before, as do the more full-throttle black metal moments. What permeates almost the entire record is a spiritual quest oriented toward light and the beyond, understood both as a higher form of existence and as post-existence.

"Tesarul de Lumini" is so intense it hurts, like a dawn arriving all at once that turns everything to stone where it stands. Ten minutes of searing beauty that come close to touching mystical calm amid waves of distortion.

The rest of the album is nothing less than the worthy continuation of an inner journey in which memories, anguish and rage are purified through meditation. The various emotional states are rendered now through ambient sounds, now through folk inserts, now through metal ferocity. Everything holds together in wondrous balance, right up to the catharsis of the two instrumentals that represent the first and second Om – enlightenment attained.

Along their path, the band all but abandons jagged guitar riffs, favouring full chords with a more spacious feel. Bells, percussion and xylophones heighten the sense of wonder along a road that may not be easy, but is incredibly fascinating and formative – for the listener and for black metal as a whole.

ALCEST – Souvenirs D’un Autre Monde

(France)

And there was light! When, in 2007, "Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde" made its way into download sites... err... into record shops, the effect was, to put it mildly, disorienting. It wasn't as if an introspective, dilated and totally non-aggressive take on black metal was unheard of (Mortiis, who even released albums of pure keyboards, Agalloch, the "depressive" scene, right up to the "meditative" metal of Negura Bunget), but what was shocking, and to some extent still is, about the full-length debut of the Avignon-based one man band (namely Stephane "Naige" Paut, already drummer for the equally brilliant Peste Noire) is the total absence of any form of negativity, harshness, tension, coldness, warlike epicness... in short, of all the sensations that, up to that point, had been evoked by the entirety of black metal's output.

Some (not many, actually — contrary to one of the many clichés on the subject, the average metalhead has an enviably open mind when it comes to music) will turn up their nose and call it a shoegaze record. And they'd be wrong, though not entirely: the influence of My Bloody Valentine and the like is undeniable (paradoxically, though, "Souvenirs…" sounds far less abrasive than "Loveless") but the metal — indeed, black metal — nature of the work is beyond question.

That's because Naige has crafted a perfect "negative" of the genre: where black metal's distortions are sharp and icy, his are thick and enveloping. Where the genre's typical vocals are shrill like a witch's or a demon's, his are ethereal like a fairy's or an angel's. Where other bands' melodic interludes with acoustic guitar and keyboards are used to build sinister atmospheres, he turns everything luminous and serene. Where his peers splice in the sounds of battle or freezing winds, he records the voices of children playing at nursery school. And so on, through six wonderful tracks that, for once, take the listener not across bloodied battlefields, but for a stroll among the clouds.

In short, black metal turned inside out, while still respecting its classic structure. A work like this could only have emerged from within the scene, and specifically from the French one, one of the most creative of the new millennium.

Alcest represents the necessary yang to the dark, icy yin of black metal as it's universally understood.

NACHTMYSTIUM – Assassins: Black Meddle Part. 1

(USA)

Who the main influence of American band Nachtmystium (flagship act of USBM) might be is made fairly clear by the titles of their best album and the short (near-)instrumental that opens it, namely "One Of These Nights".

Main, but not only: over its brief runtime (vinyl-length, indeed), the record shifts genre in almost every track, while still retaining an unmistakable black metal substrate. A prime example of the band's eclecticism is the closing medley "Seasick", whose three parts revisit, in turn, psychedelia (of the Canterbury variety — it could easily be stitched into the middle of "Tubular Bells"), progressive rock and dark-wave.

And what about the aggression? The bludgeoning that defines the genre and that we all love so much? Don't worry, it's not missing. In fact, right after the aforementioned intro comes one of the most incredible tracks in this whole feature: "Assassins" is a line of fire unleashed by an army of kamikazes advancing, weapons in hand, straight towards their target. An exhilarating riff, searing vocals and a blessed return to the use of a refrain (a spot-on one, at that), topped off with a swelling coda that's a rousing anthem to violent action.

With a masterpiece already in the bag, the rest of the album finds the Americans navigating expertly between acid-soaked tracks ("Code Negative", complete with a warped organ), uncompromising black metal violence ("Your True Enemy") and even forays into melodeath ("Ghost Of Grace"). All of it seasoned with ambient touches, like the unsettling one that closes the title track, or the instrumental "Away From Light".

"Assassins" confirmed the excellent health of the American scene in the 2000s and the boundless curiosity of Blake Judd and co. A work that further shatters pointless genre boundaries, followed by equally inspired, if less startling, releases such as "Addicts" and "Silencing Machine".

PESTE NOIRE – L'ordure A L'etat Pur

(France)

From a chronological standpoint, the fourth album by the French band Peste Noire (in practice, the mastermind "La Sale Famine de Vafunde" and a handful of collaborators) is the perfect closing chapter of this discussion: we started with the fetid, minimal proto-thrash of Venom and Hellhammer, and we end with this kind of UFO made up of five tracks spanning an hour of music, in which, among the hundred thousand definitions swirling around your head while listening, "progressive" simply doesn't come up. "Black metal", on the other hand, is the one that surfaces most often, and not just because of the band's background. Another spot-on one, however blasphemous it may sound, is "patchanka"... you read that right: what does the combat-rock of multiethnic, progressive collectives like Mano Negra and Les Négresses Vertes have in common with the extreme project of a committed nationalist (who nonetheless spent years touring with an Asian bassist, calling it "a provocation against the far-right thugs infesting black metal") who's in love with the Middle Ages and the ancient history of his own country? A man who despises the values of the French Revolution so much that he calls himself "a punch in Marianne's ass"?!

I'm shirking my duties as a critic here, but honestly, to get an answer you're far better off just listening to this work of art yourselves – in particular, the first five minutes of "Casse, Pêches, Fractures et Traditions" will do: it moves from a desolate arpeggio, accompanied by howls, reverb and Famine's shrill, theatrical voice, to a bare-bones riff somewhere between hard rock and classic metal. Look away for a second and the track has morphed into a folk ballad complete with accordion, only to speed back up with a ska rhythm and a horn section.

I realize that, put this way, it sounds like a shapeless jumble, but the paradox is that "L'Ordure..." is a record that's genuinely disorienting yet remarkably enjoyable, despite its long runtime and underlying heterogeneity. Because every single moment is impeccably written and put to the best possible use: you never know what the next two minutes will bring, but after a while you realize it's bound to be something pleasantly surprising, whether it's a black-metal onslaught, an electronic interlude built on samples from a porn film, or an acoustic guitar accompanying the sweet voice of guest vocalist Audrey Sylvain. Famine seems to set himself no limits, and his sheer nerve pays off, backed as it is by a pen that's unfailingly inspired, turning absolute variety and unpredictability into a form of artistic coherence, with a welcome rejection of any kind of virtuosity for its own sake. What's more, the shifts between styles are never jarring, and everything seems to fit together perfectly, like the tiles of one huge, terrifyingly evocative mosaic.

Speaking of unlikely definitions, with "L'ordure A L'etat Pur" Famine has effectively created black metal's own "Song Cycle".

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22/02/2026