First Wave of Black Metal

First Wave of Black Metal!!

Everybody knows about bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone and all the bands that came out of Norway. But I feel the First wave is the best wave of Black Metal. You have bands like Venom that coined the term Black Metal that pretty much influenced the whole movement. The First album Welcome to Hell was more N.W.O.B.H.M/ Speed Metal where black metal was more just straight forward raw speed metal. After that in 1981 Sodom formed and started playing there brand of raw dirty metal and in 1984 released their EP In the Sign of Evil and in 1986 Obsessed by Cruelty after that album they became just a regular straight up Thrash band but still maintained in my opinion the bass sound of Venom in there later years. Then in 1982 you have formations of Destruction from Germany and Hellhammer from Switzerland

Hellhammer only released 3 demos and one EP and then they split up and became Celtic Frost. Celtic Frost was pretty much Hellhammer with better musicianship they left that style after only 2 albums and they started experimenting with different styles. Destruction on the other hand released there debut EP Sentence of Death in 1984 and their first album Infernal Overkill in 1985 they were still Black Thrash during this time but after Infernal Overkill they became just a straight up Thrash band. In Sweden in 1983 a band named Bathory appeared start making very low-fi metal with inhuman vocal style that wasn’t heard during that time. Bathory had 4 albums that were very influential to the Black Metal scene to come but then after the 4 album they started playing a new style of metal called Viking metal. By this time Most of the bands were either Thrash Bands or playing different styles of metal

 

 In Hungary, Sweden and Norway three bands would play a crucial part in the New wave of Black Metal. These bands where Tormentor which had Attila Csihar on vocals (who would later play for Mayhem) and Morbid from Sweden who had Dead on vocals (who would also play with Mayhem) And Mayhem from Norway which this band took a lot of influence from Bathory, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer, and Sodom and early death metal bands and would create what we know now as Black metal. So in the late 80’s and early 90’s bands like Burzum, Emperor, Darkthrone (actually started out as a death metal band) and Immortal starting creating their version of Black Metal and pretty much created Black Metal as we know it today. In the 90’s the underground scene was ruled by black and death metal bands then finally in the mid 90’s bands like Desaster and Aura Noir started bringing back that First wave of Black metal style or Black/Thrash whatever you want to call it. These bands were reviving this style and now there are a lot of bands in the metal scene playing this type of metal. Nocturnal, Cruel Force, Bunker 66 and many more. Even though The First Wave Of Black Metal didn’t last really long it had a very large impact on the whole extreme metal scene.

Also by the way I know there are a lot of other bands in the first wave of black metal I’m just putting the ones I feel were the most important.