First-Wave Black Metal
Located in 2 routes
First-wave black metal is raw, fast speed/thrash metal pushed toward chaos and overt Satanic theatre rather than a fully codified sound. Guitars are distorted and loose with biker-thrash chugging and tremolo flourishes, drums hammer at speed-metal tempos with primitive double-kick, and vocals snarl, bark or croak in a hoarse blackened rasp well below later shrieking. Production is murky, blown-out and amateurish almost by accident, lending an unholy garage filth. The mood is occult, blasphemous and lurid - pentagrams, hellfire and ritual - laying the aesthetic and lyrical blueprint the Norwegian wave would later refine.
History
The wave is named after Venom's 1982 LP Black Metal, whose Newcastle trio's sloppy, satanic speed metal (following 1981's Welcome to Hell) gave the genre its name and attitude. Sweden's Bathory, led by Quorthon, sharpened the template across his 1984 self-titled debut and The Return (1985) with icier tremolo riffing and shrieked vocals before pivoting to Viking metal. Switzerland's Hellhammer and its successor Celtic Frost (Tom G. Warrior) added crushing primitive heaviness on Apocalyptic Raids (1984) and Morbid Tales (1984); Denmark's Mercyful Fate brought King Diamond's falsetto and occult song-craft, while Brazil's Sarcofago (INRI, 1987) delivered some of the fastest, filthiest proto-black metal. These bands directly inspired the Norwegian second wave that crystallized the genre around 1990.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Dayal Patterson, Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult (Feral House)
- Encyclopaedia Metallum (metal-archives.com): Venom, Bathory, Hellhammer pages
- Wikipedia: Black metal (first wave)
- Welcome to Hell
- Apocalyptic Raids