Cult Eternal - A History of Black Metal

ORIGINS: BEFORE THE FROST

Black Metal wasn’t born in one place, and it wasn’t born all at once. There wasn’t a single gig, a single album, or a single scream that created it. It was a long burn, a steady corruption of Heavy Metal, as a handful of misfits, dropouts, and obsessives pushed things further into the shadows. They wanted music that wasn’t just heavy, wasn’t just fast, but hostile, dangerous, something that sounded like it shouldn’t exist, and which actively sought to repulse the ears of the mainstream.

If Heavy Metal was the bastard child of rock and roll, then Black Metal was the bastard child of metal itself — the inbred, unholy one that never washed, never smiled, and never apologized. It was a cultural and spiritual mutiny against the escalating polish and increasing corporate comfort of the rising metal scene. The genre was born not in a desire to entertain, but in a drive to destroy.

Before the murders, the church burnings, and the tabloid hysteria, there was only one question driving the underground, whispered across the static of copied tapes:

What if metal wasn’t just about riffs and rebellion? What if it was about evil? Real evil. The kind that permeates the philosophical darkness of man, not the Halloween costumes of rock stars.

That question became the seed. The first wave of Black Metal was a mess of sounds, images, rumors, and tapes, traded hand-to-hand across the globe. It was chaos, but out of that chaos came the foundations of a genre that would change Metal forever. It became a culture defined by exclusivity and contempt for those who preferred the sunlight.

Proto-Black Metal: Setting the Stage

Before Venom screamed “Black Metal,” before Quorthon dragged us into the eternal frost, there were earlier sparks. Rock had already flirted with the occult, with darkness, with mysticism. Black Metal didn’t arrive out of nowhere — it crawled out of the cracks of Heavy Rock and Early Metal, seizing on elements of dread and volume left behind by its predecessors.

Black Sabbath (1969): The title track from Black Sabbath is ground zero. The thunderstorm, the tolling bell, the tritone riff (once called “the Devil’s interval”), and Ozzy Osbourne howling about a figure in black — it was unlike anything before. It was the first true musical rendering of existential dread. Sabbath weren’t Black Metal, but they opened the door to music that could genuinely scare people, proving that atmosphere and philosophical darkness were just as potent as speed and volume. They surgically removed the blues from rock music’s heaviest moments and introduced pure, cold dread.

Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin: Not Satanic, but they embraced heaviness and mysticism. Zeppelin’s – and, more precisely, Jimmy Page’s – obsession with Aleister Crowley and the occult is part of the lineage, giving the burgeoning rock scene permission to explore forbidden texts and esoteric philosophies. Purple’s scales, riffs, and earth-shattering volume fed into the DNA of later extremity, demonstrating the raw power that amplified music could achieve.

Blue Öyster Cult: Their music was subtler, but the occult references, weird lyrics, and death-obsessed imagery were vital precursors. They gave Rock a taste of the esoteric and the macabre, showing that intellectual darkness could be integrated into the framework of heavy music without relying on juvenile shock tactics.

Judas Priest: They gave Metal its uniform. The studs, the leather, the spikes — all taken from the gay S&M scene, repurposed into a look that would become inseparable from Black Metal. This act of adoption was profound, transforming the subculture’s aesthetic into something dangerous and impenetrable. They didn’t preach Satan, but they made Metal look dangerous, setting the visual code for every extreme band that followed.

Motörhead (1975): Maybe the most important pre-Black Metal band. Lemmy never pretended to be Satanic, but the filth, the speed, and the chaos of Motörhead showed that metal could embrace noise and violence with a punk rock nihilism. They proved that attitude and rawness could obliterate polished musicianship, a lesson Venom would steal wholesale and weaponize. Motörhead’s three-chord, high-gain attack was the sonic template for the first wave’s intentional lack of refinement.

By the late ’70s, Heavy Metal was splitting. The mainstream was becoming polished, operatic, and commercial. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) was obsessed with virtuosic musicianship and stadium ambition. The underground wanted none of that clean, commercial gloss. The underground wanted noise, speed, chaos, and fear. The underground wanted music that felt like a curse, something that would actively drive listeners away, thus preserving its ideological purity.

Venom — The First Strike (UK):

Newcastle, England, 1979. The industrial north of Britain, in the grip of Thatcher’s rule. Factories closing, unemployment high, nothing to look forward to. This was a true cultural wasteland, defined by decay and despair. Out of this environment of institutional betrayal came three maniacs: Cronos (Conrad Lant), Mantas (Jeff Dunn), and Abaddon (Tony Bray). Together, they became Venom.

Venom couldn’t play like Judas Priest. They weren’t tight like Iron Maiden. They didn’t care; that was the genius. Their chosen weapon was chaos, not skill. They took Motörhead’s speed, added distortion until it sounded like the speakers were tearing apart, and wrote lyrics designed to scare parents and priests—a deliberate, contemptuous rejection of the burgeoning NWOBHM’s technical standards. Their sloppiness was a radical aesthetic choice.

Welcome to Hell (1981): A debut so sloppy critics dismissed it as amateur trash. But the underground heard it differently — as raw power, as music that sounded like it had crawled out of Hell itself, unedited and unrefined.

Black Metal (1982): The bomb. The title track gave the genre its name. Songs like Countess Bathory and Don’t Burn the Witch were ridiculous, sure, but also genuinely dangerous in their blasphemous intent. Nobody had ever made an entire record so dedicated to Satan, blasphemy, and the excess of the underworld.

Venom’s shows were carnage. Fire, explosions, never ending smoke machines, chaos. They didn’t just play gigs — they staged Black Masses with guitars, fusing the aggression of punk with the forbidden theatrics of the occult. Even if they weren’t “serious Satanists,” they lived like they wanted to torch the stage, the venue, and the audience with it. They proved that music could be about attitude and ideological impact, not perfection. They opened the portal and gave the future genre its linguistic anchor.

Bathory — The Icy Dawn (Sweden):

If Venom opened the gates, it was Bathory who stepped through and revealed the frozen wasteland on the other side. The shift was absolute.

Founded in 1983 by Quorthon (Tomas Börje Forsberg), Bathory began as Venom worship, but almost immediately, Quorthon carved out his own, isolated sound. Where Venom were rowdy and cartoonish, Bathory was cold, sinister, and atmospheric. Quorthon operated alone, an island of obsession that allowed his vision to become entirely untainted by democratic compromise.

Bathory (1984): A debut recorded cheaply, but it changed everything. The vocals were banshee shrieks, the riffs repetitive and droning, the production raw and hollow. Crucially, the cheap, distant sound was not a mistake; it was a philosophical statement, making the music sound inhuman, like a spectral echo from an unholy crypt.

The Return… (1985): Colder, darker, and more atmospheric. It introduced long, hypnotic tracks that felt ritualistic and trance-inducing, forcing the listener to participate in the act of worship.

Under the Sign of the Black Mark (1987): A masterpiece. Songs like Woman of Dark Desires and Enter the Eternal Fire were ritual hymns. Quorthon’s shrieks were pure evil, and the music conjured visions of endless Scandinavian forests, freezing cold tombs, and midnight rituals.

Bathory gave Black Metal its atmosphere and its necessary emotional palette. Quorthon made music that sounded like the desolate, eternal darkness of the Scandinavian landscape itself. He proved Black Metal could be more than juvenile shock value; it could be transcendent, using repetition and atmosphere to create a genuine sense of cosmic dread.

Hellhammer & Celtic Frost — Caveman Satan and Avant-Garde Darkness (Switzerland)

In Switzerland, 1982, a trio of teenagers formed Hellhammer. They were so raw and unskilled that Kerrang! called them “the most terrible band in the world.” But those caveman riffs, those primitive drums, and Tom G. Warrior’s iconic “UGH!” grunts became foundational.

Apocalyptic Raids (1984) was a joke to critics, but in the underground, it was scripture. Hellhammer were proof that atmosphere and ferocious intent mattered more than technical ability, laying the groundwork for the lo-fi aesthetic that defined the second wave.

When Hellhammer fell apart, Warrior and Martin Ain rose from the ashes with Celtic Frost.

Morbid Tales (1984): Darker, sharper, heavier. Into the Crypts of Rays made the medieval mass-murderer Gilles de Rais a Metal antihero, demonstrating a deeper interest in historical evil.

To Mega Therion (1985): A colossal slab of occult extremity that introduced classical instrumentation to the chaos, expanding the sonic palette.

Into the Pandemonium (1987): A bizarre, experimental record that radically incorporated female vocals, horns, classical arrangements, industrial textures, and avant-garde ideas.

Celtic Frost proved that Black Metal’s roots weren’t just primitive. They could also be artistic, daring, and experimental. By taking such massive, uncompromising left turns, they opened the door for every weird, dissonant, and challenging tangent Black Metal would ever take, establishing the genre’s artistic legitimacy alongside its primal rawness.

Mercyful Fate — Ritual and Precision (Denmark)

While Venom were sloppy chaos and Bathory were icy atmospherics, Denmark’s Mercyful Fate brought precision and ritual. They demonstrated that the pursuit of Satanic themes did not necessitate musical ineptitude.

Fronted by King Diamond, with his astonishing, operatic falsetto wails and instantly recognizable corpse-painted face, Mercyful Fate were theatrical and deeply blasphemous. Unlike Venom, King Diamond wasn’t joking. His Satanism was serious, studied, and ritualistic, incorporating elements of the occult into every performance and song structure.

Melissa (1983): A haunting debut filled with occult ritual and technical guitar work that demanded respect from the larger metal community.

Don’t Break the Oath (1984): One of the greatest early metal albums, drenched in Satanic imagery and precision musicianship that laid bare the complexity possible within the dark aesthetic.

Mercyful Fate proved that Black Metal didn’t have to be sloppy. They brought technical skill, complexity, and a profound seriousness to Satanic Heavy Metal, providing the genre with its essential ritual dimension and theatrical flair.

Forgotten Cults — Italy, Eastern Bloc, and Beyond

Not every influence came from the big names. Across the world, cult bands were laying groundwork, proving that the hunger for extremity was a global sickness, not just a North European curiosity.

Bulldozer (Italy): Venom-inspired, sleazier, nastier, more nihilistic. Their Day of Wrath (1985) was like a dirtier version of Motörhead filtered through Satanic filth, pushing the hedonistic edge of the genre.

Death SS (Italy): Shock rock, corpse paint, and horror theatrics. They looked like Black Metal years before the Norwegians did, defining the visual code of the scene as a blend of occultism and horror pulp.

Tormentor (Hungary): Led by Attila Csihar, their Anno Domini demo (1988) was legendary in the tape-trading underground. Csihar’s experimental, operatic vocals pushed boundaries and hinted at the avant-garde paths the second wave would explore.

Root (Czech Republic): Big Boss created ritualistic, occult-heavy Black Metal years before most people noticed Eastern Europe’s contribution, demonstrating the genre’s capacity for complex, homegrown mythology.

Possessed (USA): Often credited as the first Death Metal band, their Seven Churches (1985) blurred the line between Black and Death Metal with its speed, Satanic imagery, and sheer extremity, setting the bar for sonic annihilation.

These bands weren’t famous. They didn’t sell records. But their influence, spread through demos and tapes, was enormous. They established that true extremity always thrives in isolation.

South America Burns — Sarcófago and the Extremists

If Europe was creating atmosphere and complexity, South America was creating pure, unrelenting violence. This was the most terrifying expression of the first wave.

Brazil’s Sarcófago, formed by former Sepultura member Wagner Lamounier, unleashed INRI (1987) — an album so extreme it made Venom look like pop stars. Full corpse paint, proto-blast beats, and lyrics like Satanic Lust and Desecration of Virgin made them infamous. The blast beat—that merciless, mechanical hammering—was weaponized here, a sound designed to shatter nerves.

This was music born from a context of dictatorship, poverty, and violence. It wasn’t theater — it was reality. South American Black Metal was a weapon forged in societal decay. It was the purest, most nihilistic expression of the genre’s potential for raw, physical aggression.

Tape Trading and Zines — The Underground Network

Black Metal didn’t spread through MTV or glossy magazines. It spread through obsession, operating entirely outside of institutional control.

Tape trading: Fans dubbed cassettes of demos and albums, mailing them across the world. A Bathory tape copied in Sweden might reach Brazil, then Hungary, then Norway. Each copy degraded, but that hiss, that distortion, became part of the aesthetic—proof that the music was authentic, contraband, and not a corporate product. The currency here was passion, not profit.

Zines: Slayer Mag (Norway), Morbid Mag (U.S.), Kick Ass Monthly (Canada) — photocopied, handwritten, often filled with errors, but driven by uncompromising passion. These were the lifelines for fans in isolated towns, creating the intellectual framework and shared values of the underground.

Mythology: Without professional photography or media coverage, rumors became legends. Bands became larger-than-life because nobody really knew the truth; the scarcity of information fed the atmosphere.

This network was the lifeblood of the underground. It wasn’t just music — it was a counter-culture, shared in fragments, passed like a dangerous secret from initiate to initiate.

The Legacy of the First Wave

By the end of the ’80s, the first wave had burned itself out.

Venom were becoming self-parody. Bathory moved toward Viking epics. Celtic Frost collapsed. Mercyful Fate split. The cult bands stayed cult.

But their job was done.

They had created the language of Black Metal:

Rawness over polish.

Atmosphere over skill.

Satanism not as a joke, but as a weapon.

A sound and a look that scared people.

From their ashes, a new generation rose. A generation that didn’t want to just play Black Metal — they wanted to live it.

The first wave of Black Metal was messy. It was chaotic. It was contradictory.

But in Venom’s chaos, Bathory’s frost, Hellhammer’s filth, Mercyful Fate’s rituals, and Sarcófago’s violence, the foundations were laid.