You could ask a thousand people what ‘black metal’ means and you’d probably get a thousand different responses back. For some, it’s metal about Satan. For others, it’s defined by its drive to challenge the boundaries of taste. What few metalheads will question, though, is that the genre has remained relevant and reinvented itself multiple times over the past 40-odd years.
Black metal was formulated by a sprawling ‘first wave’ made up of the likes of Bathory, Venom, Hellhammer and early Sepultura, but it didn’t become a consolidated movement until the early 1990s. That was when the likes of Mayhem, Emperor, Darkthrone and Satyricon formed the genre’s ‘inner circle’, centred around Mayhem guitarist Euronymous’s record shop in the centre of Oslo.
With that scene, black metal became a style about extremes: eschewing the perceived ‘trendiness’ of death metal and pursuing its own ideas, including shrill vocals, icy tremolo picking and just as much emphasis on atmosphere as brutality. Satanism was also considered a defining trait in those early days. Some musicians may have pushed their desire to shock too far when they revelled in murder and church-burning, but the powerful sounds they came up with resonated.
In 2025, we’ve seen offshoots from blackgaze blackened death metal, and magnificent artists as varied as Alcest, Deafheaven, Watain and Wolves In The Throne Room have all carried the torch. Clearly, black metal’s hopes to push things forward didn’t die when the initial Norwegian scene fizzled out. That gives us decade upon decade of excellence to look back on, and deciding which one band are the best of the bunch is just too much. So, we’re handing the task over to you.
Below, we want you to sound off and tell us who the black metal band of all time are. Be honest, but be polite as well. Comment sections can be a maelstrom sometimes.
