Black Metal

Primary Stylistic Influences:

• Speed Metal, New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Thrash Metal

Secondary Stylistic Influences:

• Dark Ambient, Punk Rock, Hardcore Punk, Noise Rock, Folk Music, Post-Rock, Post-Punk, Death Metal

Primary Stylistic Influences (Viking Metal):

• Black Metal, Folk Music, Folk Metal

Secondary Stylistic Influences (Viking Metal):

• Power Metal, Progressive Metal, Doom Metal, Symphonic Metal

Primary Stylistic Influences (Post-Black Metal and Blackgaze):

• Black Metal, Post-Rock, Post Metal, Avant-Garde Metal, Shoegaze

Secondary Stylistic Influences (Post-Black Metal and Blackgaze):

• Folk Music, Post-Punk

Primary Stylistic Influences (Avant-Garde and Progressive Black Metal):

• Black Metal, Progressive Metal, Progressive Rock, Avant-Garde Metal

Secondary Stylistic Influences (Avant-Garde and Progressive Black Metal):

• Industrial Metal, Folk Metal, Death Metal, Psychedelic Rock

"Its sound is raw, yet also epic and atmospheric, like Punk Rock meets Wagner, dressed as Alice Cooper."

— Sam Dunn, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey

Black metal is an extreme subgenre of Heavy Metal, distinctly charactarized in equal parts by its raw and abrasive sound and its consistently dark, moody image. The genre has grown to be very diverse since its inception, so it can be hard to make generalizations beyond that, but its defining musical charactaristics tend to include fast tempos driven by blastbeat drumming, high-pitched electric guitars that are often played with tremolo picking^note A guitar-playing technique where a string is struck multiple times in quick succession, creating a rapid-fire line of notes, long and/or unconventional song structures, dark and dissonant melodies and chord progressions, and high-pitched shrieking vocals, usually with lyrics concerning anti-Christianity, Satanism, paganism, nature, misanthropy, depression or fantasy. Black Metal musicians are also known for their theatrics, often donning creepy-looking face paint and Scary Impractical Armor for live preformances that are saturated with dark or satanic stage imagery to enhance the music's "evil" qualities. However, one should keep in mind that these are just very broad descriptors, and many bands in the genre can experiment with or fall outside these generalizations.

The genre is also infamous for the aggressively low-fidelity recording quality that characterized the sound of many of its most famous bands. This was largely unintentional in the beginning, more a product of early bands' deeply underground existence nessecitating very DIY production and distribution of their records (a cassette deck and a cheap tape recorder lying around was often all they had to work with), but as Black Metal grew in popularity, this lo-fi sound of its pioneers became a defining element of the raw and harsh sound. This is not a constant however, as plenty of other Black Metal bands, particularly newer ones as well as those who play more theatrical variations such as Symphonic Black Metal, prefer more conventional high-fidelity production and instead try to articulate the 'raw' qualities through the music itself.

The roots of black metal stretch back to the early 1980s, with Venom's 1982 album Black Metal obviously being the Trope Namer and one of the key Trope Makers of the subgenre's sound and image alongside other bands of the era like Bathory, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and Mercyful Fate. Who exactly was more important among these acts in creating Black Metal has been a long-running Base-Breaker in the metal community, so be warned. That being said, Bathory is most recognized as the genre's prime mover even if Venom predated them, since Bathory established many of the characteristics of the genre that would define subsequent imitators. A "second wave" started in the late 80s/early 90s, with bands such as Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal Emperor, Dissection, Rotting Christ, and Varathron. This tends to be what most people think of when they hear the term "Black metal", since the bands of this era became the most popular (which is rather ironic considering how obsessed they also were with being intentionally unappealing to the mainstream) and the most infamous. Most modern black metal was built upon the groundwork laid by bands during this time period, and it began its worldwide spread starting with American bands such as Von and Profanatica popping up. Following a series of church burnings associated with black metal musicians and the murder of Euronymous of Mayhem by Burzum mastermind Varg Vikernes, the Norwegian black metal scene received considerable attention from the mainstream media, which is where much of the genre's infamy originates.

Immortal is arguably the last of the major "Second-Wave" Norwegian Black Metal bands to still play black metal; most of their closest musical contemporaries left the genre altogether, as Darkthrone metamorphosed into a Traditional Heavy Metal/Crust Punk outfit while Satyricon gave up the genre in favor of "Black Rock", a fusion of black metal and hard rock. Enslaved, who resisted classification as a black metal band from the start, around the turn of the century started performing black metal-influenced progressive metal, which purists would not consider to be "true" black metal but nonetheless gained them a worldwide audience. Members of Immortal themselves formed a "new" band (adding two members) in 2006 named "I" and released the critically-acclaimed album Between Two Worlds, which was one of the foundations for the "Black Rock" sound into which other bands (notably Satyricon) augmented their music; however, I has been inactive for over a decade as of this writing.

As the genre proliferated after gaining a worldwide audience, many started experimenting with the typical conventions of black metal and incorporating influences from other forms of music beyond metal. Thus, the labels of post-black metal avant-garde/experimental black metal emerged to describe bands such as Arcturus, Sigh, Solefald, Borknagar, In the Woods..., Ulver, Fleurety, Agalloch, Peccatum, Ved Buens Ende and others. Although they are all very diverse and individualistic in terms of style (some of these bands are additionally classified as everything from Progressive Black Metal to Neofolk), they are united in their tendency of taking black metal's dark and chaotic sound and brooding atmosphere and applying it beyond the frontier of metal.^note A caveat should be noted about the term "post-black metal", as in recent years it has come to have two distinct meanings which are not interchangeable; the older meaning of the term represents to black metal what Post-Punk does to punk, namely using elements of black metal for purposes which are not necessarily themselves "black metal", while the newer meaning of the term refers to a fusion of black metal elements with Post-Rock. While some bands fit under both meanings of the term, a rather large percentage do not. Metal bands of other subgenres such as Death Metal and Speed Metal have also taken to lifting elements from black metal and incorporating it into their own sound, which has given rise to "Blackened" sub-subgenres such as Blackened Death Metal and Blackened Speed Metal among many others.

Thanks to a focus on Satanic (or just anti-Christian) lyrics and imagery among some of the most popular black metal bands, the mainstream media tends to frown upon the genre, but themes of fantasy (ie. Tolkien), paganism, and folklore are also common, as are explorations of mental struggles such as depression due to black metal's inherently somber sound. Some black metal bands also base their lyrics around politics, and reflecting the extremity of the music, the political ideologies expressed are usually extreme too - either fascism or Nazism with "National Socialist Black Metal" (NSBM), or more recently, leftism and other forms of radical egalitarianism with "Red (and) Anarchist Black Metal" (RABM).

Black metal rarely features rigid verse-chorus structures, generally favoring a more abstract style that features extended musical sections and repetitive guitar riffs. Guitar solos are rarer in black metal than in other metal genres, although there are plenty of exceptions (i.e. Peste Noire, Drudkh, Shining, Enslaved, etc.; in short, the more musically progressive a black metal act, the likelier they are to feature guitar solos). As mentioned above, black metal often features very lo-fi, primitive recording quality reminiscent of the early days of the genre, although some bands favor more professional recording techniques. While the high-pitched harsh vocal style of black metal (a Type 3 Metal Scream) is nigh-omnipresent across the genre, many bands still feature clean vocals, used either in conjunction with more extreme vocals or occasionally as the primary vocal style. Low-pitched death growl vocals (Type 2) are exceedingly rare, and when they do appear, it's almost never for the full song.

Unlike most other artists from other forms of music, there are many black metal bands who do not play live. In fact, many black metal "bands", such as Burzum and Xasthur, are one-man studio projects, and as professional-quality music recording and distribution have become more and more accessible with personal computers and the internet, the majority of black metal acts from The New '10s onward have been solo projects. Even many bands with full line-ups also prefer to avoid playing live. However, those black metal bands who do play live are also known for their theatric live shows that often play up the evilness and gruesomeness of the music, with the shows of bands such as Mayhem and Gorgoroth being particularly notorious (once Gorgoroth played live on Polish TV on a stage surrounded by barbed wire with severed pigs' heads impaled on stakes and surrounded by life-size wooden crucifixes with blood-splattered nude female models in hoods tied on...something you definitely won't see on U.S. prime time television). Watain probably outdoes other bands on this: their shows are famous for pigs' blood being sprayed all over the place.

Not to be confused with Living Colour, who are African-American metal. (If you want an example of a band that qualifies as both, however, Zeal & Ardor might be your thing.)

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List of black metal bands, categorised by subgenre:

"Traditional" Black Metal, Raw Black Metal, and Blackened Thrash Metal
Despite the somewhat confusing name, "Traditional" black metal is not the original style of black metal (that would be "First Wave"), but rather it is the most popular and common style that most bands derive their sound from. It was codified in the early 90s by the Second Wave (particularly in Norway). Raw black metal is an even harsher and simpler form of black metal codified by bands like Darkthrone. Black/thrash is, as the name suggests, black metal mixed with Thrash Metal; it tends to be applied to bands that combine the two genres that were not first-wave black metal and runs the gamut from raw, punkish, heavily Teutonic and South American-influenced acts (think early Sepultura and Sodom) to more melodic and technical acts reminiscent of the Australian sound (codified by Destroyer 666).
Due to the overlap between the three subgenres, they have all been lumped together.

• 1349
• Abigail Williams (The Accuser only)
• Absu (later)
• Asagraum (one of the few all-female bands in the genre)
• Averse Sefira
• Barathrum (later; early material was Black/Doom Metal)
• Barbatos
• Basilisk
• Bathory (early albums, especially Under the Sign of the Black Mark; was the Ur-Example/Trope Maker alongside Mayhem before their Genre Shift to Viking Metal with Blood Fire Death)
• Behemoth (early material; they later changed their style to blackened death metal, eventually becoming straight-up Death Metal with very little black metal influence)
• Beherit (With some Death Metal elements; their mid-late '90s material is Dark Ambient, however)
• Black Anvil
• Black Rock (With elements of Speed and Heavy)
• Blasphemy (Canadian band often considered a big influence on the War Metal subgenre)
• Bonehunter (Black/Thrash)
• Burzum (Ur-Example for the Ambient and Depresseive/Suicidal sub-genres of Black Metal)
• Carpathian Forest
• Chätiment
• Cobalt (prior to Eater of Birds)
• Countess (with elements of traditional Heavy Metal)
• Craven Idol
• Cultes Des Ghoules
• Daeva
• Dark Funeral
• Darkthrone (Trope Codifier alongside Mayhem before The Cult Is Alive, after which their style shifted to a fusion of black metal, crust punk, and traditional heavy metal; they would later add Speed Metal into the mix on The Underground Resistance)
• Death Fortress
• Deathspell Omega (early material; added Avant-Garde Metal elements starting with Si monumentum requires, circumspice)
  • The Furnaces of Palingenesia (2019)
• Demoncy
• Destroyer 666
• Detsorgsekalf (An affectionate parody of the genre)
• Dodheimsgard (early material; later incorporated Industrial Metal and Avant-Garde Metal influences on the Satanic Art EP and subsequent releases)
• Empty Tenement Spirit
• Endless Dismal Moan (also Atmospheric/Ambient on some tracks)
• Fimbulwinter
• Gorgoroth (dabbled in Ambient Music on Incipit Satan, but otherwise are among the straightest examples of traditional Black Metal)
• Gospel of the Horns
• Graveland (later shifted to Viking Metal starting with Thousand Swords)
• Immortal (before At the Heart of Winter, where they switched to Melodic Black Metal)
• Impaled Nazarene (included significant Death Metal and Grindcore influences on their earliest releases)
• Infernal War
• Inquisition
• Judas Iscariot
• Krieg (some overlap with bestial black metal)
• Kvelertak (Black 'n' roll)
• Manes
• Marduk
• Mayhem (Ur-Example, Trope Maker, and Trope Codifier for this form of Black Metal and the Second-Wave of Black Metal as a whole)
• Mgła (some melodic black overlap)
• Μνήμα (mixed with Harsh Noise)
• Nargaroth (switches between this and Ambient Black Metal depending on the album)
• Naurrakar
• Nifelheim (albeit with a distinct Thrash Metal influence)
• Peste Noire (albeit slightly more progressive than most bands of the genre)
• Ravencult
• Razor of Occam
• Root (later moved towards a more progressive sound)
• Roquefire (in their later years- their early years were doom-almost proto black)
• Sabbat (not to be confused with the British thrash act)
• Sanguine Relic
• Sangus
• Satanic Warmaster
• Satan's Host (formed in the 80's as a traditional metal band with Harry Conklin on vocals, but were revived in the 2000's as a black metal band; their material since Conklin's return to the band could be described as "blackened power metal")
• Satyricon (later the Trope Maker for black 'n' roll)
• Skeletonwitch (also Melodic Death Metal)
• SS-18
• Taake
• Thorns (until sole member Blackthorn's stint in jail, after which they became Industrial Black Metal)
• Tulus
• Toxic Holocaust
• Ulver (on Nattens madrigal only: this band is notorious for every album being a New Sound Album, although they are a rare example of a band that once played Black Metal managing to avert They Changed It, Now It Sucks! reactions, for the most part, largely because black metal and dark ambient fandoms tend to be quite friendly toward one another)
• Von (potential Ur-Example of bestial black metal)
• Xexyz (mixed with Chiptune)

Symphonic Black Metal
Black metal with symphonic instruments and orchestral elements. These bands are usually more melodic and often feature cleaner production quality, earning them derision as being "mainstream posers" by some more hardcore black metal fans; though that scorn is subjective, they are indeed some of the most popular black metal acts outside the original Norweigan Second Wave, and have a pervasive reputation as being Large Ham in musical form. The style favors ornate, gothic melodies played by synths and orchestral sections as well as decadent lyrical flourishes.

• ...And Oceans (early material before they became industrial metal; they returned to this style on Cosmic World Mother)
• Abigail Williams (In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns only)
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Antestor
• Bal-Sagoth
• Carach Angren
  • Death Came Through a Phantom Ship
• Celtic Frost (a possible Ur-Example, having included symphonic elements on To Mega Therion and Into the Pandemonium)
• Chthonic
• Cradle of Filth (Genre Popularizer; although the more extreme metalheads and the band themselves dispute this, Cradle of Filth is perhaps the most popular symphonic black metal band in existence, and maybe the most popular black metal band period, even if they do represent a more polished and goth-influenced variation of the sound)
• Dimmu Borgir (Genre Popularizer alongside Cradle of Filth)
• Dragonlord
• Emperor (Trope Maker/Codifier for the genre)
• Eternium
• Gardsghastr
• Gehenna (not to be confused with the traditional/speed metal act with a similar name)
• Graveworm
• Helfró
• Imperial Circus Dead Decadence (has elements of Death Metal, Metalcore and Power Metal, among other genres...)
• Kadenzza
• Keep of Kalessin
• Limbonic Art
• Mirrorthrone
• Nokturnal Mortum (mixed with Folk Metal, Viking Metal starting with Мировоззрение/Weltanschauung, and Progressive Metal starting with either Голос сталі/The Voice of Steel or, arguably, significantly earlier)
• Root (their later material is another possible Ur-Example alongside Celtic Frost)
• Shade Empire (combined with Avant-Garde Metal on some releases)
• Sigh (combined with Avant-Garde Metal and a liberal dose of Genre-Busting and Genre Roulette)
• Stormlord
• Theatres des Vampires (early)

First-Wave Black Metal
The original black metal movement that began in the eighties; first-wave black metal bands are, for the most part, Thrash Metal or Speed Metal bands with a much rougher edge to them. A lot of bands got grouped into the first wave mostly for their image rather than their sound, which is what the kids of the second wave were trying to emulate first and foremost. Bathory, however, is an exception, and the sound of Quorthon's first four albums (particularly Under the Sign of the Black Mark) is the Trope Maker for black metal as it exists today. The same can be said for both Sarcófago's "I.N.R.I." and Sepultura's "Bestial Devastation" and "Morbid Visions"; the former band's album is particularly notable due to its extensive usage of blastbeats, which helped lay the template for black metal drumming to come.

• SixSixSix
• Bathory (later moved onto created viking metal.)
• Blasphemy
• Bulldozer
• Celtic Frost (not strictly; they also experimented with Hair Metal, Doom Metal, Gothic Metal and Avant-Garde Metal.)
• Death SS (also Doom Metal and, later on, Industrial Metal)
• Destruction (Sentence of Death, influences largely abandoned by their second full-length album)
• Devil Master (bit of a Genre-Busting example that is somewhere between this, d-beat, and Gothic Metal)
• Grotesque
• Hellhammer
• Holocausto
• Master's Hammer (later became avant-garde black metal)
• Mercyful Fate (mostly an honorary member of the genre; their musical output mostly consisted of gothic-tinged Speed Metal with high-pitched clean vocals. However, they did prove influential in the in the lyrical and theatrical elements of the genre, which is why they are counted as a First-Wave band by some)
• Kreator (Endless Pain and Pleasure to Kill are considered Ur Examples and helped inspire both black metal and death metal, although the band quickly moved towards more straightforward death/thrash afterwards)
• Malokarpatan (also Traditional Metal and Progressive Metal)
• Mortuary Drape (Genre-Busting example with elements of black metal, death metal, thrash metal, and traditional heavy metal, but this is probably one of the best labels)
• Mystifier
• Parabellum (the group from Colombia, not any of the other bands by this name. They also have distinct Death Metal leanings)
• Running Wild (their first two albums, although much like Mercyful Fate, their inclusion in the first wave of black metal is mostly honorary since while they were one of the first to refer to themselves as "black metal" and prominently featured dark Satanic lyrics and the demonic theatrics that would become mainstays of the genre, the actual music was heavy/speed metal, and the band would later ditch this entirely for Pirate-themed Power Metal. That being said, some musical mainstays of later black metal like frequent tremolo-picking and blistering tempos are present too)
• Sarcófago (later changed to Technical Death Metal, then full-fledged thrash, although they apparently always considered themselves a thrash metal act)
• Sepultura (first couple of releases; changed to Death/Thrash Metal starting with Schizophrenia then Groove Metal on Chaos A.D. and Nu Metal starting with Roots, and finally a mixture of all three from Dante XXI onward)
• Slayer (on Show No Mercy and Haunting the Chapel; the Black Metal elements of their sound were downplayed on Hell Awaits and absent on Reign in Blood and later albums)
• Sodom (later ventured into Thrash Metal with Persecution Mania and shed the last of their Black Metal influences with Better Off Dead).
  • That is, the band did briefly went back to black metal on The Final Sign Of Evil.
• Tormentor
• Venom (Trope Namer; also Thrash Metal)
• Vulcano

Melodic Black Metal
As the name suggests, this is Black Metal with a much more melodic, and usually epic, approach than regular black metal. It tends to be more accessible than "regular" black metal, but it's rarely as polished and grandiose as symphonic black metal (though it does often overlap). Though first started in Sweden with bands such as Sacramentum, Dissection, and Dawn, the genre is often associated with Southern Europe and especially Greece, with bands such as Moonspell, Rotting Christ, Astarte, and Opera IX coming from those areas. The Hellenic black metal sound as codified by Rotting Christ, Varathron, and Necromantia arguably served as an Ur-Example of the genre, but is generally treated as a separate entity from other progenitors. Besides symphonic black metal, there is also frequent overlap with Melodic Death Metal and/or Gothic Metal, but that depends on the band in question.

• Abigail Williams (In the Absence of Light, and while Walk Beyond the Dark has nods to all of their studio albums, it primarily sticks to this)
• Ancient
• Astarte (one of the few all-female black metal bands. Also symphonic black metal, and added blackened death metal influence on Demonized)
• Blut aus Nord (first two albums and subsequent Memoria vetusta releases, as well as Hallucinogen)
• Catamenia
• Cormorant (a Genre-Busting example also featuring large Progressive Metal and Death Metal influence)
• Covenant (on their first two albums, before legal issues forced them to change their name to The Kovenant and their musical style changed along with it.)
  • In Times Before the Light
• Darkestrah (mixed with Turkic folk music or, more specifically, Kyrgyz; was female-fronted until 2014)
• Dark Fortress (mixed with Progressive Metal)
• Dawn (Sweden)
• Demonic Resurrection (also Melodic Death Metal)
• Dimmu Borgir (early material, later output is Symphonic Black Metal)
• Dissection (Trope Codifier alongside Sacramentum and Ur-Example alongside Necrophobic and Unanimated; switched to Blackened Death Metal/Melodic Death Metal on Reinkaos)
• Dzo-nga (also Folk Metal)
• Enfold Darkness (mixed with very heavy amounts of Melodic Death Metal)
• Epoch of Unlight
• Erimha
• Goatwhore (mixed with Death Metal and Thrash Metal)
• Havukruunu
• Immortal (At the Heart of Winter onwards)
• Keep of Kalessin
• Melechesh (mixed with Thrash Metal and Middle-Eastern Folk Metal)
• Moonspell (first album only; became Gothic Metal after that)
• Mo'ynoq
• Naglfar (Not to Be Confused with Germany's Nagelfar - note the spelling difference)
• Necromantia
• Necrophobic (Ur-Example along with Dissection and Unanimated)
• Oathean
• Obsequiae (some folk metal elements)
• Old Man's Child
• Opera IX
• Oubliette
• Rotting Christ
• Sacramentum (Trope Codifier alongside Dissection; switched to Blackened Death Metal after their first album)
• Skeletonwitch (Devouring Radiant Light)
• Sorrowseed (overlaps with Gothic Metal and Doom Metal, moreso on their first album than their newest, which drops a lot of the gothic and doom elements in favor of more black metal)
• Thou Art Lord
• Thulcandra
• Thy Antichrist
• Tomarum (also Progressive Metal)
• Uada
• Unanimated (Ur-Example along with Dissection and Necrophobic)
• Varathron
• Vinterland
• Vreid
• Watain
• Windir
• Woe
• Woods Of Trees (a rare comedic example)
• Yoth Iria
• Zemial

Folk/Black Metal
Black metal mixed with Folk Metal. Bands of this style can be hard to pin down more specifically since they frequently cross-pollenate with other metal genres. They are also generally more melodic than pure black metal and lean far more towards pagan imagery (often from the band's country of origin) in their lyrics and image rather than Satanism. The genre emerged pretty soon after Folk Metal itself began, with Sweden's Mithotyn debatably being the Trope Maker.

• Akvan (Iranian folk-black, and one of the few metal bands from Iran in general)
• Al Namrood (a rare example of a metal band from Saudi Arabia)
• Arkona (or Аркона in Cyrillic script; a fairly rare female-fronted example, with frontwoman Masha "Scream" the only founding member left in the band and responsible for the bulk of the songwriting)
• Agalloch (includes black and folk metal but is a slight case of Genre-Busting)
• Ancient Rites
• Chthonic (閃靈 - Shǎnlíng)
• Cruachan
• Darkestrah
• Drudkh
• Equilibrium
• Falkenbach
• Falls of Rauros
• Fauna
• Finntroll (vaguely)
• Finsterforst (mixed with Progressive Metal)
• Graveland (often associated with NSBM because of Rob Darken's personal beliefs but, lyrically, has nothing to do with political ideologies; that said, their liner notes are at least sometimes explicitly racist)
• Isengard
• Kroda (or Крода in Cyrillic script)
• Melechesh
• Moonsorrow
• Moonspell (early)
• Mithotyn
• Myrkur (sometimes mixed with Gothic Metal; a relatively rare one-woman black metal band)
• Nechochwen (mixed with neofolk; Algonkian Mythos is exclusively neofolk with no metal parts whatsoever)
• Negură Bunget (mixed with Progressive Metal and post-black metal)
• Nokturnal Mortum (mixed with symphonic black metal, as well as viking metal and progressive black metal on later albums)
• Oathean
• Panopticon (on Collapse, Kentucky, Roads to the North, and The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness)
• Primordial
• Rotting Christ (later material, mixed with Gothic Metal)
• Skagos
• Skyforger (also incorporates Traditional Heavy Metal, Thrash Metal, and Power Metal, especially on later albums)
• Sorgsvart
• Storm
• Suidakra (their first album, anyway. Later albums are Folk Melodeath or Power Metal)
• Temnozor (or Темнозорь in Cyrillic script)
• Thrawsunblat
• Ulver (first album, then strayed into Genre Roulette territory)
• Windir
• Zuriaake (mixed with depressive and symphonic black metal)

Viking Black Metal
Black metal with lyrics and imagery regarding vikings. The overall genre of Viking Metal evolved from black metal, and as such many viking metal bands are also black metal; however, there are also plenty of viking metal bands, such as Ensiferum and Amon Amarth, that have nothing to do with black metal (and, as a result, aren't seen as "true" viking metal bands by some black metal fans). A lot of the time, viking black metal overlaps with folk/black metal. Some English black metal bands play Viking metal, but call it "Anglo-Saxon metal".

• Bathory (later material serves as the Ur-Example and Trope Maker)
• Borknagar (later albums became Progressive Metal)
• Einherjer
• Enslaved (Trope Codifier; incorporated Progressive Metal influences into their sound as time went on)
• Falkenbach
• Forefather (sort of)
• Graveland
• Hades (eventually changed their name to Hades Almighty)
• Helheim
• Hellveto (with elements of Symphonic Metal)
• Iceni
• Iuvenes
• Kampfar
• Kroda (or Крода in Cyrillic script)
• Manegarm
• Mithotyn
• Morrigan (albeit with a Celtic theme rather than a Germanic/Nordic one)
• Nokturnal Mortum (incorporated this into their sound starting with Mirrovozrenie/Weltanschauung; mixed with symphonic black metal, Folk Metal, and progressive/avant-garde black metal depending upon the release)
• Sorgsvart
• Thyrfing
• Vintersorg (mostly Progressive Folk Metal with some Viking elements, the influence of which waxes and wanes with each album)
• Windir
• Winterfylleth
• Wolfchant
• Wodensthrone

Black/Doom Metal
See the Doom Metal page.

Depressive/Suicidal Black Metal
Black metal with an ultra-depressive atmosphere and a lyrical focus on suicide, self-mutilation and other things to do with depression. This is quite a polarizing genre; either this is one of the most brilliant forms of black metal, or the most Narmful. Very often crosses over with ambient black metal and black/doom. Burzum is often a significant influence, with some bands in this genre (Nyktalgia in particular, especially on their first album) almost sounding like Burzum tribute bands. The Trope Makers of the genre are generally considered to be Bethlehem, Forgotten Woods, and Strid. Silencer and Lifelover could arguably be considered Trope Codifiers, as a lot of modern DSBM is influenced by one or both of them to the point that some bands are criticised as being "clones" of them.

• Abyssic Hate
• Apati
• Ash Borer
• Austere
• Bethlehem (and a whole lot of other genres too)
• Elysian Blaze (Mixed with Funeral Doom)
• Forgotten Tomb
• Forgotten Woods
• Gris
• Happy Days
• Hypothermia
• I'm in a Coffin
• Leviathan
• Lifelover (Trope Codifier for a lot of modern DSBM)
• Lurker of Chalice
• Make a Change... Kill Yourself
• Mgła
• Mütiilation (has elements of the genre)
• Nae'blis
• Nahvalr (mixed with ambient black metal and Harsh Noise)
• Nocturnal Depression
• Nortt (the band refers to their style as "Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom")
• Nyktalgia
• Ofdrykkja
• Psychonaut 4
• Shining (Sweden)
• Silencer (Trope Codifier, especially in regards to vocals)
• Strid
• Thy Light
• Totalselfhatred
• Trist
• Twilight Fauna
• Vanhelga
• Xasthur (Trope Codifier for the American branch of the genre)

Industrial Black Metal
Black metal mixed with electronic music, often but not always industrial.

• ...And Oceans (A.M.G.O.D. up to their shift to Havoc Unit; Cosmic Earth Mother is a return to their old style)
• Abigor (since their reunion)
• Aborym
• Alien Deviant Circus
• Anaal Nathrakh (vaguely; they also have elements of Death Metal and Grindcore.)
• Autarkh (effectively Dodecahedron under a new name, but with a vastly different style)
• The Axis of Perdition
• Black Hole Generator
• Blacklodge
• Blut aus Nord (Apart from Ultima thulée and the three Memoria vetusta albums, which are melodic black metal)
• Dødheimsgard (later albums)
• Ghostemane (mixed with Trap Music, of all things, as well as Nu Metal, noise and industrial hip hop)
• Gnaw Their Tongues (mixed with Harsh Noise, easily one of the most extreme examples here)
• Havoc Unit
• Iperyt
• Jute Gyte (an unusually prolific and Genre-Busting example, and probably one of the heaviest, most dissonant artists on this list due to using a twenty-four-note scale since 2013)
• The Kovenant (Note that the band's first two albums, originally released under the name Covenant before they were forced to change their name, are Melodic Black Metal; the remake of In Times Before the Light bridges the gap between the band's two styles)
  • In Times Before the Light
• Luminous Vault (borders on Gothic Metal at times)
• Mayhem (Dabbled in this on Grand Declaration of War)
• Mysticum (Trope Makers)
• NKVD (mixed with martial industrial)
• Psyclon Nine (mixed with aggrotech and EBM)
• Samael (From Ceremony of Opposites onward; their earliest works were straight-up Black Metal)
• Sutekh Hexen (with noise/power electronics leanings)
• Thorns (after Blackthorn got out of jail)
• Tidfall
• Zyklon (also blackened death)

Ambient Black Metal
Black metal with elements of dark ambient. The early developments of this genre can be found in early 90's projects such as Burzum, Moëvöt, Ildjarn, Mütiilation and Crimson Moon. Many bands (e.g. Forgotten Woods, Leviathan, Xasthur, Mütiilation) overlap with Depressive/Suicidal Black Metal.

• Abigail Williams (Later)
• Abruptum (Combined with Harsh Noise)
• Burzum (Ur-Example)
• Caladan Brood
• ColdWorld
• Crimson Moon
• Darkspace
• Emit (mixed with Harsh Noise)
• El-ahrairah
• Eldamar
• Ethereal Shroud (Mixed with funeral doom)
• Fell Voices
• Forgotten Woods
• Ildjarn (Trope Codifier)
• L'Acephale
• Leviathan
• Lunar Aurora
• Lurker of Chalice (Side project of Leviathan)
• Lustre
• Mütiilation
• Moonfrost
• Nargaroth (wavers between this and regular Black Metal on an album-by-album basis)
• Njiqahdda (on some releases, as well as related projects Oaks of Bethel and Funeral Eclipse)
• Paysage d'Hiver
• The Ruins of Beverast (mixed with Doom Metal)
• Summoning (sometimes considered the Trope Makers of a subgenre called "epic black metal")
• Twilight Fauna
• Uruk Hai
• Wolves in the Throne Room
• Xasthur

Avant-Garde/Progressive Black Metal
Black metal either possessing significant avant-garde tendencies, influenced significantly by Progressive Metal, or both. Uncommon Time is not uncommon, Epic Rocking is frequent, and occurrences of Genre-Busting are not unheard of. A large portion of bands classifiable within the avant-garde metal subgenre either count as black metal, or are significantly inspired by black metal due to the genre's fondness for disturbing imagery, ideology, and atmosphere, all of which are pretty useful when you want to prog out as a band, as well as its mutability and strange song structures, two further helpful elements; as a result, it's arguably become one of the most largest subgenres of black metal. Some bands also overlap with blackened and/or technical death metal, due to the historically strong ties between tech/avant-black and certain dissonant blackened and tech acts.

• Abyssal (also blackened death and black-doom)
• Ævangelist (also Death Metal, depending on the album)
• Agalloch
• Akercocke (a slight case of Genre-Busting; they also count as Blackened Death Metal and Progressive Death Metal)
• Akhlys
• Altarage (also blackened death)
• Amiensus
• Aosoth
• Arcturus^note Note, however, that most of their albums after Aspera hiems symfonia have almost nothing to do with black metal apart from the band's ancestry. The only song between that and their initial breakup that could legitimately be called black metal is "Radical Cut" on The Sham Mirrors. Apart from that, barely any of the songs even have harsh vocals. All of their work is awesome however. Their work since their reformation has brought in more black metal influence again.
• Ashenspire
• Blaze of Perdition
• Blut aus Nord (most of their work starting from around The Work Which Transforms God, though it really depends on the release, as they have about three or four different styles which they shift between)
• Borknagar (starting at some point from around The Archaic Course, though it's not universally agreed upon when this happened; they gave up almost every pretense of being black metal around the time ICS Vortex formally joined and became a full-blown prog act with some blackened elements)
• Botanist^note Hammered dulcimer black metal. Contains no guitars or bass. The second release (technically the third album), Doom in Bloom, features a Genre Shift to doom metal, but maintains the hammered dulcimer foundation of the music while adding atmospheric keyboards to the mix. IV: Mandragora returns to a more black metal-influenced sound, and also throws large amounts of distortion into the mix, but remains rooted in the hammered dulcimer.
• Celtic Frost (Ur-Example with Into the Pandemonium)
• Code
• Cobalt (Eater of Birds onward)
• Convulsing (also blackened death)
• Cormorant (began influencing their material around the time of Dwellings; on subsequent releases it has been their dominant style)
• Deathspell Omega (Si monumentum requires, circumspice onward, if the Manifestations albums don't count)
• Diabolical Masquerade
• Dodecahedron
• Dødheimsgard
• Dornenreich
• Emperor (later, particularly on Prometheus)
• Enslaved (while they were always progressive to some extent, the progressive elements start to dominate the group's material around Mardraum and Monumension)
• Epiphanic Truth (there are a number of descriptors that could fit their sound, but this is probably one of the best; they also have some Progressive Death Metal elements)
• Esoctrilihum
• Finsterforst (mixed with Folk Metal)
• Fleurety
• A Forest of Stars
• Gevurah (everything up to Hallelujah!, Sulphur Soul is closer to traditional black metal)
• Gnaw Their Tongues (mixed with Industrial and Harsh Noise; one of the more extreme examples)
• Haunter
• Hirilorn (see also Deathspell Omega, which began as a spinoff until Hirilorn split up)
• IATT
• Ihsahn (the amount of black metal really depends on the album; Das Seelenbrechen barely even qualifies as metal)
• Imperial Triumphant
• Infera Bruo
• In Lingua Mortua (emphasis on the progressive part, thanks in no small part to keyboardist Lars Fredrik Frøislie's array of vintage '70s synthesizers)
• Inter Arma (a Genre Mashup example, but their mix of sludge metal, black metal, post-metal, progressive rock, neofolk, and country could probably land them here)
• In the Woods... (early)
• Jute Gyte (an incredibly prolific project; depending on the release and even on the track, his work can also qualify as noise, ambient, electronic, or a number of other genres, but probably the majority of it has at least one foot rooted in black metal. Starting with Discontinuities, he began basing his music on 24 Equal Divisions of the Octave [i.e., with an extra note halfway between every half-step of the traditional 12-note Western scale], which made it even more avant-garde and arguably heavier than it was. Overall, this is probably one of the heaviest acts on this list)
• Krallice
• L'Acephale (mixed with a bunch of other styles, but this is one of the labels that fits them best)
• Liturgy (with the arguable exception of The Ark Work, which adds a bizarre mix of noise rock, math rock, industrial, and IDM to their sound; there is widespread disagreement over whether it even still qualifies as metal. Their later material, while not dropping those influences entirely, is more rooted in black metal again)
• Malokarpatan (also folk/black and traditional heavy metal)
• Malthusian (also blackened death)
• The Meads of Asphodel
• Mirrorthrone
• Misþyrming
• Mitochondrion (mixed with Death Metal)
• Moonsorrow (mixed with Folk Metal)
• Murmur Band (Mixed with zeuhl)
• Nachtmystium
• Nagelfar (Not to Be Confused with Sweden's Naglfar - note the spelling difference)
• Negură Bunget
• Ne Obliviscaris (Genre-Busting example, but probably one of the more accurate labels for their sound)
• Njiqahdda (On some releases)
• Nocte Obducta
• Nokturnal Mortum (since at least Голос сталі/The Voice of Steel if not much earlier; mixed with Folk Metal and Viking Metal, the former of which has become their dominant style on Істина/Verity)
• Nyss
• Occasvs (somewhere between this and melodic black, but ultimately quirky and weird enough for this)
• Opeth (early material, mostly; by the time of Still Life they had already shed nearly every trace of black metal)
• Oranssi Pazuzu (mixed with Psychedelic Rock)
• Peste Noire
• Petrychor
• Plebeian Grandstand
• Predatory Light
• Rejoice! The Light Has Come
• Schammasch (also gothic metal)
• Serpent Column (tinges of melodic black metal and mathcore)
• Shade Empire (depending on the release/track; mixed with Symphonic Black Metal)
• Shining (Norway, from Blackjazz onward; more than a slight case of Genre-Busting, as they also incorporate elements of Industrial Metal, fusion jazz, and numerous other styles. Blackjazz marks the point where their material becomes consistently metal-oriented; before that, most of their material was acoustic jazz or Progressive Rock, although their live shows had always incorporated quite a lot of metal influence, and a few songs on In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster and Grindstone also qualify as metal, though not black metal)
• Shining (Sweden, arguably on all new material since The Eerie Cold or Halmstad and certainly on Född förlorare; still very different in tone and influences from the Norwegian group, however, and still unquestionably depressive)
• Sigh (Possible Trope Maker; as with In Lingua Mortua above, keyboardist Mirai Kawashima's vast array of vintage '70s synths gives this band a particularly progressive feeling, but the band's willingness to engage in Genre Roulette in the middle of a song also makes them a major codifier for avant-garde and experimental metal in general)
• Sinmara
• Solefald
• Spirit Possession
• Svartidauði
• S.V.E.S.T.
• Thantifaxath
• Thy Catafalque (earlier material; like Arcturus, their later material is clearly black metal-influenced, but has given up all pretenses of actually being black metal)
• Thy Darkened Shade
• Tribulation (particularly from The Children of the Night onward)
• Ved Buens Ende... (Trope Maker)
• Vektor (mixed with Thrash Metal)
• Victory Over The Sun (formerly Cichy Duch; there are a number of potential categorisations for this band, but this is probably the closest fit. Beyond its music, this band is unusual amongst black metal projects for consisting entirely of one woman, and even more unusual in that she is transgender. Nowherer is composed entirely using microtones, using 17 Equal Divisions of the Octave rather than the traditional 12-note scale of Western music.)
• Warforged (the Adrian Perez-era material; they abandoned this on The Grove | Sundial)
• Weakling
• White Ward (a mixture of this and post-black, with a fair bit of jazz influence as well)
• Wolves in the Throne Room
• Wormlust
• Yuck (Black metal mixed with Grunge)
• Zeal & Ardor (mixed with Soul, Blues, and Gospel Music - no, we're not kidding)
• Zhrine (mixed with post-black metal)

Post-Black Metal and Blackgaze ^note  It's worth noting that the term "post-black metal" can have two completely different meanings depending upon who is using it. In one form, it is simply a fusion of black metal with post-rock. In another, it is essentially to black metal what post-punk is to punk: music that builds on the foundation of black metal and takes it in completely different direction. The latter term is the older one, but the former is more commonly used now.
Two closely related subgenres of black metal incorporating elements of post-rock and shoegaze, respectively. Generally more melodic and arguably more accessible than more traditional black metal. This is something of a polarizing genre; many people adore it but black metal purists often attack it as watering down black metal for a hipster audience.

• Abigail Williams (Becoming only)
• Agalloch
• Alcest (possible Trope Codifier, starting with Le Secret; note, however, that quite a bit of their songs from Souvenirs on are straight-up shoegaze with virtually no black metal influence whatsoever, but it depends on the album. Shelter, in particular, has no black metal on it and may not even qualify as metal)
• Altar of Plagues (Note: They also incorporate Industrial Metal influence on their final album, Teethed Glory and Injury)
• Amesoeurs
• Ash Borer
• Auðn
• Bosse-de-Nage
• Cold Body Radiation
• Constellatia
• Corps Fleur (side project of Luke Haarhoff of Vulvodynia)
• Deafheaven
  • 2013 - Sunbather
• Dernier Martyr
• Fauna
• Fen
• Fleurety (arguable Trope Maker)
• Gaerea
• Germ
• Gospel of the Witches (like spiritual predecessor Ephel Duath, they are very difficult to classify, but this is probably one of the labels that is most likely to stick)
• The Great Old Ones
• Harakiri for the Sky
• Lantlôs (up to Melting Sun, which shed the vast majority of the black metal and metal in general; Wildhund is shoegaze/post-hardcore)
• Leech
• Negură Bunget (another possible Trope Codifier)
• Njiqahdda (On some releases)
• Nullingroots
• October Falls
• Panopticon (On some releases)
• Petrychor (Not surprising as the band's sole member also plays bass in the post-rock group Beware of Safety)
• Solstafir (earlier material, their later material is a mix of post-rock, shoegaze, and dream pop that barely even qualifies as metal)
• Twilight (A Supergroup containing members of various American Black Metal bands and, oddly enough, Thurston Moore.)
• Underling
• Ved Buens Ende (although not really a member of the genre, they could arguably be considered its Ur-Example, given their weird, twisty song structures)
• Weakling (a third possible Trope Codifier)
• White Ward (a mixture of this and avant-garde/progressive, with a fair bit of jazz influence as well)
• Wiegedood
• Wolves in the Throne Room
• ██████ (pronounced "nic" and/or "black strip", apparently)

Bestial Black Metal/War Metal
Based on the raw, thrashing style of early Death Metal-influenced Black Metal bands such as Blasphemy, Sarcófago, Von and Beherit, Bestial Black Metal aims for pure, demonic aggression and speed, often featuring elongated blastbeats, chainsaw-esque guitar tones, extremely guttural vocals and short song lengths. Many bands show heavy influence from Death Metal, old school Thrash Metal and sometimes Grindcore. Lyrics usually eschew political or philosophical themes, instead focusing on blasphemous and taboo subjects such as anti-Christianity, desecration of religious symbols, sadism, sodomy and bestiality. Basically Black Metal's answer to Brutal Death Metal.

• دمار (pronounced "damaar" in Arabic)
• Abhomine
• Abhorer
• Abysmal Lord
• Aclewan
• Antediluvian
• Archgoat
• Antichrist Siege Machine
• Aparthiva Raktadhara
• Axis Of Advance
• Baneblade
• Beherit (Trope Maker and Codifier for the genre alongside Blasphemy)
• Bestial Putrefaction (mixed with goregrind)
• Bestial Warlust
• Black Goat Of The Woods
• Black Mouth Of Spite (side project of Maurice de Jong of Gnaw Their Tongues fame)
• Black Witchery
• Blasphemy (Trope Maker and Codifier for the genre alongside Beherit)
• Blasphemophager
• Blood Revolt
• Brahmastrika
• Caveman Cult
• Conqueror (Trope Maker and Codifier for the modern war metal sound)
• Crurifragium
• Deiphago
• Diocletian
• Filth Chasm
• Genocide Shrines
• Goatpenis
• Goatscorge (a rare Christian example)
• Gravesend (mixed with deathgrind)
• Hades Archer
• Hellgoat
• Heresiarch
• Human Agony
• Impiety
• Intolerant (also cybergrind)
• Infernal Coil
• Invultation
• Jyotiṣavedāṅga
• Kapala (mixed with Harsh Noise)
• Manticore
• Massive Retaliation
• Morbosidad
• Naked Whipper
• Necrodeity
• Nirrti (some folk and noise influences)
• Nuclearhammer
• Nunslaughter (not a full-fledged example, but extremely influential to the genre and thus gets an honorary mention)
• Nyogthaeblisz (mixed with Grindcore and Harsh Noise)
• Order From Chaos (an Ur-Example for the genre, also the band Pete Helmkamp was in before he formed Angelcorpse)
• Prehistoric War Cult
• Primitive Warfare
• Proclamation
• Profanatica
• Profane Order
• Pseudogod
• Qqgcguvhjn
• Revenge
• Sadomator
• Sect Pig
• Tetragrammacide (mixed with Harsh Noise)
• Truppensturm
• Tsalal
• Vadhakarmadhikarin
• Warstrike 666
• Washboard Vomit
• Wearg
• Wrathprayer
• Your End

While not technically different subgenres as the bands described within have wildly varying musical styles, the following subtropes are ideologically different to most other forms of black metal, and are often considered subgenres of black metal; as such, all three have been given their own place on the list.

National Socialist Black Metal
As the name suggests, this is black metal with a focus on lyrics and imagery espousing Neo-Nazism or other extreme right-wing ideologies, usually in the form of either "being proud of your race/culture" (with particular emphasis on the "Aryan" race part over the culture) or "exterminating the undesirables" (typically Jews, Muslims, or other minorities) albeit drenched in the typical over-the-top fanciful trappings of black metal. Musicians hold far-right, nationalist political beliefs, and they use their music to get their views across.

Ideologically, NSBM bands often synthesize neo-Nazism with black metal's customary anti-Christianity, viewing Paganism, Nazi esotericism and/or Satanism as superior "non-Jewish" beliefs, although Christian/unblack NSBM does exist, as do bands espousing other right-wing ethocentrist beliefs such as those of fascist South American heritage movements. Bands with a stronger pretense of philosophical sophistication may occasionally invoke Friedrich Nietzsche, Julius Evola or other thinkers influential to neo-Nazi thought, though more commonly NSBM lyrics will simply blend generic black metal misanthropy with shoehorned racist/antisemitic sentiment and vague notions of nationalism and pride. Musically, NSBM bands most often play fairly bog-standard traditional black metal, but some incorporate either epic/Pagan/viking black metal or Rock Against Communism/RAC Punk Rock.

• Absurd
• Aryan Terrorism (side project of Knjaz Varggoth from Nokturnal Mortum)
• Branikald
• Dark Fury
• Dub Buk
• Forest
• Fullmoon
• Goatmoon
• Grand Belials Kay (sister band Arghoslent also represents a Death Metal version of the genre)
• Hate Forest (although it's worth noting that Drudkh contain almost exactly the same lineup except for the drummer and explicitly disavowed radical politics upon signing to Season of Mist)
• Intolitarian (Nazi war metal)
• Kroda (or Крода in Cyrillic script) (though the members themselves deny it, some of their lyrics are questionable and their choice of cover material is even more so. Note that the band's association with NSBM is rumoured to be the reason erstwhile composer Viterzgir departed the band)
• M8L8TH (or М8Л8ТХ in Cyrillic script)
• Nokturnal Mortum (formerly; their lyrical themes have been primarily based around Heavy Mithril since their 2009 album Голос сталі/The Voice of Steel, and frontman Knjaz Varggoth declared in 2014 that he was no longer aligned with national socialism or interested in promoting a political agenda. The band's rare political statements since then have mostly centred around maintaining Ukraine's independence from Russia, a major concern of most of Ukraine's citizens since the conflict over the Crimean peninsula)
• Northern (an ambiguous case; their original run as Cold Northern Vengeance was largely apolitical in spite of Heathen's somewhat well-known political affiliations, but Northern has more overt dogwhistles and has repeatedly played racist/NS festivals, which presents far less plausible deniability)
• Peste Noire (a somewhat ambiguous/borderline case)^note If you're interested, band leader Famine defines himself as a French nationalist. French nationalism holds the view that foreigners can earn the right to become French through service; Famine gives the example of the French Foreign Legion here. In fact, the band has contained an Asian member at various points, so it's questionable whether they're racists, but on the other hand they did name their first demo Aryan Supremacy and are known to be affiliated with multiple individuals with open far-right leanings. Famine also defines himself as a national anarchist, which is a somewhat bizarre attempt to synthesise nationalism and anarchism and generally just ends up pissing off both nationalists and anarchists.
• Satanic Warmaster (though sole member Werwolf denies the connection, many of their lyrics carry Neo-Nazi/xenophobic undertones)
• Silencer (another ambiguous case, as it's not clear whether the lyrics are intended sincerely or merely for shock value, particularly given that the front man of the band appears to have been literally mentally ill)
• Spear of Longinus (black/thrash, also a fairly notorious who's who of far-right individuals within the Australian black and thrash metal scenes)
• Temnozor (or Темнозорь in Cyrillic script)
• Thor's Hammer (not to be confused with Thorr's Hammer, the American death/doom band featuring the future members of Sunn O))).)
• Veles

Red and Anarchist Black Metal
Basically the complete polar opposite of NSBM. Most of these bands are fairly new and some formed as a direct response to NSBM, although Profecium is a notable exception as it formed in 1993.^note Euronymous of Mayhem also self-identified as an "authoritarian communist", although it's pretty well-known that he cared more about the "authoritarian" part for the morbid shock value of the atrocities carried out by authoritarian communist regimes than adhering to actual socialist ideology. The bands of this subgenre are overwhelmingly non-authoritarian communists or outright anarchists. . There is also a strong environmentalist bent to much of this music, and many bands from the Cascadian region of the United States and Canada fall here. There is also a strong overlap with crust punk. Most of them are also explicitly atheistic, pagan, or (in Profecium's case) Satanic religiously speaking, although a couple of lesser known bands overlap with unblack/Christian metal below.

• Aborym are openly antifascist, and their lyrics address this more overtly starting at around Psychogrotesque
• Adamennon
• Akvan^note Despite some nationalistic lyrical themes, frontman Vizaresa has expressed opposition to racism, Nazism, and radical Islam, and the lyrics tend to glorify the egalitarian empire of Cyrus the Great.
• Ashenspire (they explicitly identify as RABM on their Bandcamp. Their first album, Speak Not of the Laudanum Quandary, is an examination of how the spoils of empire even now allow the British people to live in relative comfort "while others drown in their own filth in gutters that we dredged", per the album cover. Their second album, Hostile Architecture, is named for architecture that deters the public from using a space for "means unintended by the designer", which the album posits represents "a foundational contempt for the poor and working class, an exemplification of a status quo fortified in concrete", per the album description; it also uses hostile architecture as a metaphor for how society itself is structured)
• Blut aus Nord ^note most of their lyrics have not been released, but the story of Fathers of the Icy Age centres around vengeance for an act of attempted genocide, which arguably places them in this category; band leader Vindsval has also expressed explicit opposition to nationalism and racism in interviews and stated that he is ideologically aligned with bands like Wolves in the Throne Room
• Book of Sand (experimental black metal)
• Bull Of Apis Bull Of Bronze
• Bustum (Croatia; confusingly, there is also a Polish group of the same name that has connections to National Socialism)
• Cormorant (starting with Dwellings; the band's first frontman/lyricist Arthur von Nagel was outspokenly leftist, and the band's lyrics tend to be Horrible History Metal with a notable anti-authoritarian slant)
• Dawn Ray'd
• Dead to a Dying World (also sludge)
• Deathspell Omega's recent work, though there is a large caveat here regarding the political sympathies of their presumed vocalist(s) (who don't write the music or lyrics; "presumed vocalist(s)" because we're discussing one of the most dedicated Anonymous Bands in black metal). Without naming any of their members, Deathspell explicitly address the ideological rift between themselves and "parts of the second circle" in their 2019 interview with Bardo Methodology: they clarify that they like working with ideological opponents because they feel shying from conflict is detrimental to art. The most notorious example, Mikko Aspa (presumed to have performed on most tracks from Si monumentum requires, circumspice onward), is strongly connected to authoritarian politics. Nonetheless, Deathspell Omega's opposition to authoritarianism is hardly ambiguous; they explicitly call totalitarianism (whether leftist or rightist) a "death cult" in the Bardo Methodology interview, and the Order's totalitarian rule in The Furnaces of Palingenesia directly causes the extinction of humanity, if not all life on Earth. Additionally, their largest literary influence by far, Georges Bataille, was a Marxist who wrote several literary deconstructions of fascism (though he was no fonder of authoritarian communism); their second-largest literary influence, Marquis de Sade, spent much of his career cataloguing the numerous ways the powerful abuse their stations to prey on the weak.^note Since Sade's political writings are not widely available in English, this has frequently not been clear to English readers. Sade remains a controversial writer whose works are accessible to numerous disparate interpretations (see also the "cultural depictions" section), and he was accused of several horrifying acts (though the most sensational accusations were never proved); however, most academics agree he isn't arguing in favour of the depravity he depicts in his fiction. Politically, Sade could be described as far-left or proto-communist/anarchist.
  • The Furnaces of Palingenesia (2019) is a scathing deconstruction of totalitarianism along the lines of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The many examples of self-aware irony it contains were a large clue on this count even before the Bardo Methodology interview clarified their intentions. Furnaces argues that humanity's innate corruption means that government by humans will inevitably lead to corruption and chaos, a message that is certainly compatible with anarchism.^note To be fair, Deathspell Omega also express scepticism of violent revolution, but most modern anarchists do not advocate violent tactics, so there is not necessarily a contradiction with anarchist thought here; however, they also describe humanity as an intrinsically violent species, suggesting that they doubt such a state of affairs will ever occur. Regardless, this album, particularly in the context of their 2019 interview, fits in this category more or less by the process of elimination; having ruled out all systems of government as intrinsically corrupt, there is really only one place to go.
  • The Long Defeat (2022), amongst other elements, contains an all but explicitly anarchist critique of hierarchies and the use of force to maintain them and criticises humanity's violence and degradation of the natural environment. The lyrics and the fable included with the album both recapitulate many themes they'd already expressed in their 2019 and 2020 interviews.
  • The band's earlier work is generally not explicitly political, but Drought (2012) is implicitly a metaphor for climate change (which they confirmed as intentional in their 2020 Cult Never Dies interview).
• Epiphanic Truth's first album is a Concept Album about how humanity's greed and self-sightedness will lead to our downfall, and it explicitly denounces the pursuit of power and material wealth, meaning that they can probably fairly be placed here.
• Ethereal Shroud
• Fall of the Bastards
• Falls of Rauros
• Feminazgûl (a rare example of a two-woman black metal band, and instrumentalist and backing vocalist Margaret Killjoy is also trans)
• Gaylord (a rare LGBTQ-fronted black metal project)
• Iskra (mixed with crust punk)
• Jarost Marksa
• Krallice, given the lyrics on Prelapsarian and Loüm, probably fit in here now
• L'Acephale^note Although they've never precisely made a secret of their political sympathies (they're literally named after a secret society formed by the French leftist Georges Bataille - already mentioned as an influence on Deathspell Omega, incidentally - and Stahlhartes Gehäuse is based around the band's critique of capitalism, bureaucracy, and industrialism by way of the German sociologist Max Weber), these have become much more explicit with more recent releases like "Mortem" and the Self-Titled Album
• Leech
• Liturgy (influenced by Marxism, per their own Bandcamp)
• Neckbeard Deathcamp (a humorous take on the genre, but musically serious)
• Panopticon (which has overlapped with Folk Metal in recent years)
• Plebeian Grandstand
• PunaTerrori
• Profecium (Ur-Example/Trope Maker)
• Sankara (communist war metal)
• Skagos
• Sorgsvart (mixed with viking metal)
• Timebomb
• Trespasser
• Wolves in the Throne Room (probably the Trope Codifier, or at least the group most responsible for making people aware that left-wing black metal exists)
• Zeal & Ardor (can be interpreted this way, although the band's exact political stances are usually left implicit, with Wake of a Nation being a major exception, being made as a direct response to the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement)

Unblack Metal
Do you love black metal, but hate all that stuff about Satan? Well, this is the perfect genre for you! Unblack metal, also known as "white metal", is black metal with Christian lyrics and themes. These bands are often strongly hated by the rest of the black metal fandom because of the rather negative attitude held towards Christianity by the genre and much of metal in general.

• Admonish
• Antestor (Trope Maker / Trope Codifier)
• Crimson Moonlight
• Deborah (an all-female Mexican band.)
• Drottnar (mixed with Progressive Metal. And probably the most respected of the lot)
• Elgibbor
• Frost Like Ashes (mixed with Death Metal)
• Holy Blood
• Horde (Trope Maker)
• Sanctifica
• Slechtvalk (overlaps with Folk Metal)
• Underoath (the Corey Steger-era material and especially Act of Depression, also death metal and metalcore)

The black metal genre exhibits the following tropes:

• Album Intro Track: Probably around half of black metal albums contain these. They often vary widely in style from the remainder of the content on the album, ususally being either ambient or folk music.
• Anonymous Band: An awful lot of bands don't release any information about their membership. Deathspell Omega are probably the most notorious for this.
• Apocalypse How: A common lyrical theme.
• Bilingual Bonus: Many non-Anglo-American bands write in their native languages. Additionally, a lot of bands will throw in lyrics from multiple languages. Solefald, for example, typically write in about four, while Deathspell Omega often throw in even more (Gratuitous Latin is particularly common).
• Black Speech: Plenty of bands borrow Tolkienic motives for their names and some even write entire songs in pseudo-Black Speech. The growling makes it hard to tell the difference anyway. (Note that Summoning's "Mirdautas Vras" is in actual Black Speech.)
• Boléro Effect: Very common with post-black metal and avant-garde black metal bands.
• Careful with That Axe: Freaking everywhere, with Silencer's Death - Pierce Me, Fleurety's A Darker Shade of Evil, and Bethlehem's Dictius te necare being particularly notable examples.
• Creepy Awesome: Pretty much black metal's bread and butter. While most people would find this genre as Nightmare Fuel in musical, stage and ideology form, its fans instead appreciate the musicians' tremendous musical prowess and, in general, the pure adrenaline the music can give, so much that the rawer the sound is, the better it is.
  • Subverted with NSBM, for obvious reasons.
• Darker and Edgier: Second-wave black metal was this to the first wave, turning up the aggression of the music and being more serious about the Satanic/occultic themes. Quoting Canadian music web show This Exists:
  "The Norwegians really cranked that shit up with the second wave of black metal. And they stopped kidding. Ever. About anything."
• Dark Is Evil/Dark Is Not Evil: Both are invoked, although the former more so than the latter.
• Dramatic Wind: Very commonly used as a Stock Sound Effect, particularly when bands need to evoke winter. Paysage d'Hiver in particular does this basically every song. Their usage of wind is so prolific that their 7th album Winterkaelte needed to trim a whole 13 minutes of wind sound from the cassette version in order to fit it on a compact disc.
• Drone of Dread: Very often with the more atmospheric bands in the genre. Darkspace is especially well known for this.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first-wave of black metal is basically very raw Thrash Metal with shades of Death Metal, Speed Metal, Doom Metal, Traditional Heavy Metal, Sludge Metal, Hardcore Punk, Punk Rock, Post-Rock, Noise Rock, Post-Punk, Post-Hardcore, Folk Metal and proto-Grunge, and the Satanic themes were more for shock value than actually reflecting the band's beliefs, plus, there weren't as much tremelo-picking, blast beats or shrieking vocals as there would be in the second-wave.
• Echoing Acoustics: Many Norwegian bands such as Emperor and Mayhem recorded in the Grieg Memorial Hall to take full advantage of its acoustics. Also, if a band gets classified as "atmospheric black metal", nine times out of ten their production will contain a lot of this.
• Epic Instrumental Opener: Shows up a lot in Melodic Black Metal. Other genres display this a certain amount, too.
• Epic Rocking: A fair portion of black metal songs. Arguably the rule rather than the exception, actually.
• Evil Is Cool: A core principle of Black Metal.
  • More specifically within the genre, this may be the reason NSBM became a thing as well.
• Fan Disservice: Females wearing corpse paint look more terrifying than sexy and the appearance are meant to evoke creepiness.
• For the Evulz: Invoked as a motivation by some bands.
• God and Satan Are Both Jerks: More than a few black metal bands have taken this approach.
• God Is Evil: Many musicians and fans profess to hate Christianity for replacing the pagan traditions of Europe, leading to several widely publicized church burnings. Mayhem drummer Hellhammer spoke in a Guitar World interview about his dislike for "Christianity and its pitiful glorification of the weak," but went on to say that he was not a Satanist because "Satanists always end up burning themselves out, and I'm not going to do that." He cited paganism as his primary inspiration.
  • In an ironic turn of events, Hellhammer eventually lent his drumming skills to Unblack metal band Antestor, if only to piss off his former Mayhem band mates.
• Gorn: Sometimes used as thematic, but it's not very common as with Death Metal.
  • Mayhem cranked up the trope with "Chainsaw Gutsfuck", which lyrics are so gorny it was voted as "song with the goriest lyrics ever" by a metal-specialized website. I dare you to find the lyrics of this song.
• Green Aesop: A common lyrical theme is nature or concern for the environment. Interestingly, this tends to hold true across all ideological alignments and is probably one of the few things you could get RABM and NSBM bands to agree on, apart from liking black metal.
• Grim Up North: While BM scenes exist worldwide, most of the BM releases that many metalheads know of usually come from Northern European countries (Norway, in particular).
• Harsh Vocals: The primary vocal style used within the genre, though more avant-garde bands may incorporate clean singing into their music.
• Heavy Mithril: When the lyrics aren't Satanic or philosophical, chances are they will be fantasy-based.
• Horrible History Metal: Some bands, particularly Marduk, are known for this. World War II is an especially common subject for these bands.
• I Am the Band: It's fairly common for bands to consist of only one or two permanent members who play all the instruments. Some good examples are Burzum, Xasthur, Panopticon, and Leviathan for one-man bands. Darkthrone and Summoning are particularly well-known two-man bands.
• Indecipherable Lyrics: Pretty much a given when your primary vocal style is shrieked. The fact that a lot of musicians don't speak English as their first language doesn't help, even when the lyrics are in English.
• Kill All Humans: A common lyrical theme. Most of the songs on Mayhem's Ordo ad chao are about this, and Botanist has been making a series of Concept Albums about a man who wants to summon an army of plants to wipe out humanity.
• Lead Drummer: While there aren't as many of these as there are in death metal due to the decreased technical requirements needed to play black metal, there are some standouts, with Hellhammer, Trym Torson, Frost (1349, Satyricon), Nils "Dominator" Fjellstrom (ex-Dark Funeral), Simon Schilling (Marduk), Janne Jaloma (Dark Funeral), Darkside (Mgla), Kenny Grohowski (Imperial Triumphant), and Nick Barker being among the most famous examples.
• Loudness War: This has been a problem with releases in the genre for about 15 years. The '90s releases weren't as plagued by it for the most part, with a few exceptions (Ulver's Nattens madrigal is one of the few metal albums to receive a remaster that is more dynamic than the original).
• Metal Scream: All three types, albeit Type 3 is the most prominent.
• Mind Screw: An awful lot of bands in the genre seem to do this deliberately (Sigh stand out for invoking the trope in the liner notes to Hail Horror Hail). A rather strong case could be made that this is a staple of the genre, especially the Avant-Garde/Progressive bands.
• Misanthrope Supreme: An especially common lyrical stance.
• Mood Whiplash: Anytime an album opens with a Surprisingly Gentle Song, it's followed by the Harsh Vocals and instruments the genre is known for.
• Nightmare Fuel: Similar to its sister genre, death metal, black metal bands are a big fan of this trope, be it the imagery, the sound, or the lyrics, and what makes it worse than death metal is the sheer abundance of actual crimes committed by the black metal band members. In fact, so far, black metal is the only specific metal genre to have its own Nightmare Fuel page, until death metal got its own.
• Nobody Loves the Bassist: In a lot of cases the bass in black metal is almost completely inaudible, whether by design or just due to a crappy mix. Some bands simply don't have a bass player at all (e.g. Darkthrone, Wolves in the Throne Room on their first album). Some other bands prove to be glorious aversions, such as Drudkh, Ved Buens Ende, Imperial Triumphant, Thantifaxath, and more recent Deathspell Omega.^note A comment in the Last.fm shoutbox about Deathspell's song "The Crackled Book of Life" noted, "The bass player has gotta be wearing the coolest sunglasses while playing this I mean fuck." Former Deathspell vocalist Shaxul also has a project entitled Arphaxat which proves to be an inversion, as it has bass but no guitar. (However, as is typical with Shaxul's work, this is pretty primitive stuff in comparison with the much more complex direction DsO has taken since his departure).
• "Not So Different" Remark: One lyrical approach in the Religion Rant Songs common in black metal is to portray God and Satan this way.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: See Black Speech above. Some bands use actual Latin, rather than just psuedo-Latin, in their songs, such as Funeral Mist, Sigh, and Deathspell Omega. The Italian duo Nazgûl take this one step further by writing all of their lyrics in Latin (and they're all Tolkien-inspired). The quality of Latin grammar in various bands' songs, of course, varies widely. Deathspell, for one, get it almost entirely correct, while many other bands are not so successful.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The driving force behind NSBM, and also a stance in many of the more nationalistic bands in the folk and Viking metal subgenres.
• Public Medium Ignorance: To many, Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth and maybe Emperor are the only Black Metal bands. This may be a contributing factor to the massive backlash against the former two bands in the black metal underground, although many people just don't think they're very good. To fans of other metal subgenres (or other genres of music in general), there is often a perception that all black metal consists of corpse painted Norwegians writing extremely lo-fi songs about Satanism and Dungeons and Dragons in between rounds of arson and murder, which doesn't really hold true past the second wave and even then only applies to a few bands from that movement.
  • Unfortunately, this trope applies as well for the general Heavy Metal genre, due to atrocities done by few black metal musicians.
• Quirky Work: A particularly relevant example, especially thanks to its strange melodies and the corpse paint. Among bands, however, Immortal is probably the quirkiest of them all. In terms of individual countries...
  • Sigh are a classic weird example.
  • Deathspell Omega, Blut aus Nord, Alcest, Plebeian Grandstand, Peste Noire, and Esoctrilihum are Weird French Things.
  • Mortuary Drape and Opera IX are Weird Italian Things.
  • Oranssi Pazuzu are a Weird Finnish Thing.
  • Svartidauði, Misþyrming, Wormlust, and Zhrine are Weird Icelandic Things.
  • Batushka are a Weird Polish Thing.
  • Root and Master's Hammer are Weird Czech Things.
  • Rotting Christ, Necromantia, Varathron, and Thou Art Lord are Weird Greek Things.
  • Negură Bunget are a Weird Romanian Thing.
  • Drudkh and (sometimes) Nokturnal Mortum are Weird Ukrainian Things.
  • Cobalt, Krallice, Weakling, Liturgy, Imperial Triumphant, Devil Master, & Xexyz are Weird American Things.
  • Anaal Nathrakh, The Axis of Perdition, Woods Of Trees, and A Forest of Stars are Weird English Things.
  • Altar of Plagues and Malthusian are Weird Irish Things.
  • Dodecahedron and Terzij de Horde are Weird Dutch Things.
  • Thy Catafalque is a Weird Hungarian Thing... or was until its creator moved. Now it's a Weird Scottish Thing. The lyrics are still in Hungarian though.
  • Nagelfar, Nocte Obducta, and The Ruins of Beverast are Weird German Things.
  • Schammasch is a Weird Swiss Thing.
  • Malokarpatan is a Weird Slovak Thing.
  • Zeal & Ardor is a Weird Swiss/African-American Thing.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Exaggerated; everything in black metal is colored either black, red, or white, with hardly any variation or even gradient. This includes clothing, makeup, and album art.
• Refuge in Audacity: The live shows of Mayhem and Gorgoroth. To a certain extent the whole genre could be considered an example.
• Religion Rant Song: The most common lyrical theme.
• Rock Me, Asmodeus!: A core characteristic of the genre (In fact, it's even sometimes called Satanic metal) Given that genre founders like Venom, Bathory and Mercyful Fate all invoked this trope, it's not surprising that it has been utilised by legions of bands in the genre.
  • This does tend to be averted by bands in the Post-Rock/Black Metal, Blackened Shoegaze, Red/Anarchist Black Metal, and National Socialist Black Metal scenes, which naturally leads genre purists to declare They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. Or even, in extreme cases, to declare said bands not actually black metal due to lack of satanic lyrical content.
  • It is also perhaps worth pointing out that the actual sincerity of bands who use this in the genre can vary widely. Some of them, such as Mayhem under Euronymous, Deathspell Omega, and Gorgoroth, are 100% sincere theistic Satanists. Others, such as later Mayhem and most of the first-wave bands, are using it mostly for shock value, or, like King Diamond, are the non-theistic variety of Satanist and thus don't actually believe in the existence of God and Satan.
  • Varg Vikernes of Burzum criticises the prevalence of this trope in Black Metal on his website, arguing that genuine Satanism historically did not exist. Every recorded case of "devil worship" in pre-modern times, he argues, has actually been a case of genuine Pagan practices that were literally demonised by the church. He may be a colossal Jerkass, but he has something of a point here. (It may be worth pointing out that some of Vikernes' older material, such as "Dominus Sathanas" and his lyrics for Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger, nonetheless plays this trope straight. Word of God says he was using Satan as a metaphor for Odin).
  • Among second-wave Norwegian bands, the main ones who consistently avert this trope are Enslaved, who write almost exclusively about Nordic history and mythology, and Immortal, whose lyrics concern an imaginary world called Blashyrkh, plagued by war and suffering and ruled over by the mighty Ravendark. Both bands could also count as Token Good Teammates, since they were never involved in any of the arson, murder, or other questionable activities some of the other scene members got into, nor have they ever expressed sympathy for fascism or other questionable political ideologies.
• Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: Romantic, big freaking time.
• Sampling: Happens occasionally. The Seventh Seal is a particularly common source of this - excerpts of the soundtrack show up in, at the very least, Funeral Mist's Salvation, Panopticon's On the Subject of Mortality, L'Acephale's Stahlhartes Gehäuse, and Agalloch's The Mantle.
• Satan Is Good: Sometimes evoked by Satanically-themed black metal bands; that, or the more often used: Satan is evil and Evil Is Cool.
• Scare Chord: Deathspell Omega, quite atypically for a Black Metal band, have a chant section in their song "Carnal Malefactor" (frequently mistakenly assumed to be Gregorian chant, it's actually in Old Church Slavonic). What qualifies the song for this trope is that immediately after the chant's conclusion (before it's even finished echoing, in fact), they go straight back into blasting black metal, and if you're not prepared for it, it is terrifying.
• Serious Business: And in this case, the musicians can be as serious as the fans.
  • Refreshingly averted, if not inverted, with Immortal.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Black metal bands are (in)famous for featuring very verbose lyrics, many of them written in Gratuitous English and focusing on either philosophical or fantastical themes. Deathspell Omega are likely the most competent band at this, as their lyrics display a very strong understanding of philosophy and theology.
• Spikes of Villainy: Along with corpse paint, arm bands, gauntlets, and shoulder pads festooned with finger- to hand-length spikes are a defining look of black metal, especially for second wave acts.
• Spin-Off: Viking Metal.
• Stage Names: Almost all black metal bands use them, if they even list their members at all.
• Supergroup: Twilight (no, it has nothing to do with the book series) is one of these for USBM, having contained members of Xasthur, Leviathan, Nachtmystium, Krieg, Isis, and now even Sonic Youth. Krallice is also a supergroup, although its members were mostly known from Progressive Metal and Avant-Garde Metal bands, and it's since become probably the best known project for all of them except Colin Marston.
• Surprisingly Gentle Song: Particularly common in the ambient black metal genre, and often used as intros or outros.
• Three Chords and the Truth: Used by many bands in the genre. Strongly averted by most of the avant-garde and progressive groups however.
• Trope Codifier: For the first wave, Celtic Frost and/or Bathory; for the second wave, either Mayhem or Darkthrone. For individual subgenres:
  • Ambient Black Metal: Ildjarn or Burzum.
  • Raw Black Metal: Darkthrone.
  • Black/Thrash Metal: Absu or Deströyer 666.
  • Symphonic Black Metal: Emperor or Dimmu Borgir.
  • Melodic Black Metal: Sacramentum, The Kovenant, or Dissection.
  • Depressive/Suicidal Black Metal: Silencer, Lifelover, or Xasthur.
  • Folk/Black Metal: Ulver, Agalloch, or Drudkh.
  • Viking Metal: Bathory or Enslaved.
  • Avant-Garde/Progressive Black Metal: Deathspell Omega (for the more dissonant/aggressive side of the genre), Sigh (for the more quirky side of the genre), or Ved Buens Ende (for the more progressive/atmospheric side of the genre).
  • Indstrial/Electronic Black Metal: Samael, Blut aus Nord or, more recently, Anaal Nathrakh.
  • Bestial Black Metal: Blasphemy, Von, or Beherit.
  • Post-Black Metal: Negură Bunget or Weakling.
  • Blackened Shoegaze: Alcest.
  • NSBM: Absurd.
  • RABM: Wolves in the Throne Room.
  • Unblack Metal: Antestor.
• Trope Maker:
  • First-wave black metal was kickstarted either by Venom (also Trope Namer) or Bathory. It's unclear who first played second-wave black metal, but people will generally agree on Mayhem.
  • Burzum and Ildjarn are the Trope Makers for Ambient Black Metal, as is Emperor for Symphonic Black Metal and Bathory for Viking Metal.
• Uncommon Time: A surprising number of bands in this genre employ this from time to time, probably for the purpose of making the music even more disorienting. This occurs particularly frequently among avant-garde and progressive black metal bands, naturally (Uncommon Time might actually be more common on recent Blut aus Nord releases than Common Time, and good luck finding a song of theirs from this decade that doesn't use it at all), but it can also be heard on two songs on Mayhem's early, and not at all avant-garde or progressive, EP Deathcrush (specifically, if you're wondering, the title track and "Chainsaw Gutsfuck").
• Ur-Example: Venom for the First Wave and the genre as a whole as well as being the Trope Namer; Bathory, Mayhem, Sepultura, and Sarcofago for the Second Wave and beyond; Sigh and Ved Buens Ende for Post-Black Metal; Blasphemy and Von for Bestial Black/War Metal.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: It's quite common to see "f"'s" changed to "v"'s, "c"'s changed to "k"'s and "u"'s changed to "v"'s in song titles and so on, so "cult of doom" (for example) becomes "kvlt ov doom".

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