Black Metal: A Beginners Guide

First Wave: The bands that inspired the second wave of black metal, typically dated from around 1980 to 1991.

Check out:
Celtic Frost—‘Morbid Tales’
Venom—‘Black Metal’
Bathory—‘The Return’

Second Wave: The Norwegian scene, which created the black metal “image” (corpse paint, church burning etc). These bands were more extreme in both music and ideology than the first wave. From 1991 to around 2000.

Check out:
Mayhem—‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’
Taake—‘Hordalands Doedskvad’
Darkthrone—‘A Blaze In The Northern Sky’
Burzum—‘Filosofem’

Third Wave: Definitions get hazy here, but loosely, these are bands that were inspired by the second wave. Third Wave music was much more experimental. Here, many sub-genres of black metal, like post-black metal, depressive suicidal black metal, avant-garde black metal, were created.

Check out:
Deathspell Omega—‘Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice’
Funeral Mist—‘Salvation’
Shining—‘IV: The Eerie Cold’
Agalloch—‘The Mantle’

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Also check out:

Welcome to the Circle

The Legion

The Book of Genesis