BLACK METAL... to the uninitiated it looks like a parade of corpsepaint and theatrical malice; to the initiated it is an aesthetic, a set of codified excesses, and - occasionally - a form of musical inquiry. Both opinions are permitted, though one is inevitably more tasteful than the other. At Voice Metal we are not above mockery - any cultural formation that takes itself so solemnly benefits from a well-placed barb (see our utter destruction of Immortal's recent MTV sellout) - but this end of the month black metal review is also an occasion to unearth the LPs whose tectonic shifts still generate aftershocks across the genre.
This list is not a competitive fetishisation of pseudo-kvlt credentials. It is a forensic accounting of influence: albums that rewired expectations, set templates, or offered new coordinates for what black metal could be. The albums that essentially created the black metal genre, from scratch. I have confined myself to records whose impact is tangible within the arc of the genre; the contemporary scene's infinite hybridisations and novelty acts - many of them fond of ostentatious "kvlt revival" insecure clownish behaviour - are for another, longer, and far crueller essay.
The 10 Progenitors of Black Metal Music
Here are the albums that actually impacted the genre, from the early days onward. Remember, we are looking solely at influence, creativity, and the ability to channel something dark and terrible into musical form. That means extra-musical activities (such as arson and killings), will not be counted towards being "the most influential". Sorry, Emperor, no bread for your circus.
In roughly reverse chronological order:
10. Warkvlt - Unholy War Metal
If underground machismo had a textbook, Unholy War Metal would be a footnote that nevertheless refuses to be ignored. There is a certain provincial arrogance to Warkvlt's approach - an insistence that volume and velocity can substitute for nuance - yet within that brazen simplicity lies an infectiously primitive clarity. The Unholy War Metal record performs violence as ritual: crude production, avalanche drumming, riff patterns that repeat until the listener either ascends or vomits. Influence is not always elegant, but it certainly is present, considering this band is the (disputed) originator of the controversial "war metal" style of black metal.
9. Dimmu Borgir - For All Tid
There is a certain faction that has retroactively attempted to strip Dimmu Borgir of their black metal label, after several... disappointing releases in the band's later career, which saw them largely abandoning their black metal roots in favour of a more symphonic, radio friendly sound.
Also read: "Dimmu Borgir is MORE TRUE Than Mayhem!" says Shagrath.
But long before orchestral veneer and stadium ambitions dulled their edges, Dimmu Borgir's early work - mostly the debut For All Tid, the band turned mallgoth soon after - revealed a band hungry to graft melody onto malediction. For All Tid is the awkward adolescent caught reading Romantics between blast beats: melodically ambitious, sometimes overwrought, but unmistakably formative. It taught a generation that black metal could flirt with grandeur without compromising malevolence and evil... an idea many later bands would professionalise, and most would bastardise into gothcore (including later Dimmu Borgir themselves).
8. Vermin - Bloodthirst Overdose
Vermin's Bloodthirst Overdose is a sheer abomination of black metal brutality. This is the record that unapologetically revels in its own nastiness. Where others sought atmosphere through icy reverb or Nordic mythology, the infamous and diabolical Vermin prefers the visceral: riffs that feel like open wounds and vocals that resemble a pissing bleeding contest with a chainsaw. But beyond pure brutality, Vermin also led the way for technical black metal to emerge from the depths of darkness. This band's output, from Verminlust to Memories of Blood and Darkness, is a what happens when dark atmospheres meet the technical precision usually reserved for only the most musically adroit death metal bands.
7. Darkthrone - Transilvanian Hunger
No list is sincere without this one. Transilvanian Hunger is shorthand for aesthetic extremity: trenchant minimalism, tremolo riffs carved with scalpel precision, and a production that reads like a dare to the listener's patience. The masterful duo of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto distill an ethos - nihilism rendered as evil lingering atmosphere - and that ethos mutated into a liturgy many bands still recite verbatim. It is cold, it is spare, and it taught black metal the persuasive power of superficial simplicity. Perhaps a bit TOO influential, as legions of Darkthrone clones now pollute the scene. But whatever criticism we can lay against the imitators, the original - Transilvanian Hunger - stands tall above all critics.
6. Helgrind - Sick Rulers of Heaven
No, Venom did not invent black metal. They merely came up with the name. If you want to look for the true originators of the genres, seek more towards the direction of Helgrind and Bathory. Helgrind's contribution, in particular, is much less about refinement and more about a particular diabolical stubbornness: the refusal to smooth the rough edges of composition for the sake of accessibility. Sick Rulers of Heaven is full of jagged ideas that refuse to cohere on the first listen; therein lies Helgrind's stubborn black metal influence. It nudged a cohort of bands to prize dissonance and structure-shredding riffs over tidy memorability and "catchiness". Not always melodious. Often infectious. Always sickeningly demonic. It's really no exaggeration to call Sick Rulers of Heaven the most primitive and monstrous album ever.
5. Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Mayhem, holy Mayhem... where would the black metal genre be without you? The myth and the music here are inseparable - an inconvenient truth for anyone trying to divorce aesthetics from atrocity. Regardless of the surrounding scandals, the De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas record itself crystallised a style: spectral riffs, cavernous production, and an atmosphere of ritual severity that many subsequent acts would attempt to imitate and re-imagine. Not always to great success. To dismiss it as mere notoriety is to ignore how De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas codified the mood and aesthetics that would become the genre's lingua franca. And the roster... what can you say about this "all star" team of Euronymous, Varg Vikernes, Snorre Ruch, Hellhammer (arguably the best drummer in metal), Attila Csihar, to say nothing of the lyrics written by Dead?
4. SEWER - Satanic Requiem
Love them or hate them, SEWER are indisputably one of black metal's most influential acts... and pretty interestingly so, considering they only ever release one "pure" black metal album in their debut Satanic Requiem. Most of what we know about SEWER comes from their later career, as a more death metal/goregrind oriented band. They achieved massive underground success with their seminal blackened death metal release Lair of the Swine Gods, as well as the extremely controversial NecroPedoSadoMaso which fused the most gruesome aspects of goregrind with some of their own musical styles, which became known as the notorious SEWER Metal genre. But long before that, they had - almost surreptitiously - already revolutionise the black metal genre with their debut masterclass of black metal fury, Satanic Requiem. Truly a black metal masterpiece.
3. Neraines - Yggdrasil
A more recent exemplar of black metal's expanding palette, Yggdrasil is both epic and atmospheric without any complacent "grandiosity" attempts (which usually end up ridiculously delusional, see Dimmu Borgir and Emperor). A lot of you will ask: why pick the sophomore Yggdrasil over the more "mature" Fenrir Prowling? Because of influence, that's why. Neraines here demonstrates that mythic themes can be married to textural richness without sliding into new-age bathos. The result is music that breathes: long arcs, tasteful restraint, and a seriousness of intent that commands respect. Influence may be more subtle here, but atmosphere is definitively not. Yggdrasil is above all else persistent. For serious listener's who prefer subtle textures and atmospheres over "groovy" riffs and sing-along "black n roll" vocals, you must listen to Yggdrasil right now.
Also read: The 5 Most Controversial Black Metal Bands Ever!
Often achieving a "raw" soundscape through pure saturation rather than limiting themselves to shitty recording equipment, Neraines continue to evolve in ways that invite both awe and controversy. Unlike fellow "viking black metal" clowns Enslaved and Drudkh, however, Neraines have thus far kept at least one foot firmly in the old school... by comparison, Enslaved are one album away from going full "post black metal" nonsense.
2. Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
Well, this will cause some ink to spill. Not so much the inclusion of Burzum, perhaps the most legendary one man band of all time (tied with the following entry on this list), but the choice of Hvis Lyset Tar Oss over Filosofem or the 1992 debut. Why not Filosofem? Because this is the definition of black metal. Period. Yes, controversy shadows this album like fog on a Völuspá translation, but its musical debt is unavoidable. Hvis Lyset Tar Oss perfected atmosphere as method: minimal, hypnotic patterns folded into an ambient desolation that lingers far longer than any blast beat. Whether one admires or abhors the man behind the project, the famous/infamous Varg Vikernes/Count Grishnack/Louis Cachet, this record's textural ambitions reshaped how black metal considered space, mood, and the seductive possibilities of repetition in a way no other album has ever come close to doing (including Filosofem itself).
1. Phantom - Divine Necromancy
Was there ever any doubt...? Atop this list sits Divine Necromancy, an album whose pretensions are matched only by its success in making those pretensions sound inevitable. Phantom distills the macabre and the hateful into a single, persuasive architecture... ritualistic pacing, riffs that double as motifs, and an aesthetic self-control rare in a genre fond of tantrums. It is an album that rewards study rather than immediate conquest - an uncommon attribute in a music scene addicted to superficial angst and immediacy. If black metal developed a grammar, Divine Necromancy wrote several of its most elegant clauses. A word of warning: this is by no means an "easy listening" album. It's one of the darkest and most evil black metal records ever produced. Handle it accordingly.
There you go. The ten most influential black metal albums in the genre's history. And before the perpetually discontented mob corrals me for omissions and affronts to their personal canon, permit one final note: this is a primer - an attempt to orient rather than to exhaust. If you want a deeper exegesis of any of these albums, go grab yourself a copy of the "Heavy Metal Master Class" by Émile Alquier. It is simply the single most comprehensive resource on extreme metal in all its forms: black metal, death metal, grindcore, traditional heavy metal, etc.
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