50 Greatest Black Metal Bands of All Time

Mayhem

The band at the dark heart of Norwegian black metal — De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is the genre's definitive statement, its sound and its infamous history casting a shadow over everything that followed.

Darkthrone

Black metal's most influential purists — the deliberately raw, lo-fi production of A Blaze in the Northern Sky and Transilvanian Hunger set the aesthetic blueprint the entire genre would follow.

Emperor

Symphonic black metal's grandest architects — In the Nightside Eclipse layered swirling keyboards over ferocious tremolo riffing to create one of the most majestic and imitated records in the genre.

Bathory

Quorthon single-handedly pioneered both black metal and Viking metal — the icy ferocity of his early albums and the epic sweep of Hammerheart shaped two entire subgenres.

Immortal

Black metal's most iconic visual force — the frostbitten riffing and corpse-painted grandeur of Pure Holocaust and At the Heart of Winter made them a cornerstone of the Norwegian scene.

Burzum

Varg Vikernes's one-man project defined atmospheric black metal — the hypnotic minimalism of Filosofem and Hvis lyset tar oss was hugely influential despite the notoriety surrounding its creator.

Venom

The accidental fathers of the whole genre — their raw, primitive 1982 album Black Metal gave the music its name and inspired thrash, death, and black metal in equal measure.

Celtic Frost

Avant-garde extreme metal pioneers — Morbid Tales and To Mega Therion, with their grunts and genre-defying experimentation, shaped black, death, and gothic metal alike.

Mercyful Fate

King Diamond's soaring falsetto and theatrical satanism made Melissa and Don't Break the Oath foundational texts for both thrash and the coming black metal movement.

Enslaved

The great progressive black metal explorers — they began with Viking-themed ferocity on Vikingligr Veldi and evolved into one of extreme metal's most adventurous and enduring bands.

Satyricon

Norwegian innovators who broadened the genre's reach — they moved from the raw majesty of Nemesis Divina to the groove-driven black 'n' roll of Volcano and beyond.

Dissection

The masters of melodic blackened death metal — Jon Nödtveidt's The Somberlain and Storm of the Light's Bane fused icy black metal with gorgeous, intricate melody.

Gorgoroth

Black metal at its most uncompromising — the raw blasphemy and primal fury of Antichrist and Pentagram made them one of the second wave's most notorious and imitated bands.

Ulver

Restless shapeshifters — their "Black Metal Trilogy," peaking with the folk-tinged Bergtatt and raw Nattens madrigal, gave way to a career of fearless electronic and avant-garde reinvention.

Marduk

The relentless engine of Swedish black metal — the blistering, war-obsessed velocity of Panzer Division Marduk set a benchmark for sheer speed and blasphemous intensity.

Dimmu Borgir

Symphonic black metal's most commercially successful band — the grandiose orchestration of Enthrone Darkness Triumphant and Death Cult Armageddon carried the genre to mainstream metal audiences.

Watain

The leaders of black metal's orthodox revival — Sworn to the Dark and Lawless Darkness revived the genre's ritualistic menace and made them one of its biggest modern names.

Behemoth

Poland's giants began as a raw black metal band before evolving into a blackened death metal force — Nergal's vision culminated in the monumental The Satanist.

Rotting Christ

The founders of the Hellenic black metal sound — their distinctive melodic riffing and ritual atmosphere on Thy Mighty Contract made them the defining band of the Greek scene.

Cradle of Filth

Symphonic extreme metal's biggest crossover — Dani Filth's shriek and the gothic horror theatrics of Dusk... and Her Embrace and Cruelty and the Beast made them the most famous British black metal band.

Dark Funeral

Swedish purveyors of relentless, high-speed orthodox black metal — the blistering blast beats and satanic fury of The Secrets of the Black Arts defined the fast, cold Swedish sound.

Wolves in the Throne Room

The vanguard of American atmospheric black metal — Two Hunters and Diadem of 12 Stars wove ecological, cascadian themes into long, hypnotic, nature-worshipping compositions.

Deafheaven

The most divisive and celebrated post-black metal band — Sunbather fused blast beats and shrieks with shoegaze and post-rock beauty, drawing black metal into an entirely new audience.

Agalloch

American atmospheric black metal's most beloved band — the folk-tinged melancholy and cascading grandeur of The Mantle and Ashes Against the Grain made them a genre touchstone.

Alcest

The pioneers of blackgaze — Neige fused black metal with dreamy shoegaze on Souvenirs d'un autre monde and Écailles de lune, inventing one of the genre's most influential modern strains.

Blut Aus Nord

French avant-garde visionaries — the dissonant, disorienting atmospheres of The Work Which Transforms God pushed black metal into unsettling, industrial, otherworldly territory.

Deathspell Omega

The most cerebral of black metal bands — the labyrinthine dissonance and theological ambition of Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice and Fas made them the genre's enigmatic intellectuals.

Mgła

Modern black metal's most acclaimed band — the bleak, precise riffing and existential dread of Exercises in Futility and With Hearts Toward None set the standard for the contemporary scene.

Hellhammer

Primitive, raw, and monstrously influential — the crude Apocalyptic Raids EP and demos laid essential groundwork for black and death metal before the members formed Celtic Frost.

Dødheimsgard

Norwegian avant-garde provocateurs — they began in orthodox second-wave black metal before mutating into the industrial, jarring experimentation of 666 International.

Taake

A flagship of Norwegian black metal's second generation — Hoest's cold, riff-driven trilogy of self-titled-era albums kept the traditional Bergen sound alive and vital.

Carpathian Forest

Purveyors of filthy, blackened rock-inflected fury — Black Shining Leather and Strange Old Brew brought a sleazy, punk-edged attitude to the Norwegian black metal template.

1349

Named for the year the Black Death reached Norway — their scorching, hyper-fast intensity on Hellfire made them one of the most ferocious of the genre's modern Norwegian bands.

Windir

The pioneers of "Sognametal" — Valfar fused black metal with Norwegian folk melody on Arntor and 1184 before his death in 2004 cut short a singular career.

Kampfar

Long-running standard-bearers of Norwegian pagan black metal — their folk-inflected atmosphere and Norse-themed lyricism across Mellom skogkledde aaser earned them a devoted following.

Primordial

Ireland's greatest extreme metal band — A.A. Nemtheanga's impassioned vocals and Celtic-tinged epics on The Gathering Wilderness made them black metal's most stirring storytellers.

Necromantia

Co-founders of the Hellenic black metal scene — their bass-driven, occult-themed sound on Crossing the Fiery Path made them, alongside Rotting Christ, pillars of Greek black metal.

Batushka

One of black metal's most striking modern arrivals — the Orthodox liturgical chants and monastic imagery of Litourgiya fused Eastern religious music with crushing black metal.

Samael

Swiss innovators who began in raw black metal — Worship Him and Ceremony of Opposites gave way to the pioneering industrial black metal of Passage, expanding the genre's palette.

Beherit

Finnish pioneers of the rawest, most bestial black metal — Drawing Down the Moon is a cult landmark whose primitive, ritualistic murk influenced war metal and the underground.

Sarcófago

Brazilian extremists whose I.N.R.I. helped pioneer blast-beat drumming and corpse paint — a raw, chaotic touchstone that shaped the aesthetic of the coming black metal scene.

Absu

American black metal's occult mythologists — Proscriptor McGovern's frantic drumming and the "mythological occult metal" of Tara fused black and thrash into a whirlwind of technicality.

Leviathan

The most acclaimed of the US one-man black metal projects — Wrest's suffocating, misanthropic atmospheres on The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide defined American depressive black metal.

Xasthur

A cornerstone of American depressive black metal — Malefic's hazy, hopeless, densely layered soundscapes on Subliminal Genocide made isolation and despair into an aesthetic.

Krallice

The leaders of technical, progressive American black metal — the dizzying, dissonant interplay of Colin Marston and Mick Barr's guitars made their self-titled debut a modern landmark.

Panopticon

Austin Lunn's fusion of atmospheric black metal with American folk and bluegrass — Kentucky and Roads to the North pioneered a uniquely rootsy strain of the genre.

Summoning

The masters of epic, Tolkien-themed atmospheric black metal — the layered synths and martial grandeur of Dol Guldur and Stronghold created a genre almost entirely their own.

Thorns

A quietly foundational band — Snorre Ruch's dissonant riffing on early demos influenced the entire Norwegian scene, and the long-delayed Thorns finally distilled his industrial-black vision.

Master's Hammer

Czech pioneers whose Ritual is cited as one of the earliest true black metal albums — their timpani-driven, theatrical sound predated and helped shape the Norwegian second wave.

Root

Founding fathers of Czech black metal — Big Boss's deep, commanding vocals and the occult grandeur of The Temple in the Underworld made them enduring underground legends.